A lot of people have been unsure about Homefront. It’s understandable, really – it’s a new IP, so it’s a far cry from the reliable (though still somehow debatable) quality of other, already established franchises.
The game, which is developed by Kaos Studios, the guys behind Frontlines: Fuel of War, is set in 2027 in a future where Kim Jong-il dies and Kim Jong-un takes his place. He unites North Korea and South Korea (and gets a Nobel Peace Prize for it), then effectively starts a war against most of the world. Japan surrenders after the Koreans destroy one of their nuclear facilities, the price of oil sky-rockets due to a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and America withdraw their troops from Korea, Japan and other places to try to handle instability at home. Eventually, the KPA (Korean People’s Army) occupies America.
This all happens a decade before the game even starts, so as you can tell, the background storyline here is incredibly well realised – as well it should be, coming from the writer/director of Red Dawn (who was also a co-writer on Apocalypse Now). All the backstory is gathered in newspaper form throughout the game – in total, there are 61 to collect littered around the levels (and we found less than 10 on our first playthrough).
It’s an easy way of providing a lot of back story without ramming it down your throat, with only what you need to know to understand what’s happening presented to you in well put together cut-scenes on starting the campaign (behind which the game loads, the cut-scenes can be skipped once it’s done loading). This style of storytelling is replicated in what amounts to a pirate radio broadcast between levels, from the ‘voice of freedom’, updating the public as to what is happening and what needs to be done.
[drop]Whilst the back-story is excellent, setting the scene perfectly, the actual in-game storyline – i.e, what’s happening whilst you’re playing, is considerably more forgettable, we don’t even remember any specifics, just what we were actually doing. This isn’t helped by the fact that your character doesn’t say a single word throughout the whole game, which made it hard for us to identify with him.Still, the game starts with what is one of the strongest opening scenes I’ve seen – you wake in a run down flat to a knock at the door. When you go to answer it, a few KPA soldiers burst through the door, pin you against a wall, deliver a short speech asking why you are not serving your country, then hit you.
The next scene involves you being in a bus, through the window of which you see some pretty horrible acts, such as a couple being pulled apart and people being shot and beaten for fun by the KPA. Chief amongst these and most chilling; a small child’s parents being killed in front of him by the KPA, and whilst the child screams and runs over to the bodies, the two KPA soldiers just wander off, uncaring. These scenes are genuinely shocking and, thanks in no small part to some utterly excellent animation, they perfectly illustrate the world in which the game is set.
The actual setting for the game, which is mostly in suburban America (a place called Montrose in Colorado), is a relatively fresh setting for a war FPS, and enables some genuinely cringe-worthy areas that make you almost not want to think what happened here. An example would be early in the game (the first chapter, in fact), when you’re asked to get into a tree house in a back garden to provide covering fire. There are childrens’Â drawings pinned to the wall of the tree house, and a teddy bear on the floor, covered in blood.
From this your bus is taken out by the Resistance and you discover that you and the other prisoners in the bus were pilots, being rounded up because they’re in short supply. After this and a lot of being chased, you end up in a Resistance camp, where there are two sleeping children that are so wonderfully animated I feel they escaped the so-called uncanny valley, with the only thing that pulled me out of our amazement being that the animations did loop after a little while. The rest of the game’s animation is also pretty good, but not quite approaching the opening sequence or the sleeping children.
The game is generally nicely textured, with everything from walls to character models looking nice enough, though things can look a little blurry when you’re right up against them. It’s not quite Mass Effect 2, but it does the job well enough. Unfortunately, though, this is let down by some of the worst aliasing we’ve ever seen, everything more than a few feet away has noticeably jagged edges and anything further still looks like they were made in Minecraft. A fence from 10 metres is a horrible, jagged sight. At least it’s all shown at a completely solid framerate, though, as we didn’t see anything slowing down whatsoever throughout the whole of the campaign or the multiplayer we’ve played.
Guns both look and sound solid and beefy, our favourite weaponry being the sniper rifles and the grenade. They both have slightly unrealistic effects that nonetheless give you the ever-sought-after ‘oooh’ feeling as a grenade sends 4 enemies flying through the air, or a sniper shot slams an enemy back into the wall behind them. The voice acting is excellent all the way through the game, all of which is accompanied by a good soundtrack that fits most situations perfectly.
The campaign took us between 5 and 6 hours to complete on our first play through, making it the regular length for an FPS in these crazy modern times, though we did expect a little more when the credits began to roll. The campaign is full of thrilling moments (an example being the Resistance saving you from the bus mentioned earlier – the bus flips and the bodies bounce around inside quite realistically), many of which left us with that adrenal surge we got from the original Modern Warfare all those years ago.
As noted in our MP hands-on earlier in the week, the game handles and plays excellently, quick, but short of Call of Duty’s twitch-shooting; heavy, but lighter than Killzone. Various ideas are taken from a few places and rendered unrecognisable by both combinations with other ideas and unique ideas from Kaos themselves. The same holds true for single player, with the player often being thrown around due to explosions, plans that go wrong and ambushes that make things go a little awry. All this really reinforces that idea that you’re part of a resistance that is massively outnumbered and out-gunned, and are only being held together by a few people.
This isn’t Black Ops’ military, it’s civilians fighting a military occupation and things are liable to not go exactly to plan.
[drop2]We’ve already covered most of the multiplayer in our MP hands-on through the link above, so we’ll just expand on that here and you can read the full story through there. Our favourite part of multiplayer was Battle Commander, the system that points out enemies with killstreaks and your nemesis (i.e, that guy who keeps killing you). It turns out that this section of the game is only available after level 7, at which point you unlock Battle Commander versions of the three modes.This did, however, give us the opportunity to find out how fun the online is without the Battle Commander adding more variety. It’s still a great game, Battle Points still seperate it substantially from the rest of the market and the large maps still manage to be packed with tense, enjoyable action. Still, we missed the Battle Commander system and, now we’ve unlocked them, won’t be going back.
The game ships with 7 maps that are all large (easily dwarfing any Black Ops map, though probably not quite as big as the bigger Bad Company 2 maps), and what seems to be a large amount of perks – uh, I mean, abilities, and they seem quite varied – we heard someone talking about an ability that ejects you from a vehicle when it explodes, for example. You are given 6 default classes when you start multiplayer, each of which you can change everything about once you unlock the relevant unlocks (which is done by levelling up, as you might expect).
At the moment, however, the servers are taking a bit of a hammering. THQ and Kaos underestimated the sales considerably (which is understandable), so the servers are having a little trouble. However, they’re working on putting up more servers and already it’s easier to get into a game than it was the other day. Once you’re in one, the experience is lag-free and smooth, which is more than can be said for Black Ops, even this long after release. If you do have trouble getting into either the 32 player Ground Control playlist or the 24 player Team Deathmatch playlist, you can get into the skirmish playlist (16 players and a rotation of Ground Control and TDM) without any trouble as they run on peer to peer code instead of dedicated servers.
To be honest, we think full Homefront multiplayer (meaning with Battle Commander) could at least contribute to the next evolution in multiplayer FPS, if not embody it itself. The killstreak system is too brilliant to not catch on anywhere, and we’ll be severely disappointed if it doesn’t. We have a feeling I’ll be playing Homefront online for a long time.
Pros
- Solid, smooth and fluid gameplay.
- Excellent, detailed back-story coupled with disturbing imagery making an engaging game world.
- Not always to plan missions and set-pieces highlighting the struggle behind the war.
- Excellently acted throughout.
- Revolutionary multiplayer ideas.
Cons
- Lots of aliasing.
- The actual plot is a tiny bit weak after such a rich back-story.
- A couple of multiplayer launch hitches.
All together, Homefront was a huge surprise. Whilst we went into it hopefully, we didn’t quite expect such excellent gameplay in such a detailed world, and we certainly didn’t expect to find revolutionary multiplayer concepts. We know a lot of people have been unsure about jumping into the game for various reasons, such as the mixed reviews and reports of a short campaign, but the latter is untrue and the former puzzles me. The only real problem we found was the aliasing, and we can see past that to see a richly realised game world, tight, smooth gameplay and a multiplayer mode with its own unique innovations that will hopefully catch on elsewhere.
TSBonyman
will read the review after work this eve, in the meantime those screens look quite good.
TSBonyman
Great review, although clearly there is some contention over the quality of the game so i might just wait a bit and pick it up cheap or hope to see a demo first.
jacklum
(360 version) There are 50 reviews, 8 of which are pre-release date. 7 of the pre-release reviews are currently among the top 9 high scores – if that doesn’t scream ‘moneyhats’, I don’t know what does.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/homefront/critic-reviews
Kovacs
I don’t see why the fact that the review was pre-release makes any difference. Review copies are routinely sent out before a game’s release date.
jacklum
Reviews were embargoed until release date – any that came out before that probably guaranteed a high score for early review rights. The fact that all the pre-release scores are extremely high compared to the other reviews speaks for itself really.
Kovacs
Well, we, obviously, can’t speak about the integrity of other sites and their reviews.
All I know is that, here at TSA, when we’re given review code before a game launches it has no influence on the score in question. I’ve given a 9/10 to a yet unreleased game (Yakuza 3) while I’ve also awarded a 4/10 to a similarly unreleased game (Saw II).
Go figure.
jacklum
It’s not about getting the review code early, it’s about publishing the reviews early. Sites want the traffic that an early review gets them, publishers want the sales boost that positive early reviews get them etc… I know someone who reviews games for a local newspaper who was adamant that these kind of shady practices didn’t happen, but then he got to talk to a game publisher who informed him that he had ‘bought’ several reviews in high profile gaming sites.
Kovacs
I put it to you that an “early” review with a “lower than expected” score will get more hits than an early review with an “expected high score.”
My point remains: I’m not saying reviews can’t be bought. All I’m saying is that they’re not bought here.
Of course, your original comment doesn’t suggest this review was bought. I’m just taking this opportunity to accept what you’re saying and reiterate that any suggestion of shenanigans has not spread to TSA.
Seriously, we’ve disappointed publishers with our scores – sure. They’re never asked us to change them, however. Well, not to my knowledge, at least.
Gamoc
Could you take off your tinfoil hat please? I gave it an 8 3 days after release, highest reviews at just above 90. What’s the problem?
jacklum
It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s basic facts. If I was to do a statistical test between the numbers, I’m pretty sure the difference would be significant, meaning that if your null hypothesis is ‘there is no difference between pre-release scores abd post-release scores’ then that hypothesis would get rejected. Really, it could hardly be more blatant.
tonycawley
Correlation does not prove causation
Roynaldo
Very coincidental. Assuming stuff may not be wise though. Honest reviewers get very touchy about this sort of stuff. Kind of like tainting them all with the same brush.
In the end words matter and numbers are nothing but a footnote for people too lazy too read. Took me a while to learn that nugget.
jacklum
OK, I just ran a statistical analysis of these numbers.
Pre-release scores – mean = 86.13 (standard deviation = 4.61)
Post release scores – mean = 69.24 (standard deviation = 10.88)
The probability value is less than 0.0001, meaning that this difference is considered to be extremely statistically significant (i.e. it is in no way a ‘coincidence’).
djhsecondnature
@jacklum – You must be kidding.
Statistical analysis of that nature cannot be applied with any suitable grounds with this limited data set. Especially if you compare the timestamps on the ‘same day’ reviews showing they went up at different times and did not conform to the same ’embargo’ timeslot, in spite of their similar scores.
I also assume you left several of the lower scoring results published prior to release (see EDGE and Examiner), otherwise I doubt you would have had such lower Standard Deviation and high-pre-release scores given the limit data.
As someone previously said, take off your tinfoil hat.
djhsecondnature
Especially given my (albeit a tad rushed) calculations I ended up with a mean of 80.27 and a SD of 13.3.
Also, are you counting pre-release per territory or as a blanket?
Just proving it’s not as black and white as you’re making out.
Roynaldo
Could you try and read past the first 2 words please.
KeRaSh
“OK, I just ran a statistical analysis of these numbers.”
Haha, that line made me laugh out loud. It took you 31 minutes to do a “statistical analysis” based on a few numbers (hardly enough data for a significant statistical analysis).
Seriously, the tin foil hat. Take it off…
jacklum
It took 2 mins. I have other things to do you know.
KeRaSh
Which makes it even worse.
iAvernus
I can’t look past the bad graphics…not to mention the amount of camping that’s going on. Returning this asap.
KeRaSh
Camping is THE most performed sport in any FPS. I don’t see how this would be significantly different.
Gamoc
To be honest, I hope you’re differentiating between sniping and camping. There is a difference and it seems to be overlooked most of the time.
Ryan1991
That always annoys me too.
KeRaSh
I was not talking about sniping when I wrote camping. I mean there are pricks on every shooter with a weapon of their choice sitting behind doors or whatnot trying to get some easy kills to polish their stats.
muse88_James
If people want to camp let them. Providing they are not glitching or using hacks, so what?
OneShotWook
It is annoying iAvernus but i find theres relatively few in the ground control mode (which is by far the better mode imo).
bigdon23
I decided against this game because THQ are as greedy as EA and im not giving them my cash. op flashpoint should be good though
stricktmachine
Sorry guys this game is bullocks. Took me 3.5 hours to complete on hard difficulty and that’s while searching for 30/61 newspaper collectables. Graphics are rubbish for this day and age, and the amounts of invisible walls and glitches are too numerous to count. Story is great but it only scratches the surface and you will be sorely disappointed when you’re just getting into the game and the credits roll. Seriously- 60 dollars (Canadian) for a half assed single player and a multiplayer that 1000’s of people can’t play because of their server issues? Brutal. And I’m disappointed by this review.
Gamoc
You, sir, are lying. I suppose you completed Killzone 3 in 53 minutes too? Black Ops before you even had it? Crysis 2 13 years ago? Please.
That or you’re a god amongst us mortal gamers.
stricktmachine
I’m lying?? Read the Facebook forums- I’m not the only one who finished it this quickly. You might just be brutally bad at this game for you to take as long as you did. I got this Friday evening and was done it, like i said, in 3.5 hours. I even had time to shovel my driveway before bed (which, by the way, was more fun than this game). Now, if you were reviewing this based on a ps2 or original Xbox console, then I would agree with you 100%. This isn’t ps3 or 360 calibre.
Gamoc
Looks to me like a disagree. I see no possible way of finishing it that quickly.
stricktmachine
Listen- I was PUMPED for this game- I really was. I just feel jipped that it was (in my opinion) one of the worst I’ve played, that’s all. The story was great, but kz3 was far more superior to this. My 15 year old nephew just saw his younger brother playing 5 minutes ago, and asked if he was playing an original Xbox title. I kid u not. There us a reason that the THQ stock went down 26% on the release day and walmart is selling it the day after release for 41 bucks.
djhsecondnature
@stricktmachine – Several things I’d like to address:
A) You’re nephews younger brother would, most likely, be under 15 playing a 15 rated game, thoughts on that?
B) What on earth do you mean, “if you were reviewing this based on a ps2 or original Xbox console, then I would agree with you 100%.” It would all be relative.
C) Find me a PS2 shooter that comes close to Homefront graphically.
D) I am timing the game with a stopwatch for my review so I will come back with a time once I’m done. Oh and I’m pretty good at shooters so that excuse won’t hold water.
nemesisND1derboy
@Gamoc, while I don’t entirely agree with stricktmachine’s responses, I certainly cannot agree with the attitude or sarcasm in your comments. How do you know how long it took the man to complete the game? You don’t. End of. Calling him a lier because he possibly finished the game quicker than you did is childish at best. Your sarcasm does not put you in a good light either, with specific reference to your “God amongst mortals” quip. You are representing the site and there was no need to act like that. You could easily have handled that in a much more tactful way, yet you didn’t.
stricktmachine
@ dj
To answer your questions:
A) what does age of my nephew have anything to do with this review? And since it is irrelevant, your question is dismissed.
B) if you don’t understand what I mean, please go and re read it. It was simple to understand. Any simpler and my 3 year old would start complaining about how basic it was.
C) homefront would be the best ps2 game out there- seriously, you’ve missed the whole fucking point to my comment. IT iS NOT PS3 OR XBOX 360 QUALITY!!!
D) time yourself if you’d like- and you doing that proves….???
My god, I seriously can’t believe I wasted 2 minutes of my life responding to your retardedness. Oh wait, are you thinking of timing yourself while you try to rewrite this response too???
Get a life.
C)
BIGAL-1992
You do realise calling people reponses ‘retardedness’ and telling them to ‘get a life’ is generally discouraged and equally despised on the site?
Roynaldo
think you missed the point on the nephew thing. You said your 15 year olds /younger/ brother was playing.
Simply put the kid was underage, and the question was what are your thoughts on underage gaming.
As for the rest, I can see you becoming more irritated as the words fell from your mouth which resulted in a blatant insult. Please refrain from this as it gains or solves nothing for you or the discussion.
The Lone Steven
Insulting members is against the rules on TSA. I think you could get banned or a very well worded warning from a mod. He just asked you what are your views on underage gaming and you insulted him. DJ,did have some good points. He did nothing to deserve an insult and i think you should apologise for that insult. TheLoneSteven has spoken.
stricktmachine
I apologize- especially to dj. I’m just upset that (to me, mind you) this game that was promised wasn’t the same game delivered. A 60 dollar game should leave you feeling some sense of satisfaction upon completion- not guilt at spending that kind of money to play an inferior game to the likes of other 60 dollar games out there (killzone 3, crysis 2 to name a few). Those titles were graphically amazing and much more advanced than HOMEFRONT.
Oh, and 13 and a half, my youngest nephew knows the difference between real life and make believe – as well as the difference between a good game and a bad one ;)
If you guys have the money for this- sure buy it. And if you like it, great. I
If you don’t think it’s worth 60 dollars, I promise i won’t say ” I told u so”.
Once again, my apologies for being a prick. I get like that when im dieting for a contest.
stricktmachine
At Lone Steven- yes duly noted. I was writing my apology as you submitted your comment. Thanks
djhsecondnature
I’ll be honest I was expecting a more mature response but okay.
A) As Roy pointed out it was just a question about your views on someone you know playing video games underage.
B) The reason I questioned your statement was it doesn’t make practical sense. Why would Gamoc, or anyone for that matter, be reviewing this on PS2 or Xbox? If we were surely if would be relative to everything else out at that time and as it is not, is a completely irrelevant comparison to make. You wouldn’t say for Killzone 3, “if you were reviewing this based on a PS4 then I’d actually say it looks rubbish.”
C) You’re comparing it to the PS2 yet have no grounds for that comparison. It is PS3 quality, granted not the best looking game out there but it is better than many games that came out at the start of the PS3s life cycle and is certainly better than any PS2 title. If you think otherwise then I suggest that you go back and look at some PS2 shooters.
D) My point was simply to find out whether you could have actually completed it within 3.5 hours or not. If my time was around six hours then there is no way you could complete it within 3.5 unless you were attempting a speed run – which would negate your argument anyway. If my time is around four then you could certainly have.
And finally, your closing comments. Your need to throw insults around will only hinder your cause to be heard, especially here. By doing so all you’ve done is make yourself seem petty, easily irritable and unwilling to see another view, all traits that are strongly discouraged here.
So rather than getting a life, to which I assure you I most certainly have, I will continue to fact check my statements and retorts without the need to lower the tone further of what could have been a reasonable debate.
djhsecondnature
It seems I took some time with that response. Never mind.
Apology accepted.
stricktmachine
Sorry for going all “Charlie sheen” on you. Seriously feel bad reading back at my response and am embarrassed. I’m new here so a good lashing or ban is probably good for this ol’ boy. Truly sorry- you were only asking legitimate questions. Cheers mate.
Roynaldo
Games are a strange thing. I spent £23 on Mass Effect 2 and have so much joy from it and a week later i spent £44 on KZ3 CE and have had less joy (although platinumed). Graphics are a 100 time better on Killzone and it has this edgy feeling. Mass Effect has the story to make up for that and longetivity to keep you hooked in.
I wish I had the money to buy every game i wanted. I am still yet to play at least a dozen games i desire…..hell, took me nearly 10 months to get round to Heavy Rain.
Glad we got this thing sorted though, takes a big man to accept any faults made and an honourable man to accept an apology.
Good work fellas :)
DrNate86
@stricktmachine: It’s refreshing to see an honest apology after a heated post, well done sir *tips hat
Kovacs
As an apology has been issued and the debate has come to a, somewhat, amicable conclusion there will be no tongue-lashing or banning or whatnot.
We encourage heated debate and we want people to feel they can express their disapproval of another person’s opinion freely and with genuine zeal. Name-calling or aggressive behaviour will get you banned, however. It’s not tolerated now, never has been and never will be.
Strictmachine, you’re new here (welcome by the way) and I think/hope you’ll find that TSA is a very open, friendly place for gamers to discuss all aspects of this industry we all undoubtedly love. You may have gotten off on the wrong foot but I hope you’ll stick around and see what this community can offer.
It’s quite unique.
stricktmachine
Thanks. I will be sure to follow the rules and treat this like the forum it is- not like a frat house. Cheers to all gamers.
DrNate86
I think I will pick this up a bit later down the line, I had high hopes for the SP after seeing the premise and early videos but from this review, and others, it seems apart from the first level the majority of fun is to be had online. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is a standard FPS tactic nowadays, I was just after something a bit different I think.
Gamoc
Don’t be fooled, I only listed things from the first chapter because I wanted to avoid spoilers, there’s plenty of shock throughout the rest of the game too.
DrNate86
Good to know! I’ve definitely got my eye on it, though with Crysis 2 and KZ3 to get through it will take me a while to get round to it!
stricktmachine
Shock as in how bad this game is.
wick15
As always, another excellent review. I haven’t been following this game at all really, but I will certainly have a look into it now. It does look and sound like a very good game. Those screens are pretty impressive.
BG Tips
Seems like an alright bit of fun then. I’ll probably buy it when it’s £20-30, then when i’m finished, trade it in towards crysis 2 or something.
bigdon23
you can only advance to level 5 (MP) without the online pass. just a note for those buying preowned. its a rip off
jonny_bolton
What? For god sake I hate those online passes.
Rocket_345
I was in two minds about this as there are alot of things out that i want at the moment. However with my birthday in 17 days i may pick it up.
Rocket_345
I forgot great review and highlighted the things that were concerning me most.