Dat Game: Homefront

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5yyWZ2Z6Ps
Set in the year 2027 in an America devastated by a global energy crisis, Homefront shows a version of a chilling and somewhat plausible future.  After a series of events set before the beginning of the game from present day to 2027 take place, North and South Korea unite to become a the nuclear armed nation of The Greater Korean Republic (GKR), which eventually puts pressure on their Asian neighbors and begins annexing them into the GKR.  As American strength weakens over skyrocketing fuel prices and a collapsing economy, the GKR detonates an electromagnetic pulse crippling America’s electric grid and beginning a full on occupation. The trailers for the game featured clips from recent real world events highlighting the unpredictability of North Korea and tells a pretty epic back story.

Written by John Millius (of Red Dawn fame), Homefront  tries to evoke an emotional response by bringing the war to our country’s soil.  Throughout the single player campaign find yourself fighting through familiar locations like a local high school turned labor camp, down the streets of abandoned suburbs, and through several derelict… um… Hooters.  I’d been looking forward to Homefront’s release since I first heard about it back in November, which was about two days before North Korea shelled a South Korean island, leading to even more intrigue about the game and its ties to current events.  However, the single player campaign just doesn’t pull at the heartstrings quite as I had expected.  The campaign overall feels unpolished and unfinished.  The voice acting is subpar, and the language feels forced (variations of the f-bomb get dropped more than a “peppering” of times).  The character modeling is pretty abysmal, especially compared to recent videos of the Unreal Engine (the same engine this game uses) and the Frostbite 2 driven Battlefield 3 videos. The campaign is very short and leaves you lacking a feeling of accomplishment.  Completing the entire game feels a little like you had just passed a single tough level in a more fleshed out game.  Sadly, the emotive settings and situations only provoke an emotional response on a few occasions (but I did find myself cringing a few times).  For the most part the feeling of “this could be my street”, really only sinks in if you take your time and take everything in, listening to the dialog between people on the side and hearing the ambient sounds around you, unfortunately these nuances are something a lot of people will miss as they rush through the game.

Where the single player campaign left me feeling disappointed, the multiplayer gameplay shattered my expectations.  The controls feel familiar (basically the exact same controls as Call of Duty), and the game mechanics feel fresh.  With each match you play in multiplayer, in addition to XP that allows you to rank up and acquire better weapons and vehicles, you also earn Battle Points (BP).  These points are used in-match to upgrade guns, purchase vehicles, call in airstrikes.  Your load-out consists of the standard fare, (gun, sidearm, “perks”, etc), but also includes two “purchase slots”.  These slots are filled by additional equipment you can instantly “buy” with your BP such as “Flak Jacket” (extra health, similar to Juggernaut) or an RPG Launcher.  The nice thing about this addition is it means you actually have to do something to earn BP before you can use them. Since your BP is reset after each match, it alleviates a lot of the annoying pr0blems that plague other first person shooters.  Gone are the spawn kills, and noobs running around with rocket launchers randomly firing and hoping to hit something, or the player who repeatedly runs into a room full of opponents taking a few out before he’s shot 157 times because they’re using some cheap power-up.

Multiplayer is basically three game modes, “Ground Control”, “Team Deathmatch” and “Skirmish”.  Team Deathmatch (12 vs 12) plays as usual, kill as many players on the other team until time runs out or the score limit is reached.  Ground control is a 32 player (16 vs 16) , best of 3 round match.  Each team must fight for control of objectives, for each objective that is captured points are earned and a meter indicating your teams points fills.  Once one team’s meter is filled, that round is over and the fight immediately moves forward to 3 new objectives.  First team to win two rounds, wins the match.  Skirmish is simply a playlist that alternates between both TDM and Ground control.  The large scale battles, variety of weapons and vehicles, and unique BP system will keep you wanting to play “just one more game”.  From the get-go all three types are available, and as you rank up you unlock Battle Commander Playlists, which are the same game types but with an added chance to earn bonuses by completing various challenges from an AI controlled “commander”.

Here’s a clip of some multiplayer gameplay:

Overall the game is a bit of a dichotomy, the single player isn’t much more than a glorified XBLA title, but the multiplayer is definitely enough to carry the game into the “buy it” category.

Homefront was released March 15, 2011 by THQ and developed by Kaos Studios (Frontline:Fuel of War). It is available from Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Steam (PC).

Note to you “renters” out there: The game comes packaged with a single use “battle code” that unlocks the full multiplayer experience, so renting the game won’t allow you to exceed level 5 without purchasing a battle code either through PSN or the LIVE Marketplace.