An interesting concept that lacks direction and emotion, only taking advantage of its setting a minimal amount.
There are a few emotional and memorable moments in the slower areas of the game, with the game taking the Korean occupation to advantage, but these impactful moments are very few in number and the incredibly short campaign does nothing to help this.
It's a First-Person-Shooter inspired by other popular titles, which is very apparent, right down to the control scheme. Unfortunately Homefront is held back in many different areas, such as overly annoying and frustratingly dull gunfights, unsatisfying guns feeling plastic and unrealistic, a straight and narrow path, with dull set pieces, and worse of all, the fundamental gameplay is just down-right boring.
The AI is terrible, and I found myself at times having to wait at doors for your dumb team mates to open it, breaking whatever flow there was in the combat, and to make matters worse your character is standing right in front of the door, and your team mates are on the other side of the map, waiting for their arrival, only for you to be blocking their path to the door, being unable to move out of the way because they're blocking your only way out of theirs!
While there were some memorable moments, a lot of the slower moments lack feeling, and it quickly returns to the gloomy gunfights between nameless enemies, and respawning enemies in an area you need to run through – is not acceptable! Checkpoints in the dedicated sniper level are harsh considering the objective is clear, yet somehow the mission is easily failed due to pathetic AI. On the flip-side, even if you sprint right behind them, an enemy will only notice you if you open fire, run within a few metres in front of them, or if it's a scripted event where they're supposed to find you.
Second part of the sniper level offers some fun and mixes up the pacing. I have to give credit to the final stage which is actually pretty fun, not considering it being a carbon copy of stages we've played in other popular games, hitting the high-octane action the game intended to all throughout, though unfortunately the rest falls short.
The bright and colourful settings look quite good, but really don't fit the mood or tone of the game, which likewise misses out on escalating the feel of terror of the Korean occupation. To put it simple; the graphics are ugly, it suffers from a poor frame rate at times, and the game freezes frequently. While there is some nice lighting, the tree and grass textures are some of the worst seen as of late, some geometry just does not want to load, even with the long loading screens. There are really silly death animations, especially from knife kills, though the gun reloads are quite realistic and smooth. Seeing characters walk through water is laughable, and there is an extreme case of jaggy edges on every model, moving or not, and a lot of noticeable pop-in. It could be said this is a broken game.
The only redeeming quality of this game, in my opinion, is the multiplayer which has some good ideas, such as point streaks and interesting vehicles, but is essentially the same thing we've seen coming from bigger titles for years, but with the developer's own spin on it. There is some fun to be had in the multiplayer, especially if you're willing to put in the time to become invested in it, but there isn't a whole lot of content, even with the 4 hour campaign, there is little value in this title unless you're looking for an alternative to Call of Duty or Medal of Honor, but want the same fundamentals and feel.
Homefront is an incredibly mediocre and dull game, with no real driving force or feeling. It's only features that pop-out in the overly saturated Modern-military-FPS market are its somewhat-original Multiplayer features. Nitpicking aside, this game is just boring and I can only really recommend this to people interested in its multiplayer, or want a quick game to finish over a weekend for achievements or trophies. It's not that Homefront is overly terrible, it's just plain and its flaws stick out so much when there are so little highs to cover it. Hopefully Kaos Studios can redeem themselves with the inevitable Homefront 2.
Story – 2/5
Gameplay – 1/5
Presentation – 1/5
Multiplayer – 3/5
Overall Score (Not an average):
4.5/10