Imagine living in a world where the United States is occupied by a united Korea. People being pulled from their homes, people shot in the street and bodies dumped in mass graves. It’s truly horrifying stuff… Now, imagine a fate even worse; being forced to play a really crappy first person shooter. Homefront brings both scenarios and puts them in the gamer’s hands as a resistance fighter working to reclaim America, but if the America I’m fighting for is anything like this game, Korea can keep it.
Homefront has the right idea as far as needing to stand out in an overcrowded shooter market. The setting that’s presented in the opening moments of the game where you’re kidnapped and forced to watch gruesome scenes like families being executed is truly frightening and feels like nothing that’s been seen in a shooter before. Everything from the music to the scenes in this opening scenario paints a picture of the new world you’re forced to occupy… but then your would-be rescuer stabs your captor. The blood looks like the guy was filled with strawberry Jell-o. But besides knowing that the in-game enemies are probably delicious and that the Koreans really like Full Throttle energy drinks and Hooters restaurants, the laughable blood splatter sets the tone for the rest of the campaign.
Graphics are important to sell the environment that the game is trying to present, but despite the work that was put in to creating a believable world, it’s easy to get taken out of it when you have to make sure you’re not playing on a PS2 or original Xbox instead. Everything from the environments to the character models make the game look dated and it doesn’t help when your two support characters are annoying and generic. Let’s see, loud mouth, reckless teammate who curses like a sailor? Check. The level headed partner who curses like a sailor to get the other guy to stop cursing? Check. The few likable characters are hardly in the game so be ready for non stop cliched macho talk while mowing down enemies. You know, in case your masculinity needs a boost.
But graphics are only part of the experience. If a game plays well, then visual issues can be ignored, right? It’s too bad that Homefront offers nothing special in this department either. The best shooters in the genre manage to pace the game well enough so that you’re not always just shooting at things. You know, maybe a vehicle here, a scripted sequence there… but no. For the vast majority of the five hour campaign, all we get are waives of Koreans. Shoot, advance, kill another waive, it felt like there are more Koreans in this game than there are in Korea. It’s like a 3D Space Invaders except in that, I don’t heal after hiding for a mere 5 seconds.
Despite the absurdly quick health regeneration and the dull game play, so much of the game just didn’t work for me. One instance forced me to restart a checkpoint after an intense firefight because your partners are the only ones able to open doors. Sadly for me, my partner glitched and wouldn’t go into the room, and I couldn’t go back out because an invisible wall kept me from going through a door that I just went through. But since the checkpoints are so far away from each other, I had to replay that whole sequence over again. Not to mention that simple things like the grenade indicator don’t work right either, since while most games will have the picture of the grenade fade out when I was farther away, this game has it listed as a permanently solid color. I died often because I wasn’t sure how for the explosive was from me. While the campaign only lasting about five hours is normally a negative, I was glad to be done with it.
Most FPS fans would read the above and say, “Well, FPS games don’t focus on the single player much anyway. The real game lies in the multiplayer.” Ok, so when I boot up the multiplayer, I noticed how awesome it was that everyone is able to teleport around the environment. But then I realized that this wasn’t supposed to happen and that most of the games I played either had mass amounts of cheating less than a week after launch, or horrendous lag that had me running forward one second, and in front of a fence the next. While the game gives you multiple classes to spawn as, it does try to be a little more creative with a point system that rewards you for your performance. The points can be spent for supplies such as body armor or new weapons, or you can save up for destructive vehicles that can tear apart the environment around your opponents. The problem is that the game didn’t give me many tools to fight off helicopters, which could fly absurdly high to the point where it was near impossible to hit it. Better weapons can be earned as you level up to fight off these threats, but without an online pass that you have to download separately if you’re not playing a brand new copy, the highest rank possible is 5, which is barely scratching the surface. You want me to pay an extra $10 or buy the game brand new to access all of its features when the game has a mere three modes and doesn’t play like one that deserves a $60 purchase? No thanks.
So despite its brutality on the battlefield, there’s much worse during the fight in Homefront. I commend the game for creating a believable world that’s complimented by the hidden newspapers and cutscenes, but with such dull, sometimes glitchy game play, it’s really not worth more than a few hours. It ranges from mediocre and cliche to downright broken at points, and while I appreciate the innovations in multiplayer and the approach the story takes, none if it matters if it isn’t worth playing. There’s no shortage on wars to enlist in, so there’s no reason to defend Homefront.