Chrome

Ed Dawson likes hiding in the long grass with a rifle.

Chrome is one of this year’s spectacular games, delivering awesome tropical island scenery. The game has huge outdoor scenes packed with dense, detailed forests and greenery. There’s undergrowth that sways in the breeze. You can even hide in it. Of course this is so that you can ambush, and er, kill people.

In Chrome, you’re a bounty hunter who fixes expensive problems. As the story begins, you’ve just been double-crossed by your own partner -- and he’s very formidable.

Hooking up with a deadly femme fatale, you get back into business to finance your revenge. You’ll invade various space outposts in mostly tropical conditions and kill dozens of people, grab the cash and get out, all with the sexy voice of your space-betty operator murmuring in your ear.

Although it’s set in the space-faring future, there isn’t a laser gun to be found in Chrome. It’s strictly gunpowder and lead, straight out of the terrestrial first-person-shooter formula. You’ve got rifles, shotguns, grenades and rockets. You’ve also got controllable vehicles; there’s a fast ATV with an independent turret, speedy rocket-bikes, imposing armoured personnel carriers with a crew of five and huge walking machines called Golems packing rocket launchers akimbo.

The vast environments in Chrome allow for interesting new twists in gameplay. The world is so large and so well stocked with objects that it’s easy to miss enemies. Your binoculars have a handy scanning feature that will single out living beings, which is lucky for you, because your enemies will often engage you at long range, when they’re virtually invisible.

This makes Chrome much more of a Tom Clancy rather than a Counter-Strike sort of experience -- you’ll crawl up to a vantage point, scan the horizon with your binoculars, perhaps engage an enemy at very long range, then move up to the next cover.

Chrome mixes visceral action with RPG elements along the lines of Deus Ex, with various ‘implants’ you can use. With the implants, your running speed can be increased, your weapon recoil reduced and your ‘reflexes’ (stability whilst taking hits) can be improved.

You also gain new abilities such as heat vision, computer hacking and an optical scope which, fitted to your eyes, allows you to zoom with every weapon -- Terminator style.

You’ll also do some puzzle game ‘hacking’. It involves a simple game of memory with a limited number of moves.
 
When looking for criticisms of Chrome, it’s tough to find fault with the game. The AI is nothing to write home about, and the indoor combat scenes, with boxy rooms and hallways, are much like thousands of other FPS experiences. The pyrotechnic effects are also fairly underwhelming. Even so, these issues hardly detract from the game’s essence -- an exciting combat experience in a fantastic environment.

Chrome, after all, is a shootery action game. But it surprises you with things like its seriously excellent architecture design. This, combined with the superb natural environment and objects casting shadows onto other objects, makes Chrome look absolutely gorgeous. Chrome is definitely one of the best looking shooter games of the year.