Homefront Reviews - Average so far... 72%
- Thread starter Korten12
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I'm still wary of it since there's no indication that the multiplayer is anything special and the singleplayer is >10 hours.
That said, I'm still wanting to get it. Just not for 60$.
Also, even though the plot is ridiculous (North Korea invading America isn't so much Alternate History as it is an Alternate Dimension) I'm actually curious to see how it plays out. Games featuring America usually have the US kicking ass against unbelievable odds, seeing an almost-defeated America could be very interesting.
That said, I'm still wanting to get it. Just not for 60$.
Also, even though the plot is ridiculous (North Korea invading America isn't so much Alternate History as it is an Alternate Dimension) I'm actually curious to see how it plays out. Games featuring America usually have the US kicking ass against unbelievable odds, seeing an almost-defeated America could be very interesting.
Eh, still not planning on picking it up. I am not a big fan of modern-day military shooters, and quite frankly, this looks like more of the same stuff that COD gives us. Count me out.
Wow, that first mission was just...
Stupid, really.
They'd have been better off just having your bus drive past hundreds of Korean soldiers eating babies or something.
Stupid, really.
They'd have been better off just having your bus drive past hundreds of Korean soldiers eating babies or something.
This game sounds awesome. As someone who loved Red Dawn and is worried about US and China/North Korea relations, I preorded this right away. Little worried about replayability but...
BTW it isnt a CoD clone just because of setting, fpsness and guns. How about we stop judging something we've never seen till we've played it.
BTW it isnt a CoD clone just because of setting, fpsness and guns. How about we stop judging something we've never seen till we've played it.
I dunno, to me it just looks like a post-9/11, Obama Age power fantasy which virtually seems to be daring North Korea to try and invade. Just not interested.
lol thisZombieGenesis said:
Nothing we haven't seen before folks. Just swap the Russian bad guys for Korean ones and off we go following invincible NPCs through linear, non-destructible levels with plenty of chest high cover to hide behind and regenerate our health!
All political incorrectness aside, this game would have been more interesting from the perspective of Koreans fighting against a US-led UN invasion.
The ignorance and out right hate surrounding this game (that's not released yet) by Americans and non-Americans is astounding. What is even more sad is its on this site. Well, that's what I get coming to the Internet for comfort and solace.
Personally, I am going to be getting this game, if only because the last shooter I bought (unless you count Fallout New Vegas, was Bad Company. Personally, I think it will be interesting, but hey, maybe that's because I am Korean...?
EDIT: Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things but it already has a higher rating then Black Coc--um excuse me, Black Ops does on MetaCritic.
Personally, I am going to be getting this game, if only because the last shooter I bought (unless you count Fallout New Vegas, was Bad Company. Personally, I think it will be interesting, but hey, maybe that's because I am Korean...?
EDIT: Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things but it already has a higher rating then Black Coc--um excuse me, Black Ops does on MetaCritic.
If this was on Facebook, I Would like it. As it is not, I must simply say: Kudos my good sir (Bob), kudos.bob1052 said:
I realise I'm risking a ban here, but I already made a thread about this and didn't get in trouble, so here goes. Warning: long post.
Disclaimer: I neither condone, nor participate in piracy. Before you jump down my throat, read the entire following paragraph of my post.
I've actually been playing Homefront for the past two days - since it leaked. I already pre-ordered and paid for it, you see, and I can't - and wouldn't - cancel the pre-order (although technically I could bump it up to the collector's edition and pay more). When Homefront leaked, my friend offered to lend me his old modified & XBL banned 360 so I could play it before release if I wanted. I've already paid for the game, I'll received the retail version in a few days when it's released, so after asking for a few opinions on the Escapist, I took him up on his offer.
So, here's the deal so far:
Homefront does a lot to dissuade accusations of the improbability of its premise, providing plenty of info about how the US fell from the world top spot, how the Greater Korean Republic came to be, and so on. But that's about it as far as plot goes. The story isn't even remotely character driven and all characters involved are generic stock-types, although they are reasonably well voiced.
The combat is pretty similar to Call of Duty. Key differences are some tweaks to the regenerating health: in standard gameplay, you can't sustain anywhere near as much damage as you can in CoD. You'll die even quicker than in CoD's veteran mode if you stick your neck out for too long. To balance this, you also regenerate health much, much more quickly. A second or two out of the line of fire is all it takes to get back to full health.
This, in part, contributes to many cheap deaths. During some parts of the game, enemies have abnormal accuracy. They can and will land ten full auto shots on you in the space of 0.5 seconds, from far enough away that you can't see them, through tiny cracks in your cover. Often, you'll get hit in the face with some kind of rocket from nowhere, and as you drop to the ground you'll hear your team mates helpfully shout "RPG, top floor on the right!".
Thankfully, the game checkpoints so frequently that this is rarely an issue, though it leads to some areas becoming battles of trial and error rather than actual skill. The game also doesn't seem to have a good idea on how long it'll take the player to cover a certain amount of ground, and thus doesn't adjust its checkpoints to compensate for that. For example:
You may have to run through a typical building, covering about 40 feet of ground. It'll checkpoint as you enter, and you'll run through in a couple of minutes, taking out a few easy enemies along the way. The game then checkpoints again when you reach the other end.
Later, you may have to cover 40 feet of open battleground packed full of enemies attacking from all directions. This, as any cover-FPS player will tell you, involves staying in one spot for several minutes, popping out and picking off any enemies you can, then ducking back in to cover, before making a mad dash across 10 feet of land to the next cover spot, and repeating 'till you make it to your destination. This process can take 20+ minutes, but the game doesn't account for that, so there are no checkpoints along the way. You might spend 18 minutes arduously carving through 35 feet of battleground, only to catch a stray bullet to the face and end up back where you started.
Exacerbating these problems is the fact that your allies just will not shut up. They repeat the same few lines ad nauseum. This is bad enough when you make it through an area on your first attempt, it's outright infuriating when you're catching the fifth rocket-from-nowhere with your chin while your allies shout "We're pinned down!" for the ninetieth time.
Most of the battles are genuinely tense, exciting experiences though. When the aforementioned problems aren't cropping up - and admittedly, they don't happen too often - the game feels highly polished. The controls are responsive, hit detection is perfect, weapons are well balanced and "feel" right. The aim-assist is perfect, too. I don't know if it can be changed from its default setting (haven't tried), but I found it compensated just enough to overcome the natural disadvantages of analogue sticks, without draining away any of the challenge.
Weapons are standard fare. Aside from "Goliath", the self-piloting robot car that follows you around during a few battles early in the game (you use a targeting device to mark targets for its missile launcher), there's little here that you haven't seen in Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.
The touted "emotional" aspect of the game is fully present. Some scenes are genuinely difficult to watch, and they're handled well enough that they don't seem disrespectful to the subject matter. Additionally, some of the action setpieces are truly awesome - I won't spoil them for you, but I will tell you that on more the one occasion, my jaw really did drop.
Some of these moments come in the unavoidable vehicle sections. These areas are where Homefront both impressed and disappointed me. I haven't seen another FPS that handles vehicle sections as well as this, and yet Homefront does a lot to ruin that by letting the most initially impressive sections go on for way too long.
Graphically, Homefront is nothing special. Character models are unimpressive, and their faces barely move when they talk. Animations are stiff and robotic, blood looks entirely unrealistic and explosions are pretty tame. Environments look great though, and there are quite a few moments when it completely breaks free of the whole grey-brown shooter deal and throws in some stunning color.
Obviously, since my friend's modded 360 is banned and the game hasn't been released yet anyway, I can't comment on the multiplayer.
In my opinion, the game isn't bad. If you're a fan of Call of Duty you'll love it, 'cause it's basically the same thing but with a handful of new ideas, a few tweaks and more attempts to break up the typical cover-fire-cover-fire action. It doesn't really seem to be trying to set itself apart from the CoD mould, just to improve upon it, which it manages with varying success.
It goes without saying that if you don't like CoD, you won't like Homefront.
Anyway, I'm not a professional reviewer or a rabid CoD fan. I enjoy FPS games and I'll give any a chance. Take from this what you will.
Disclaimer: I neither condone, nor participate in piracy. Before you jump down my throat, read the entire following paragraph of my post.
I've actually been playing Homefront for the past two days - since it leaked. I already pre-ordered and paid for it, you see, and I can't - and wouldn't - cancel the pre-order (although technically I could bump it up to the collector's edition and pay more). When Homefront leaked, my friend offered to lend me his old modified & XBL banned 360 so I could play it before release if I wanted. I've already paid for the game, I'll received the retail version in a few days when it's released, so after asking for a few opinions on the Escapist, I took him up on his offer.
So, here's the deal so far:
Homefront does a lot to dissuade accusations of the improbability of its premise, providing plenty of info about how the US fell from the world top spot, how the Greater Korean Republic came to be, and so on. But that's about it as far as plot goes. The story isn't even remotely character driven and all characters involved are generic stock-types, although they are reasonably well voiced.
The combat is pretty similar to Call of Duty. Key differences are some tweaks to the regenerating health: in standard gameplay, you can't sustain anywhere near as much damage as you can in CoD. You'll die even quicker than in CoD's veteran mode if you stick your neck out for too long. To balance this, you also regenerate health much, much more quickly. A second or two out of the line of fire is all it takes to get back to full health.
This, in part, contributes to many cheap deaths. During some parts of the game, enemies have abnormal accuracy. They can and will land ten full auto shots on you in the space of 0.5 seconds, from far enough away that you can't see them, through tiny cracks in your cover. Often, you'll get hit in the face with some kind of rocket from nowhere, and as you drop to the ground you'll hear your team mates helpfully shout "RPG, top floor on the right!".
Thankfully, the game checkpoints so frequently that this is rarely an issue, though it leads to some areas becoming battles of trial and error rather than actual skill. The game also doesn't seem to have a good idea on how long it'll take the player to cover a certain amount of ground, and thus doesn't adjust its checkpoints to compensate for that. For example:
You may have to run through a typical building, covering about 40 feet of ground. It'll checkpoint as you enter, and you'll run through in a couple of minutes, taking out a few easy enemies along the way. The game then checkpoints again when you reach the other end.
Later, you may have to cover 40 feet of open battleground packed full of enemies attacking from all directions. This, as any cover-FPS player will tell you, involves staying in one spot for several minutes, popping out and picking off any enemies you can, then ducking back in to cover, before making a mad dash across 10 feet of land to the next cover spot, and repeating 'till you make it to your destination. This process can take 20+ minutes, but the game doesn't account for that, so there are no checkpoints along the way. You might spend 18 minutes arduously carving through 35 feet of battleground, only to catch a stray bullet to the face and end up back where you started.
Exacerbating these problems is the fact that your allies just will not shut up. They repeat the same few lines ad nauseum. This is bad enough when you make it through an area on your first attempt, it's outright infuriating when you're catching the fifth rocket-from-nowhere with your chin while your allies shout "We're pinned down!" for the ninetieth time.
Most of the battles are genuinely tense, exciting experiences though. When the aforementioned problems aren't cropping up - and admittedly, they don't happen too often - the game feels highly polished. The controls are responsive, hit detection is perfect, weapons are well balanced and "feel" right. The aim-assist is perfect, too. I don't know if it can be changed from its default setting (haven't tried), but I found it compensated just enough to overcome the natural disadvantages of analogue sticks, without draining away any of the challenge.
Weapons are standard fare. Aside from "Goliath", the self-piloting robot car that follows you around during a few battles early in the game (you use a targeting device to mark targets for its missile launcher), there's little here that you haven't seen in Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.
The touted "emotional" aspect of the game is fully present. Some scenes are genuinely difficult to watch, and they're handled well enough that they don't seem disrespectful to the subject matter. Additionally, some of the action setpieces are truly awesome - I won't spoil them for you, but I will tell you that on more the one occasion, my jaw really did drop.
Some of these moments come in the unavoidable vehicle sections. These areas are where Homefront both impressed and disappointed me. I haven't seen another FPS that handles vehicle sections as well as this, and yet Homefront does a lot to ruin that by letting the most initially impressive sections go on for way too long.
Graphically, Homefront is nothing special. Character models are unimpressive, and their faces barely move when they talk. Animations are stiff and robotic, blood looks entirely unrealistic and explosions are pretty tame. Environments look great though, and there are quite a few moments when it completely breaks free of the whole grey-brown shooter deal and throws in some stunning color.
Obviously, since my friend's modded 360 is banned and the game hasn't been released yet anyway, I can't comment on the multiplayer.
In my opinion, the game isn't bad. If you're a fan of Call of Duty you'll love it, 'cause it's basically the same thing but with a handful of new ideas, a few tweaks and more attempts to break up the typical cover-fire-cover-fire action. It doesn't really seem to be trying to set itself apart from the CoD mould, just to improve upon it, which it manages with varying success.
It goes without saying that if you don't like CoD, you won't like Homefront.
Anyway, I'm not a professional reviewer or a rabid CoD fan. I enjoy FPS games and I'll give any a chance. Take from this what you will.
It looks like CoD trying to sell itself on the plot rather than the Multi player... so I'm not gonna get it... it looks stupid too... and chances are the whole "emotional" aspect will just come down to shooting civilians which effects me as much as going on a killing spree in a top down GTA game...
They won't say it looks stupid, they will comment on how the story is unrealistic because their brain can't comprehend what "fiction" is unless it is scifi.Saucycardog said:
OT: Umm... cool, I guess? I don't care much about ratings, but already preordered this...
haha initially I thought the thread was saying it had average reviews so far and I was like ?? with 90%
this looks like a good rental though. though I do want to read the reviews for myself fist
but yeah...seriously people! I didn't realize the Escapist was becoming YouTubeBrian Hendershot said:
this looks like a good rental though. though I do want to read the reviews for myself fist
