Homefront Review (PC)

[joe]

Homefront is, perhaps, the worst game I've played in quite some time.

First there's the single-player, the campaign is roughly 3 hours long, I can't give you an accurate time as after completing six of the seven chapters I went back to an earlier chapter to see if increasing the difficulty would matter, this then wiped all of my campaign progress without telling me it would do so (well, it gave me a prompt, after I had done it). Of those six chapters, 95% of the time your objective is to follow the NPC in front of you. Every single action in the game is told/ordered to you, the player has absolutely no choice in any decision, outcome or other game element. When you're following the NPC, you can sometimes run ahead, but this means absolutely nothing as they've turned the American West into a vast restricting corridor shooter of fences, buildings and obstacles. When it doesn't want you to go further ahead there will either be an invisible wall or a door you can't open, but the NPCs can (speaking of doors, I've been allowed to open one, and that was because an NPC told me to do so).

As for the single-player combat, it's completely scripted and on rails, the few times there are open areas (and they're tiny), you're forced to remain under cover or travel along the flank in a once-again scripted corridor to complete the objective. The actual gameplay is horrific, there's a stealth mission where I spent the entire time bunny-hopping around the map, as long as I followed my NPC companion then I remained undetected. I failed a sniping mission because I shot a target too early, and the same thing happened when you need to bring down a helicopter, it doesn't matter how long you have something in your cross-hairs, you only allowed to shoot if and when the game wants you to shoot. Your first mission piloting a helicopter is the exact same thing you've been doing the entire game, follow the NPCs, shoot what you're told to shoot, no more, no less. In an earlier post I described it as an "interactive cutscene" but that's too generous a term, I think I could click randomly on the screen and as long as I was holding down the forward key I'd still make it through the game.

The last remaining element of the single-player is the script, and the only word to describe it is awful. I'm not going to get into all the stupid things your NPC companions say, or the way in which it handles the resistance, the occupied population, the Koreans or the survivors (Americans outside the occupation zone living on their own), just think of every overdone, completely inaccurate depiction of such a character in your weekly drama on television, then dumb it down by about 50 and add even more idiocy on top of it.

The one good thing about the game (and this applies to the multi-player as well), is that clearly a lot of polish has gone into it, in terms of the menus, the multi-player intro movies, and other elements that often get overlooked. The more technical elements of the game, the weapons, shooting, running and other movement, all of it is really good, and it might be the first Unreal Engine 3 game that I've felt grounded in (as opposed to the normal floaty feeling). But it's all wasted, as both the single and multi-player are fundamentally flawed.

With regards to the multi-player, it holds so much potential, and just absolutely falls on its face. All of the excellent weapons that you get to use in the single-player are of course behind an unlock system, but it really doesn't matter as everyone is a sniper anyway. Ground control seems like an interesting way to have an objective based game, but once again it's pointless when half your team is ignoring the objectives to stay in spawn and snipe. And there's really no point in doing anything else, with the large map sizes, the ability to go prone, and the laser like accuracy of the weapons (including a near-automatic sniper rifle), the easiest way to get kills (and therefore points to unlock more sniper rifles) is to sit back and camp. I've seen people sniping with SMGs, it's utterly ridiculous. Basically, you're given a wide open battlefield, with excellent weapons, a neatly done way to customize your class loadout, multiple ways to achieve points to win the round, and none of it matters because once you step out from behind a rock it's pew pew pew from three different enemy snipers and you're dead. There's enough potential here that the multi-player could be saved if it's tweaked/patched, but I'm not going to hold out hope for it.

It really is an incredible shame, I know many here have been wanting a good FPS, set in the USA, for so long now. Homefront isn't it.

[CoffeeShark]

I saw a clip of it, and it looks like your basic xbox COD play - and when they try that on a PC, you get the auto-aim type ability of xbox play.

I had no hope for the PC game after seeing it, and won't buy it on xbox since there are 20 other games just like it.

I love the storyline, too bad they screwed it up.

[Gantua]

I was looking forward to this game but after the reviews and ridiculously short SP I'm glad I saved my $60.

[Relly]

Homefront is, perhaps, the worst game I've played in quite some time.

First there's the single-player, the campaign is roughly 3 hours long, I can't give you an accurate time as after completing six of the seven chapters I went back to an earlier chapter to see if increasing the difficulty would matter, this then wiped all of my campaign progress without telling me it would do so (well, it gave me a prompt, after I had done it). Of those six chapters, 95% of the time your objective is to follow the NPC in front of you. Every single action in the game is told/ordered to you, the player has absolutely no choice in any decision, outcome or other game element. When you're following the NPC, you can sometimes run ahead, but this means absolutely nothing as they've turned the American West into a vast restricting corridor shooter of fences, buildings and obstacles. When it doesn't want you to go further ahead there will either be an invisible wall or a door you can't open, but the NPCs can (speaking of doors, I've been allowed to open one, and that was because an NPC told me to do so).

As for the single-player combat, it's completely scripted and on rails, the few times there are open areas (and they're tiny), you're forced to remain under cover or travel along the flank in a once-again scripted corridor to complete the objective. The actual gameplay is horrific, there's a stealth mission where I spent the entire time bunny-hopping around the map, as long as I followed my NPC companion then I remained undetected. I failed a sniping mission because I shot a target too early, and the same thing happened when you need to bring down a helicopter, it doesn't matter how long you have something in your cross-hairs, you only allowed to shoot if and when the game wants you to shoot. Your first mission piloting a helicopter is the exact same thing you've been doing the entire game, follow the NPCs, shoot what you're told to shoot, no more, no less. In an earlier post I described it as an "interactive cutscene" but that's too generous a term, I think I could click randomly on the screen and as long as I was holding down the forward key I'd still make it through the game.

The last remaining element of the single-player is the script, and the only word to describe it is awful. I'm not going to get into all the stupid things your NPC companions say, or the way in which it handles the resistance, the occupied population, the Koreans or the survivors (Americans outside the occupation zone living on their own), just think of every overdone, completely inaccurate depiction of such a character in your weekly drama on television, then dumb it down by about 50 and add even more idiocy on top of it.

The one good thing about the game (and this applies to the multi-player as well), is that clearly a lot of polish has gone into it, in terms of the menus, the multi-player intro movies, and other elements that often get overlooked. The more technical elements of the game, the weapons, shooting, running and other movement, all of it is really good, and it might be the first Unreal Engine 3 game that I've felt grounded in (as opposed to the normal floaty feeling). But it's all wasted, as both the single and multi-player are fundamentally flawed.

With regards to the multi-player, it holds so much potential, and just absolutely falls on its face. All of the excellent weapons that you get to use in the single-player are of course behind an unlock system, but it really doesn't matter as everyone is a sniper anyway. Ground control seems like an interesting way to have an objective based game, but once again it's pointless when half your team is ignoring the objectives to stay in spawn and snipe. And there's really no point in doing anything else, with the large map sizes, the ability to go prone, and the laser like accuracy of the weapons (including a near-automatic sniper rifle), the easiest way to get kills (and therefore points to unlock more sniper rifles) is to sit back and camp. I've seen people sniping with SMGs, it's utterly ridiculous. Basically, you're given a wide open battlefield, with excellent weapons, a neatly done way to customize your class loadout, multiple ways to achieve points to win the round, and none of it matters because once you step out from behind a rock it's pew pew pew from three different enemy snipers and you're dead. There's enough potential here that the multi-player could be saved if it's tweaked/patched, but I'm not going to hold out hope for it.

It really is an incredible shame, I know many here have been wanting a good FPS, set in the USA, for so long now. Homefront isn't it.

And here I was, ready to do my little initial review lol

I agree with most of the things you said, although I played 2 hours so far, and only on the second chapter lol (playing on Hard difficulty)

I expected more.. the weapons aren't all that.. the gun sounds are weird (first shot sounds so much different than the rest if you spray) and enemy AI isn't so smart..

Graphics are alright.. I have everything on very high (highest available) and at 1080p.. It causes my system to kind of hang at certain points, but other than that it runs smooth. Shadows look weird and unrealistic at times.. Also, whenever you pick up a weapon for the first time, you see the textures load before your eyes (like it goes from low res to high res)

Voice acting.. seems like they weren't even trying.. The players don't seem to have that "in war urgency" in their voice.. I remember Boone saying "Watch out.. There's a guy shooting from that window!", and he was so fucking calm about it lol.. he sounded so mellow.

Gameplay.. Like Joe said, you're forced to follow NPC's and there's not much to explore. 1 shot kills are easy as fuck (aim at the head and click once) and distance doesn't seem to effect your shot. The story line is cool, but you just don't FEEL it while you're playing. I was more excited during the intro, where the story actually unfolds.

Sound.. The gun shots don't sound genuine when spraying. If I could make a video showing what I mean, I would. Other than that, the explosions, voices and ambient sounds seem to sound right.

Multiplayer.. I sucked big time.. but it's true.. everyone had snipers lol. There didn't seem to be any lag or hitbox problems.. but other than that I only played for 15 minutes (it was late).

I got it for PC btw.

There's a lack of sound options.. can't choose Headphones, 5.1, 7.1 modes. Also, Homefront.exe seems to still be running in task manager even after quitting the game.. this uses memory resources (about 500MB just sitting around) and I don't see why this happens.. Quicker relaunch?

I feel as if they rushed the game.. there are lots of things that make COD so much better. So if their plan was to kill COD, they failed. Not even close.

[Relly]

Here's some screenshots.. all on very high graphics settings (highest available)

Beginning of chapter 2


Nice sun rays


Poor kid


America's situation


Following NPC


A grenade took this down.. lol


They can go first, I'll bait them.. since they can't die anyway


Multiplayer action.. capture a, b or c

[Rage1]

I agree with everyone wanting to be snipers but i found the multiplayer to be fun.

the ground vehicles are horrible especially the tank. I think the reason I like it is because of the unmaned vehicles in it the hell fire especially. If it wasn't for that then i probably wouldn't like it.

[Mephisto]

Thanks for the review joe. Good job you English major. I smelled this one a mile away and wasn't surprised.

This doesn't look like a COD clone ... more like a Medal of Honor clone but worse.

should have bought Shogun 2 instead, Joe

[YankeeDeuce]

If I didn't get this for free when I bought Metro 2033 I'd be pissed.

[Mephisto]

Well thats good news then.

When a game is free with the purchase of another .. that should be a big red flag from the get go.

[DWall]

thanks for saving me the time joe! this one looked interesting but i didnt take time to look into it much, im sure when i researched further i would have seen the unpolished turd you described but you saved me the effort.