Homefront is an fps by THQ that is an attempt at one upping Infinity Ward by copying everything that they do and then taking a giant shit on it. It's set in a hypothetical future where North Korea under Kim Jung Un (yes North Korea) becomes a global superpower through merciless saber rattling and political intrigue and invades the United States after downing its defenses with satellites emitting emp pulses. As a resistance fighter you and your squad of nameless dudes and dudettes must embark on a vaguely described mission that culminates in blowing Koreans up on the Golden Gate Bridge.
However not only does this game fall short because of it's banal unintentionally ironic storyline, it is plagued with idiotic level design and FPS mechanics. Movement in Homefront is reminscent of trundling about as a giant hulking robot in mechwarrior. You move slow and so do your enemies. THQ solved an obvious problem of the game being a little easy with slow moving enemies and solved it by making your turning and gun sight is as slow so it balances out. On top of that the enemy AI is woefully incompetent and can't shoot worth to save it's life. Mainly the AI wanders out into the open with little regard for themselves (as any good commie would) or pops up from cover and takes a few minutes to choose a target to fire at. Making all of them easy pickings (we are supposed to believe these guys are defeating the US mind you). Level Design is flat and unimaginative. We have little change of altitude in most of the levels and most fighting mostly consists of navigating rubble strewn fields, streets, and parking lots with no really advantageous spots or pathways anyway. And when you are set up on an advantageous spot it's so you can take part in a simple, boring, ego wanking turkey shoot. I was hoping that the creators would take advantage of the setting to create iconic experiences to rival that of Modern Warfare 2's Washington DC missions, but instead we were offered garbage strewn yards of some stupid levitown suburb, an elementary school being used as a death camp (the only subtlety these writers know is a sledgehammer to the face), some parking lots and streets, a farm, and a bridge.
Playing through the DC missions in MW2 was way funner the eighteenth millionth time I've played it than my first playthrough of Homefront. And that is terrible considering that Homefront should have an edge on newness alone. All the weapons are identical ones you've seen from MW 2 only the gunsights are made to look more futurish, but given the clunkiness of the controls in Homefront and the shitty campaign the little edge of graphics not nearly enough to forgive its shortcomings. The multiplayer is a saving grace for this mess. If you can forgive the trundling controls you can enjoy fighting competent enemies. Is it worth it's sixty dollar asking price? Short answer is no, let it fall.
However not only does this game fall short because of it's banal unintentionally ironic storyline, it is plagued with idiotic level design and FPS mechanics. Movement in Homefront is reminscent of trundling about as a giant hulking robot in mechwarrior. You move slow and so do your enemies. THQ solved an obvious problem of the game being a little easy with slow moving enemies and solved it by making your turning and gun sight is as slow so it balances out. On top of that the enemy AI is woefully incompetent and can't shoot worth to save it's life. Mainly the AI wanders out into the open with little regard for themselves (as any good commie would) or pops up from cover and takes a few minutes to choose a target to fire at. Making all of them easy pickings (we are supposed to believe these guys are defeating the US mind you). Level Design is flat and unimaginative. We have little change of altitude in most of the levels and most fighting mostly consists of navigating rubble strewn fields, streets, and parking lots with no really advantageous spots or pathways anyway. And when you are set up on an advantageous spot it's so you can take part in a simple, boring, ego wanking turkey shoot. I was hoping that the creators would take advantage of the setting to create iconic experiences to rival that of Modern Warfare 2's Washington DC missions, but instead we were offered garbage strewn yards of some stupid levitown suburb, an elementary school being used as a death camp (the only subtlety these writers know is a sledgehammer to the face), some parking lots and streets, a farm, and a bridge.
Playing through the DC missions in MW2 was way funner the eighteenth millionth time I've played it than my first playthrough of Homefront. And that is terrible considering that Homefront should have an edge on newness alone. All the weapons are identical ones you've seen from MW 2 only the gunsights are made to look more futurish, but given the clunkiness of the controls in Homefront and the shitty campaign the little edge of graphics not nearly enough to forgive its shortcomings. The multiplayer is a saving grace for this mess. If you can forgive the trundling controls you can enjoy fighting competent enemies. Is it worth it's sixty dollar asking price? Short answer is no, let it fall.
Homefront's story is the retarded brainchild of John Milius (Red Dawn, Conan The Barbarian) and Raymond Benson (Metal Gear Solid). Generally it is addled with Milius' and Benson's obsessions with conspiratorial drivel and paranoid fears of the United States losing ground to various bogeymen this case being North Korea. Raymond Benson coined it as a cautionary tale and I guess the caution to take from it is, "don't trust the North Koreans because they will nuke you, take your land, and bury you in an elementary school." The history that leads up to this contemporary nightmare is told to us in little newspaper clippings that intertwine actual true facts about Kim Jung Il and his son Kim Jung Un, with headlines from their hypothetical history that leads up to North Korea invading the US in 2025. Generally it's ludicrous. Kim Jung Un is able to peacefully unify the Korean Peninsula and somehow end up it's dear leader. He then forms a giant super alliance with various asian countries and somehow be the leading power of said alliance. The Koreans then cause nuclear powerplants in Japan to explode in Japan unless it surrenders to it and the world is just like LOL SUCKS TO BE YOU JAPAN (ludicrous on so many levels given Korea's proximity to the fallout). Korean empire catches up on technology and becomes the premier nation of the world while the US is too busy diddling itself in its malaise and playing self congratulatory video games like Homefront. And of course the natural thing is Korea invades the US while they were too busy at night looking up porn. Now onto the game we are toured through a burnt out burg, a prisoner on a school bus, while North Koreans in their ridiculous looking uniforms shoot our brethren in the streets in front of crying children. We are spared the labor camp though by an ingenious plan to spring me (yes their intention was to rescue the main character by doing this) by taking a mac truck and t boning the bus at full throttle. Bus flips everyone dies but me, and the resistance hi fives and gives me a pistol. Eventually we go to a labor camp that is a converted elementary school for some purpose that has something to do with fuel. I knew that cause at the resistance base they had a map with photos and circle's and fuel depot written on them. Anyway we discover a killing field so our de facto Mary Sue leader (an angry white gun toting anti commie butt kicking warrior with the mouth of a sailor) yells and does the emotional cathartic thing and leads us into a full bore assault on the Koreans in the general vicinity. Then when reinforcements come we hide in the ditch of bodies and cover ourselves in them like some lame ass grim mini game. My guess was the writers felt insecure about whether the audience would understand that the North Koreans were villains of this story. Anyway I could go on but it's just nailing home that this is a pig in an ugly hat to boot. There is no character depth, development, or moral hazard (other than possibly rearranging your life to prepare for eventual invasion of the United States by North Korea) offered in this story. All the characters are flat and so vague they almost fail to even be stereotypical. We have a white guy who is badass and swears and becomes leader, a white female soldier whose honor we must defend and life we must protect, a black leader who everyone respects after he dies, and a vaguely asian guy who suffered blow back from the Korean invasion.