chromehounds/battletech 3025
Chromehounds has gone gold and is set to release on July 18 for the Xbox360. The game seems to be taking the place of the Mechassault series that was on the original Xbox.
The games main attraction is the ability to customize your mech and take it online. One thing that stands out about the multiplayer is that it takes place in a persistent world where different factions battle over territories. This type of multiplayer is really fun and exciting. I know this because Chromehounds is a complete rip off of another game called Battletech 3025.
Battletech 3025 was being developed and published by Electronic Arts. The game was cancelled and never released. Electronics Arts wanted to move away from the mmo market and decided not to release the game despite being very deep into development. The game did have a very popular open beta on the pc in 2001 (not sure about the year).
The game shares all the same aspects of Chromehounds multiplayer. You could customize your mechs and battle out over territories. Here is a picture of the world map with all the territories that users could battle over. Each color represents the different factions. You can compare that image to Chromehounds map interface and note the similarities. Also the mech customization shares the same exact concepts of point distribution for mech chassis and weapons for gameplay balance. This is Chromehounds version.
I understand that all games borrow from each other in order to perfect the gameplay experience. But at what point does it become plagiarism? I find it hard to believe that the developers of Chromehounds could deny the existence of Battletech 3025.
I also wonder if Electronic Arts could take any legal actions towards Sega for this game? Or if any other developer tried such a thing in the past?
Either way I am sure that this game will satisfy any mech fan boy out there and I am planning to play this game again, once it is released... or do I mean for the first time?
