Homefront

We sit down and review Homefront: The Revolution. A reimagining of the franchise to make America great again. Here's our review of Homefront: The Revolution

It's been a while coming but Homefront: The Revolution has released and we've been able to dive right into what Dambuster Studios has to offer us. It may not be what was originally in store for us back in the THQ days but since Deep Silver picked up the franchise and put the teams to work to reimagine the game we are in store for another fun ride in a fake historical timeline. It makes sense I swear. Here's our review of Homefront: The Revolution.

Story

It is a bit in the future and apparently North Korea makes all of the good toys and gadgets out there. America being as it is couldn't have enough of them in any shape or form and amassed a huge debt to the North Koreans. They also refused to pay it back, in the American way, and the Norks shut everything down and invaded. Pretty much a futuristic version of Red Dawn only we get to take on the role of a new recruit badass trying to save the one guy that know how to talk to people in this new world.

Hated

One thing that always struck me as odd through my play of Homefront: The Revolution was the fact that the story pretty much revolved around saving one man. Even though it is shown early on that the new recruit you play is easily capable of doing everything the mark could do. It was an odd lynch pin in the game to force the story forward and there could have been many other ways this could have been done. It didn't break the game at all but it seemed way too "forced" to be a true issue to overcome.

Story nitpick aside, I'll have to dig into the actual controls of Homefront: The Revolution. Mainly as it goes to the shooting and aiming side of things. It was so loose and hard to get anything lined up that it became much easier to just sneak up and stab a guy instead of trying to be tactical. Of course one could argue the tactical path is what you are supposed to take but when there are forced fire-fight sections it makes all the difference. I'm no slouch when it comes to shooters but with how the controls handled here it made me feel like a massive noob instead of where I knew I should be.

Lastly, even though I hear it is being worked on, is the overall load and performance of the game when loaded. This has to be one of the slowest titles I have run in terms of loading and saving to the point where I had to find other games to occupy my time. When you first load up Homefront here to resume the story I found it would take up to two minutes to just get past the load screen. Also as it saves every time you change a load out or upgrade items the game freezes for 20 to 30 seconds and breaks up the pacing in a horrible way.

Loved

At first it was a little jarring but the "openness" of Homefront's world was something I quickly began to love. Especially when it mixed in the Hearts and Minds mechanic I found myself aiming to do more of the side missions first to make the main missions a little bit easier and populated. In each section of the game there where capture points or side objectives that would boost morale and once it hit a certain level you could literally incite riots in the streets to help move about the city. It brought me new levels of joy to see civilians rush over and take down a soldier just before he spotted me in the streets.

While Homefront: The Revolution is marketed more toward the shooter side of things there should have been more credit on the stealth gameplay that is pretty much required. Dambuster Studios hit levels of Deus Ex proportions with this as I would go out of my way to find new and sneakier ways into buildings and objectives instead of the run in and spray and pray approach requested. There was a lot of verticality and puzzles to be solved in this manner as well but all of them felt rewarding and greatly added to the overall fun.

Last here would have to be the customization options for all of the weapons in Homefront. The trailers for the game didn't show how fun and easy it was to swap and make new weapons on the fly. It defied the mechanical laws we all know in the real world but it still was great to not have to run back to a work bench or safe house when a specific weapon was needed. More so with the fact that you could scrounge almost everything you needed in the world outside of major upgrades. This does good to try and keep the pacing flowing a little more organic than the story.

Overview

When all is said and done here Homefront: The Revolution is more of a fan service title to me than another huge addition into the shooter genre. It does have a few fun and heart-pounding sections and the story isn't bad once you look past some of the holes. The team did do an amazing job at keeping the world open and filled with an ecosystem that felt real given what was going on in the world but it isn't something you need to go out and shell out the cash for just yet. There are improvements coming but while it is still full priced you may want to hold off. After it drops in price a bit it will be just what you are looking for.

I give Homefront: The Revolution 6 RC Car Bombs on the RC Car Bombs scale.

Homefront: The Revolution was developed by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on May 17^th, 2016. A PS4 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.