Homefront is set in the near future, where North and South Korea have united as the “Greater Korean Republic”. Over time, their power has grown, and eventually have occupied large parts of the US, after a combination of events.
You play as Robert Jacobs, a former helicopter pilot and classic silent protagonist. You are taken by the Koreans and transported by bus with one other guy. As the bus moves and your new “friend” is saying how you need to stick together to survive, you can look out of the window to see the atrocities committed by the soldiers. They seem to be rounding everyone up by force, even shooting some people, including a small child’s parents in front of him. It was quite shocking and surprising to see that - usually developers will shy away from such grim content. Throughout the game, it does touch on the darker sides of war, and not just portraying the Koreans in a bad way; so it’s definitely going down the “Spec Ops: The Line” route.
A group of resistance fighters plough into your bus in a dangerous rescue attempt; nearly killing you in the process. Despite this, Robert has no qualms joining the resistance.
The game mainly takes place in urban areas, although there were some missions in the countryside. I particularly liked it when you were battling inside a large department store, but this section could have been longer. These are much cooler environments than battling in fields/trenches like many FPS war games.
Some people seem to complain about the product placement, but it makes the world more believable. I also thought it was quite funny when team members are telling you enemies are coming out of Hooters.
There’s a few sections where you are flying a helicopter, or gunning from a helicopter or APC, but the majority of time you are running around on foot and shooting standard enemies. It does make use of cover based gameplay, so you will be popping your head above objects such as cars and fences, before ducking down to reload. There’s a few sections where you are accompanied by this rocket-launching vehicle known as Goliath. You can use your targeting computer to instruct it to fire rockets which you will need to do in order to ensure Goliath’s survival against the RPG troops or tanks.
You can only carry two weapons, so will often grab guns off the ground and keep switching as you go. You do have a few grenades and there’s a few sections where you find C4.
Between the shooting, you mainly follow your team, and will have to wait for them to shift cupboards that are barricading doors, or squeezing through small passages. I assume this is the usual hidden loading screen.
Throughout the game there are newspapers to collect that also provide a bit more backstory.
The graphics look a bit dated, but I guess it is quite old now. The sound was quite satisfying and many of the death screams sounded like the classic “Wilhelm scream”.
I don’t think I’m very good at FPS games but I thought this game seemed fairly easy. I mainly died due to grenades which seemed to happen quite a lot early on - which was frustrating. The game uses the typical regenerating health when you avoid damage (which seemed a bit too fast if anything), and there’s frequent checkpoints when you do die. I’d imagine FPS fans will find this game far too easy.
I managed to complete the game in just under 4 hours, but it didn’t really feel that short. Still, those expecting a lengthier 8 hour plus game will be disappointed here. I liked the setting of the game, but felt it could have been developed further. Apart from some of the story themes, it’s basically just another generic FPS really.