[Introduction]
Homefront is a 2011 FPS. Here's how it sells itself:
- Discover a terrifyingly plausible near-future world
- Fight for a cause
- Witness the human cost of war
- Experience explosive FPS gameplay
- Take the battle online
It sounds exciting, right?
[First Impressions]
Well, it's not all that exciting. Turns out that was all mostly just marketing clout. The "terrifyingly plausible" setting strikes me as extraordinarily unlikely, although I guess they were right about the global pandemic originating in Asia. You don't really get a good sense of your cause beyond "FREE MURICA," the gameplay is hardly explosive and the multiplayer is dead. I guess you do witness the human cost of war though, but don't expect Spec Ops: The Line here.
[Development]
Homefront was developed by Kaos Studios and published by THQ. It's supposedly largely based on Kaos' previous game, Frontlines: Fuel of War, but was intended to be more cinematic and character-driven, with greater focus on telling a story. More on how that went later. Additionally, Kaos has claimed that the gameplay was at least partially inspired by Half-Life 2, but I find that hard to believe given the final product.
Most curiously, a unified Korea wasn't even the original antagonist. It was supposed to be China. However, the risk of being excluded from the Chinese market was deemed undesirable, so the story was changed. That, and one other thing:
It was decided that China, due to the mutual interdependence of the American and Chinese economies, it wouldn't be "scary enough" to have China be the enemy. This sounds kinda weak to me. China, interdependent economy or no, strikes me as a far more believable threat than a unified Korea. Just admit you didn't wanna lose out on Chinese revenue, Kaos, come on.
Of course, Kaos can't exactly admit that anymore, given that the studio shut down following the release of Homefront. Some have even argued that Homefront directly caused a 26% drop in THQ's stock, resulting in THQ shutting them down.
[Game Mechanics]
Grab gun, shoot bad man. Occasionally use targeting device for Goliath to shoot rockets at enemy vehicles or use your own vehicle to shoot bad man. That's about the extent of Homefront's gameplay.
It's a bog standard FPS of its era. You have 2 guns and regenerating health. You do also have a selection of various guns, but frankly they all feel the same. Any SMG is like any other SMG. Any assault rifle is like any other assault rifle. Pistols get used like twice and only because the game forces you to, otherwise there's literally no reason to keep one handy.
Some weapons have secondary fire modes, like underslung grenade launchers or shotguns, but those are rare. The Goliath targeter only becomes available when Goliath is around, and Goliath is only around when enemy vehicles appear and only for about half the game.
It's serviceable, but bland. If you've played literally any modern FPS in a similar vein to, say, Battlefield or Call of Duty, then you've already experienced Homefront in all but name.
Vehicle sections are either on rails or in the air, and there's only one section in the air. If you expect that section to be anything like actually flying a helicopter, you'll be disappointed, because it handles more like a flying car that can look in any direction. Hell, you can look down while hovering in the air. Also, turning feels like the helicopter is drunk.
[Graphics]
The game really hasn't aged particularly well.
It wasn't all that impressive for a 2011 title. I'd say it's about on par with CoD4 (which was released 4 years prior), but honestly, it might be a bit worse. Point is, it was more or less passable on release, but it's not gonna be winning any beauty pageants today.
Also, you might notice a lack of attention to detail sometimes. For example, after Hopper gives you the targeting device for Goliath, he still has it strapped to his backpack for some reason. Probably an oversight, but still.
[Story]
Here's the rundown establishing the setting:
North Korea tests more nukes. The UN places sanctions on North Korea. Kim Jong-Il dies in 2011 and his son, Kim Jong-Un takes over. Incidentally, this game was released before he actually did die in December of 2011.
In 2013, Kim Jong-Un somehow manages to unite North and South Korea, forming the Greater Korean Republic. 2015, Saudi Arabia and Iran are at war, which causes collateral damage to oil pipelines, directly resulting in a global fuel shortage, hitting the United States particularly hard. Gas prices rise beyond 20 dollars per gallon.
2017, the US dollar crashes hard, resulting in widespread civil unrest. Concurrently, a war in Asia is going very poorly, and after the US retreats, Japan surrenders to Korea. Fast forward to 2022, and the economical situation in the US is now so bad that the federal government has ordered a freeze on all bank withdrawals.
Incidentally, around this time, an Asian bird flu epidemic goes global and spreads across the world, killing at least 6 million in the United States alone. Ironically, this prompts Mexico to close the border. Onward to 2024 and Korea has been steadily annexing countries in Asia along the Pacific coast.
And then Korea launches a satellite.
A satellite armed with an EMP device.
An EMP device aimed squarely at the continental United States.
Needless to say, the ensuing total destruction of the electrical grid results in total societal collapse.
Afterwards, Korea invades Hawaii, followed by San Francisco. From here on out, they spread across the rest of the US, sweeping across the nation from coast to coast. The US military is reduced to fighting what amounts to a guerrilla war against the Korean occupation forces.
This is all just in the game's intro, of course. The rest of the game is spent as Robert Jacobs, a former pilot for the USMC, who gets drafted by the Resistance. They do this by ramming a prison bus, killing everyone inside except for Jacobs himself. This includes other American pilots and marks the beginning of the game throwing god-awful plans at the player and expecting us to just accept them.
Other nonsensical moments is resistance fighters running into friendly artillery fire, attacking heavily guarded strongholds and apparently not expecting correspondingly heavy casualties and, perhaps most egregiously, planning to take out enemy AA guns... by flying in with unarmored helicopters. This is not an exhaustive list, but consider yourself warned.
The resistance cell is composed of Connor, Rianna, Hopper and Boone. There are others, but few of them have names and none of them really matter. Boone is a former police officer, Hopper is a Korean-American hackerman, Rianna is a woman and Connor is a rabidly patriotic American with a Gadsden Flag shirt.
Most of them aren't really particularly well-characterised. Boone doesn't have much screen time, but there is a sort of hamfisted attempt to make him appear like the voice of reason, a foil to Connor's aggression. Hopper just comes across as a nerd with zero situational awareness. Rianna swings between being opposed to the use of stuff like white phosphorus and not really caring.
And then there's Connor. Connor is a very angry man. He also seems to be the only one who's really emotionally involved in the resistance movement. His character isn't exactly deep, but given that he's the most vocal of your little resistance club, he does get established much better than the others. He's reckless, he's proud and his only real concern is the liberation of the United States, no matter the cost.
It gets established fairly early on that your goal is to get fuel for the US military. The plan to acquire this fuel involves Jacobs, hence why the resistance broke him out. Don't think that this is really part of any greater story though, because all that really happens is that you acquire the fuel and get it to the military. It all happens in about 3-4 hours of playtime, and that's including the frequent attempts by the game to slow you down.
[SPOILERS]
Boone dies in a Korean raid despite having previously survived being shot in the gut by a 20mm rotary cannon. Frankly, I'm surprised anything could kill him at all. The idyllic little settlement that you were introduced to in the briefest of moments is gone, but it's hard to care, because you were there only once and only for all of 5 minutes.
Hopper, miraculously, never gets killed by angry Americans for being Korean, despite allusions to the fact that it has happened elsewhere.
Rianna survives unscathed and just as uninteresting as she was before.
Connor, pretty fittingly, commits a suicide bombing by proxy when he runs into a Korean tank column with a flare, providing a target for an airstrike.
In the end, the game fades to black with an American victory in the battle, if not the war. There are implications that Europe will help the United States and that this marks a turning point.
[Pros]
- As an FPS, it works perfectly fine
- There's a few moments that might stand out as exciting and engaging
[Cons]
- As an FPS, it does literally nothing to innovate or stand out in any way
- The vast majority of the game is pretty uninteresting
- The story makes absolutely no sense whatsoever
- Attempts at banter and characterisation largely fall flat
- Very linear gameplay, may as well be on rails
- It's very short; chances are you won't spend more than 3-4 hours on it
- Multiplayer is deader than Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il combined
- May have killed its developers
[Conclusion]
What we have here is a perfectly bland and inoffensive FPS. Well, unless you're North Korean, then you might take issue with dozens upon dozens of your countrymen, who are actual professional soldiers, being killed in droves by a handful plebs with guns.
Get it on sale, if you must. Moral compass optional.
/DUX
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