It is the year 2027. The United States of America has seen years of major economic downturn and is now dealing with its greatest threat yet: occupation by the Greater Korean Republic. Major American cities have come under strong Korean control, meaning that it's up to small civilian groups to form together to try to take out this occupation. The fate of the United States of America and her future depend on your success or failure. Will you sit idly by and let the occupation continue, watching all of your countrymen suffer under the Korean hand? Or, will you fight for your freedom?
Homefront, a first-person shooter from developer Kaos Studios and publisher THQ, uses the aforementioned plot (written by Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn writer John Milius) as its scary backdrop. Players control a former pilot (and resident of Montrose, Colorado, where the game begins) named Jacobs. After being captured by the Koreans and sent on his way towards a labor camp where he will surely have his mind manipulated, Jacobs is saved by a small band of civilian resistance fighters and quickly joins their cause. This aforementioned cause is just step one in the planned large scale battle, but it's imperative that you and your allies are able to steal and safely transport a convoy of fuel trucks to San Francisco. The incredibly important fuel will help power helicopters that will assist in the effort to re-take San Francisco and its iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
The game's single player only campaign is split up into seven separate missions, which span the distance between Montrose, Colorado and San Francisco, California. There is quite a bit of variety to be found, which is a plus, as you spend time as a rifleman, sniper, helicopter pilot and stealth assassin. However, the campaign is quite brief - clocking in at between three and four hours on lower difficulties. I played through it twice: once on guerilla (its hardest difficulty) and then a second time on easy, in order to unlock the achievements for beating each mission without being taken out. Guerilla was quite difficult and added quite a bit of length to the experience, but it was also very frustrating at times due to several issues. The fact that you're always being led along and yelled at by your allies to move on amidst heavy opposing fire will also annoy some people.
Despite featuring an interesting storyline (with several shocking set pieces,) and a good amount of variety, the game's campaign is unfortunately generic. The game never steps out of its comfort zone and plays a lot like almost every other shooter on the market, never feeling unique in its design. I felt that it relied too much on its premise and shock value than great game design, which is unfortunate. That's not to say it's a bad campaign by any means, but it's mediocre at best. In addition to being generic, the game currently features a lot of bugs that marred my experience, especially on its guerilla difficulty. During that first playthrough, I became frustrated by moments where I was shot through cover (something that never happened on easy) as well as a checkpoint that reloaded twice with a grenade in front of me. The latter glitch was weird because I wasn't taken out by a grenade the first time. These are just a couple of the glitches that I experienced, as there were others such as visual glitches, A.I. issues and cheap A.I. I only noticed minimal framerate hiccups which was nice.
Throughout my life, I've generally been more interested in the single player portions of games than multiplayer modes. However, there are the odd games that blow me away with their competitive offerings and keep me coming back for more. Call of Duty is a franchise that, despite its issues, has hooked me, whereas Halo doesn't interest me. Homefront's multiplayer component captured my attention. It's a well-made mode that is very competitive and quite a bit of fun. I was especially impressed with how well-balanced everything was, as well as its spawn system. Each of its several maps are incredibly large, allowing for up to 32 players to battle it out (in specific modes.) The map sizes work well with the game's design, creating constant tension as you never know where an enemy is going to emerge from (or shoot you from.) With their large scale, the game's maps are able to feature different spawn points, providing the game with a chance to alter them if one team invades the other one's spawn point. This works as well as (or possibly better than) any other multiplayer game I've played.
There are two main modes available for competitive online warfare, including Ground Control and traditional Team Deathmatch. Ground Control pits two teams of up to sixteen players each against each other, with the common objective being to control three objective points (A, B and C,) for as long as possible. Points are earned by the team who holds at least two of the three, with the points leader winning once they hit a certain point plateau or if time expires. It's a fun and competitive mode that plays similar to Battlefield: Bad Company and its objective-based control mode. One of the most impressive features of this mode is the fact that it doesn't feature any loading screens between each of its three rounds. Once one round is up, the game immediately alters the locations of its control points and the next round begins. I really liked that because it keeps you in the game and is quite impressive from a technical standpoint.
Additionally, the game features a mode known as Ground Commander, which is a deviation setting that alters the way the two modes play. In keeping with its name, the mode features an artificial intelligence commander on each side. What it does is mark important targets, such as players who have large killstreaks, awarding large amount of points if you can take them out. It is the only mode that features the general system, which awards players general ranks based on killstreaks, up to the rank of five-star general. It is very difficult to get to this plateau though, because you are usually marked on the opponents' radar once you reach 1-star general status. I got lucky and became a four star general once, before someone took me out with an air strike. Though traditional Ground Control is quite fun, this mode steps it up a notch and I preferred it.
Instead of being an arcade run and gun experience, similar to Call of Duty, Homefront's multiplayer is a much more tactical experience. You need to be smart with how you proceed throughout each map, making sure to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Melee kills are available, but they're not nearly as prevalent or easy to pull off as they are in Call of Duty. Though, their scoring systems are somewhat similar. One of the other major differences between the two is the Battle Points (BP) system that is employed in Homefront, allowing players to spend their earned experience points towards secondary weapons (like a rocket launcher,) drones, a flak jacket, or vehicles. Other items are unlocked as you progress through the game's leveling system. The aforementioned vehicles and drones can really help turn the tide of a battle and I was impressed with how they were incorporated into the experience. Vehicles are not always available though, as some of the more confined maps do not have room for them. Battle Points are limited to the match you earn them in.
When it comes to the game's overall presentation, there are some major pros and cons. The campaign begins with a bang, featuring a great opening cinematic that starts with Hillary Clinton advising the American people about last year's attack by the North Koreans against their South Korean neighbours. It then cuts to animated sequences and news footage, showing North Korea's nuclear missile program. I was quite impressed as it really set the tone for the game, but it was unfortunately the only good cutscene in the game. Most of the game's storyline is told through in-game dialogue between its colourful mix of characters, with 61 hidden newspaper collectibles used to tell the rest. I liked the fact that the developers tried to tell a very intense story, but I found the newspapers to be more of a hindrance to the game than anything, as they took me out of the game too often. Since there are so many of them, you're constantly finding flashing papers everywhere, which cut to a black screen with a white text overlay (usually over three separate screens, or pages.) In order to find out every last detail about the story, you must find every paper, because the news articles cover a sixteen year period from 2011 to 2027. Unfortunately, though they're well-written, they're sometimes hard to follow because they aren't found in succession - instead, you'll find a 2016 newspaper and then a 2026 paper close to each other.
With Homefront's visual style, Kaos Studios went with a realistic and detailed approach. I was impressed with the amount of detail in some of the environments and the variety of textures, but the overall look of the game was underwhelming with several visual glitches. From far away, things looked a lot better than they did up-close, as some environmental items seemed to be at a lower resolution than others when I approached them. There were also quite a few jaggies. The first time I went through the game, the only major visual glitch I noticed was a handicapped parking spot sign (painted on the asphalt) that would disappear when I went close to it. Though, during my easy playthrough, I encountered a glitch that persisted through multiple level playthroughs, where some shanty-town shacks showed blue edges. What I mean by this is that rooftop edges that were supposed to be brown were glitching into broken blue lines (both light and dark blue,) which looked like Christmas lights. Overall, the visuals are a mixed bag due to these issues and a lack of variety within the enemy designs. Multiplayer actually looked a bit better in some ways, as it didn't have many visual glitches. Though it did freeze on me twice.
The game's audio is much stronger than its visuals. I really liked its haunting and melodic original score, which featured some very eerie piano pieces that really fit the game well. Sound effects are also present in full force, and they sound quite well. There are a ton of weapons in the game which feature some nice sounding effects to go along with detailed designs. Additionally, the game's voice cast does a pretty good job overall, with the inclusion of the narrator who does voice overs during the game's loading screens. The sound designers did a good job and their hard work is noticeable.
Overall, Homefront is a game that strives to create a unique and engrossing experience, but only achieves mixed results. Though its multiplayer is impressive and happens to be much better than most multiplayer components available, its single player experience is mediocre overall. Its issues are much more prevalent on its hardest difficulty, where the opposing forces are sometimes more cheap than fair and seem to have perfect aim, resulting in some frustrating moments. I also felt that some sections of the game (featuring unlimited amounts of respawning enemies) were based more on luck than skill. Despite its issues and generic gameplay, the game's story shines through and it's still worth checking out. Though I don't recommend a blind purchase.
Rating: 6/10
Homefront was released on March 15th, 2011. It is now available for three platforms: XBOX 360, PS3 and PC. It features an online pass, but online multiplayer is still available for those who do not purchase a new copy of the game to get a code. Though, without the pass, gamers are limited to a level cap of 5.
