In my Clouds and Sheep 2 review I commented that although the game was intriguing and made me want to play (to a degree), I found the controls frustrating and commented that it was clear that the game was made to play on a touch screen device (such as a smartphone or tablet) and wasn’t as seamless as it could have been on Xbox One (where I reviewed it). Flip over to this review of Neon Chrome, reviewed on a smartphone, I’m finding the opposite to be true.
Neon Chrome is a top down ‘twin stick’ shooter that is available of pretty much everything (Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS and Android). Its focus is in a neon-hazed cyber-punk future where an evil corporation is corrupt (shock horror!) and needs you, the player, to defeat them. How? By traversing 31 different levels of the building to get to the CEO or Chairman or whomever at the top of course. Think the first Die Hard from the Die Hard Trilogy game on the PlayStation 1, set 200 years in the future.
Well, I assume that’s the story. Alas, the story for the game comes within in-game text, which is fine, usually but it takes place whilst you are trying to play the game, most of the time; in the same way that the original Titanfall had its ‘story’ via those video chats in the top right corner of the screen. If you were concentrating on the match you were in (and not dying) then presumably you’ve probably missed it. The same goes for Neon Chrome, even more so on a smartphone as you’ve got little screen space as it is, much of which is taken up by your thumbs and all the other hell that is breaking loose, so it takes a back seat.
So how does the game handle? Okay, for the most part, I definitely feel this game works better on a console, or even on PC. ‘Twin stick’ shooters get their name, presumably because you are using two thumbsticks to terminate your enemies. I realise these games have been around for a long time, but nowadays (and based on what I am used to) that makes sense to me. Anyway, my problem with the controls was the reliance on your ability to keep your thumbs in the designated circular areas (to indicate the ‘sticks’). The game makes a good job of accommodating for you when you go out of the circles, perhaps too much of a good job, as often I found being outside of the area and my thumb being in the way of where I was going. In fact, I tried seeing to what extent it worked and I had my left thumb on the other side of the screen and the character was still moving in the direction my thumb was taking him.
The shooting was the same (with the right stick) occasionally the shooting stopped because my right thumb hadn’t returned to the correct place after using one of the two additional action buttons (melee/interact and special). Those two buttons are quite small and sometimes I was hitting them to activate them and was way off. I’m sure you can agree that having to look where I’m pressing, as opposed to feeling out the button naturally so you can focus on the enemies makes little sense. Especially because the action can get full on very quickly. When you encounter bosses or multiple enemies there are a lot of things going on and occasionally I lost where I was or what was going on. To its credit, the game handles the action well and I didn’t notice any slow down. But, in hectic situations, it was very easy to get caught on scenery or mis-interpret a door due to the unintuitive controls.
Not knowing what was going on was frustrating, as there are no clear indicators as to what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. Several times I found myself just directing my character into an object that caused me damage because it was shiny and looked like a collectible. It took some trial and error to not do that. And yet, new things were introduced that I thought was collectible before realizing it wasn’t. It was annoying given how quickly you lose your health and how sometimes it is difficult to get your health back up. 
Visually, the game looks good. Like I said, it is sometimes difficult to know what collectibles did and what were collectibles and what weren’t. In terms of the actual look, it fits the setting, there is a lot of glowing areas and purple everywhere. The levels all look very similar, but this isn’t a problem when you consider it is in an office block and would be widely inappropriate to have a desert level or a snowy tundra just randomly included, just to “shake it up”. However, like I said previously, it is easy to lose track of your character on occasion as he is similar looking to some of the enemies. Further, it wasn’t clear what was your health bar, again trial and error prevailed and I figured it out. A small circle that surrounds the base of your character indicates your health and arbitrary numbers appear when you take damage or boost your health. For me, this was unnecessary, in a hectic game such as this, I felt that extra screen space (on the smartphone version at least) needn’t be wasted on these numbers that I can’t imagine people are paying much attention too.
Sounds aren’t anything spectacular, lasers zap and explosions…explode as you might expect. The music that accompanies it reminded me of Mirror’s Edge in places, that futuristic utopia type synth music. I turned it off eventually, it became repetitive, but also I was trying to save battery; which is another issue I had. This game absolutely trounced my battery when I played, not ideal for smartphone users. I had originally started playing on a train journey to London and had to use the on board socket fairly quickly. I’m not sure how it can be improved (software update?) but to me this felt like a fairly big problem. In the same way that Pokemon Go necessitated many a power bank purchase from people early on, thankfully it got better. 
So what replayability is there in Neon Chrome? Well, on that avenue there’s technically a fair bit. You can continue to try to get to the top room and win the game, upon doing so you can be a ‘hacker’ and presumably unlock cheat type affects, alas I have not been able to get there as yet. To be honest, I didn’t have much desire to keep playing. From a mobile player perspective, the desire to retain my battery, more than many things, was a major deterrent. I’m not playing on a terrible battery either, playing on my iPhone 7 for many other things have sustained me for a long time but with Neon Chrome it struggled. I wouldn’t get through to level 31 before it died, out and about, so why should I even bother starting? This is key for the mobile platform.
There is an upgrade system in the game that helps your weapons become more powerful and these stay with you even if you die (like in Rogue Stormers). You can also upgrade your character within the game to boost your ability, health etc. This is a nice addition as it gives it a bit more intrigue and depth than just: go here, kill that.
Neon Chrome in theory is a great game and I would love to try it out on my Xbox One to see if it is a better experience, but the navigation issues and less than intuitive controls, restricted viewing space (there can be a lot going on at times) and effect on my battery life make Neon Chrome a hard sell on mobile devices.
