When asked what are the biggest modern warfare games out there the first thing that comes to mind is the Battlefield series and the Call of Duty series. THQ, not known for making first person shooters, has released Homefront, a military shooter where Korea has taken over America. Will this game be able to reach the status of a good multiplayer shooter, or will it be just another wash up?
First off, let’s start with the storyline. The writer of Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now also wrote the story of Homefront so I was expecting a top of the line story mode. America has been in a depression where half the population is out of a job and gas prices are up to $20.00 a gallon. At the same time North Korea is slowly taking over Asia unifying all the Countries together. Then one day North Korea launches a satellite to deliver a message to the American people. This message knocks out all power in America and then Korea slowly begins to take over and eventually Korea controls America. You play as Jacob a former American pilot just trying to get by. When chained to a bus seat you look out the window and you realize the horror that has become of America. You see people up against walls, a young couple getting separated from each other. People trying to run away and are shot down in mere seconds. You see soldiers throwing Americans in mass graves. Parents being shot in a firing range in front of their children. You can easily see that America has gone to hell. After seeing all those horrifying sites, a semi-truck rams into the bus you are on. Resistance fighters Connor and Rihanna (What’s her name?) come to bust you out and now you are part of the resistance. At the beginning of the game when fighting the Koreans you are out gunned, out manned, and out of training skill. Homefront is very different than Modern Warfare 2 with trained military fighting the invaders of America; you fight alongside other citizens that have no training. Throughout Homefront you slowly see your fighting barely scratch the Korean Army to the actually turning point of the war. The storyline is absolutely amazing; the characters are full of life and express themselves in different ways. The only downside of the storyline is the length is extremely short. I finished the game in less than 4 hours. The storyline is one of the best I’ve ever played, but it’s also the shortest I’ve ever played.
Now on to gameplay, every battle is unique. If it’s a stealth recon, sabotage, frontal assault, or ambush all the battles are different. In many missions, you have the opportunity to control the Goliath, a 6 wheel unmanned vehicle with a chain gun and missile launcher, pretty much the RC car from hell. All the guns are the same and don’t have much different between them. Also in most gun battles I would run out of ammo and I would have to find more, putting you in the mood that you are really out matched against the Korean forces. Also before hopping over walls, climbing ladders, opening doors, or crawling under buildings, you have to wait for all your teammates to go through before you can. This can become annoying when you get somewhere and you have to wait for all your teammates before moving ahead. This game is unique because of the environment. When you’re fighting through a suburb neighborhood, baseball field, a grocery store, and the golden gate bridge, you realize that you are in war torn America. To make it more realistic, a lot of product placement is seen in this game. This can be a good or bad thing depending if you like product placement. You take cover behind a full throttle vending machine, or running and gunning into a white castle restaurant, and at one point I shot missiles into a hooters. On the downside, the graphics are out dated even on a high definition television.
Finally the multiplayer, with 32 player multiplayer, Homefront is a mixture of Battlefield and Call of Duty. Having customizable perks, weapons, attachments, kill streaks, and equipment, it is almost identical to Call of Duty’s multiplayer. What was interesting was in order to use vehicles; you have to earn them by using points from capturing and defending objectives, kills and teamwork. With points, you can buy vehicles, missile strikes, and many more. A downside of multiplayer is the code that comes with the game. Buying the game, you can extend your multiplayer with a code. This is a problem if you rent the game or buy the game used. If you want the code you’ll have to cough up another 10 dollars. Another problem is the number of weapons. Multiplayer has 4 assault rifles, 2 light machine guns, 2 submachine guns, and 2 snipers. If you want the only shotgun you would have to preorder the game before it came out. With such a little selection of weapons this lost my interest in multiplayer.
Over all, this game kind of disappointed me. With such a good storyline it was a shame that it was so short. Graphics were poor and a water downed multiplayer drove me away from playing it. Overall this game is a RENT. This game’s storyline is amazing, everything else, not so much.
