Mini Review – Homefront

First-person Shooter

Aw naw Hans Brix?!

Rich

Homefront certainly seems to have a few marketing dollars behind it.  You see the blindfolded chap cover art on buses and posters all over the place.  It’s even had some TV spots.  Now, that might lead the more gullible gamer to think that it is somehow a special game and this would be half-true, if the game had been released before 2004.  Unfortunately, we’re in 2011 and what the world doesn’t need now is rubbish Half-Life 2 clones but that’s exactly what Homefront is and I didn’t even like Half-Life 2.  Oh dear.

The plot features that most 80s of premises.  America has been invaded.  It’s not the Russians or weird aliens but rather a re-unified Korea.  In a fairly brutal opening sequence, viewed Half-Life style from a bus, you get to see them acting like fucking plicks and shooting people for minor offences.  Eventually you get picked up by the resistance, a rag-tag bunch of badasses along with Rianna, who looks and acts exactly like Alyx from (you guessed it) Half-Life 2.  You then play through seven levels of standard FPS fare with average graphics, basic AI and some truly forgettable set-pieces.

The only official press shot that isn't shit on fire.

Despite being set in the near-future and the Koreans bringing some scary tech (the sentinel towers are a particular pain in the arse), you fight with just the standard set of rifles, shotguns and RPGs.  There’s no Gravity Gun or similar here.  Also, there’s no proper cover mechanic which makes the (rather large) battles a bit trickier than they need to be.  The campaign is pretty short though and is broken up by the occasional vehicle/turret section added because, well… it was in Half-Life 2. People have compared Homefront to the Call of Duty series but it doesn’t get near the cinematic quality of those games.

This brings us onto the main selling point, and ultimate undoing, of Homefront. The 32 player online mode.  Echoing the popular Frontlines: Fuel of War mass battle gameplay is definitely a worthwhile and ambitious pursuit but unfortunately THQ have so far failed miserably to make it work with connection and freezing issues so utterly awful that the game is basically broken out of the box.  Online competitors to the big three (CoD, Battlefield and Halo) don’t have the luxury of time to establish themselves on Xbox Live and with this game being released broken, the potential for 32 player battles has probably already passed.

4/10