Homefront Review

Written by Cole Burton, solidsnake222 Monday, 28 March 2011 11:00

There’s no doubting the fact that first person shooters are a dime a dozen nowadays.  With Call of Duty, Killzone and Halo being three of the most commonly played FPS games right now, Homefront steps up to the plate to challenge them.  But in the end, is it a true contender or just another mindless shoot em’ up?  Let’s find out.

First, I like to start my reviews off by focusing on the campaign.  However, in this case I should be able to wrap the campaign up in just a couple of paragraphs.  The goal of Homefront was definitely to establish a great multiplayer experience.  This is a shame, because the plot of the game is very original and fun.  But, the campaign can be beaten in four to eight hours depending on difficulty and skill.

The story is set in 2028.  North and South Korea have united and have pretty much started a conquest to rule the world.  The turning point came early for them, when they took Japan and now they’re invading America.  It is your job to defend the Homefront.  Very early on in the game, you are forced into the resistance.  You will spend most of the campaign with the same three people. As you progress through different missions that seem that they just want you to understand that this really is America.  But I mean really?  You'll figure this out after seeing your first Hooters, White Castle and Tiger Direct.  We get it; you don’t have to shove it down our throats.  Not that all of that marketing is a bad thing, but I do think the developers should have spent more time in other areas first.

The campaign is fun throughout and I would likely be praising this game if only it were longer.  Aside from the length of the campaign, the only other gripes that I have are: the graphics could be better and ammo could be more common.  The main mission of the campaign is to deliver fuel to the scattered U.S. Army who are regrouping in San Francisco.  This leads into the multiplayer as the matches are the Koreans fighting the U.S. before the army regroups.

For $60, the campaign will really set you off.  However, if you are in it for the multiplayer as well, you will get a much better value.  I don’t feel it’s a $60 value however.  I don’t think any FPS multiplayer component alone is worth $60.  But, that’s not to say it isn’t a great online experience, as I like it very much!  The main modes are Team Deathmatch and Ground Control.  These also have Battle Commander Modes which are the same, but allow you to become high priority targets (and kill other high priority targets). 

Killing and capturing earn you Battle Points or BP for short.  This is where the multiplayer gets interesting.  Rather than taking Call of Duty’s killstreak reward system, Homefront uses a point based system.  Earn points and spend them on things such as vehicles, rocket launchers and airstrikes anytime you want.  This works out very well in my opinion and it also seems to hold off many people from camping, trying to get high killstreaks for these kinds of rewards.

There aren’t very many maps for Homefront as of right now, but I don’t think the wait will be very long for map packs.  The maps that they have in place take after Battlefield by having fewer, yet larger maps.  Although they are not Battlefield large, they are just large compared to most video game maps.  This is one of those games where the developers definitely set you up to be buying a lot of downloadable content.

Verdict:
I say rent this game first and blow through the campaign in one or two days.  Then, play the multiplayer.  Decide on your own if you really want to spend the cash to buy the game for multiplayer.  If it were me, I would wait until it comes up new for $40 or less.  With great promos flying around on the internet all the time, it shouldn’t be too long for this to happen.  Until then, I’d stick with Black Ops, Reach, Killzone 3 and/or Bad Company 2.