Homefront (360)

I had meant to check out Homefront when it first came out but I was so busy that it passed me by. The game’s mixed reception and purportedly short campaign length didn’t light much of a fire under my ass to buy it. I eventually did buy a used (er...I mean ‘pre-owned’) copy at my local independent videogame store for $7.50 few weeks ago.  After finishing the single player campaign ofthis first-person shooter I have to say I quite enjoyed it but I’m also glad I didn’t pay full price ($60) for it.

For those who aren’t familiar with the story, Homefront starts with a story montage that begins in 2010 with some real-life footage of Hilary Clinton speaking after the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan.The montage continues with the death of Kim Jong Ill in 2012, whose son then reunites North and South Korea to form the Greater Korean Republic (GKR). Over the next 10 years the GKR gains massive power, a bird flu epidemic and theglobal economic crisis cripple the United States, and in 2024 the GKR detonates an EMP over the US rendering electronics and much of the nation`s infrastructure in ruins. In the resulting chaos the GKR invade and occupy the United States.

Yes, it`s Red Dawn, the videogame. Except they’re Koreans, not Russians.

The game begins two years after Korean occupation of the US and you play as a former Marine helicopter pilot namedJacobs. Sleeping in your makeshift Colorado apartment you’re suddenly awoken by GKR troops and dragged onto a bus going to a ‘re-education camp’.  Fortunately, your bus is ambushed by American resistance fighters who rescue you for the sole purpose of helping them in their plan to recover jet fuel for scattered U.S. military forces.

I’m a big fan of atmosphere and sense of place in games and Homefront really excels in these areas.  I really liked the suburban sections in Modern Warfare 2 where you fought off Russian invasion - the idea of modern military warfare taking place in the North American suburbs (a place most of us are familiar with in our day to day lives) is something I find incredibly intriguing. So, to see this concept more fleshed out in Homefront is a big thrill.

The first half of the game takes place in dilapidated and destroyed suburban Colorado (2 years into Korean occupation) and the attention to detail is amazing. At one point you’re running through back yards and along with the expected household destruction you also see remnants of a crashed Boeing 747 scattered around the place. In one area you come across a garage that has a 747 engine smashed into the side of it, around the cornerhalf of the fuselage lies down an alleyway.

My favourite area in the game is when you come across ‘Oasis’ a tiny, hidden resistance outpost with civilians intermixed with resistance fighters. The attention to detail in this section is incredible. You see rows of potted plants and vegetables laid out in logical fashion, hydroponics and water filtration systems, a little classroom with a blackboard and tiny children’s chairs, car batteries and solar panels arrayed to collect power, even sections of camouflage tarp strewn over open areas to hide the outpostfrom detection by airborne GKR forces! It really feels like a place where desperate people are trying to carve out some semblance of a normal life amidst chaos.

Tonally, the game starts out with a metaphorical punch to the gut. As you’re driven by GKR forces in a converted school bus to a ‘re-education’ camp, you’re able to look out the windows and can see GKR troops rounding up American citizens like cattle. At one point a GKR soldier grabs a resisting civilian from behind, puts a plastic bag over his head and begins to suffocate him as you drive past! The most disturbing segment occurs as the bus rounds a corner you see (and hear) GKR soldiers lining up a man and a woman against a wall while their toddler looks on screaming. The mom tells the toddler not to worry and then the GKR soldiers gun her and her husband down. The resulting sequence of a wailing toddler running up to, and embracing, the bodies of his killed parents struck me in a way no game has been able to before.

Kaos Studios wants you to know that the Korean occupation of the United States is brutal and they definitely succeed in the opening few minutes of this game.

It’s a shame, then, that such excellent atmosphere and environments are held back by shoddy characterization and poor story telling. Your AI-controlled team of fellow resistance members is made up of 4 other characters; Boone (the African-American leader of the resistance cell), Connor (a former marine), Rianna (an African-American female...no really, that’s her name) and Hopper (an Asian-American engineer). Unfortunately, apart from one scene where Connor tells Hopper he should sit out a meeting with some other rebels because they ‘probably don’t like Asians’ there isn’t anything remotely interesting about them or their interactions. Half-way through one of the main characters dies and while we’re supposed to care I wasn’t really bothered.

Likewise, the plot is paper-thin and the only twist/surprise can be seen a mile away. The plot and some mechanics also do a disservice to the excellent atmosphere created by the game. At one point you come across mass graves of American civilians, it’s a chilling moment – ruined by Connor suddenly screaming ‘motherfuckers’, shooting at the patrolling guards and then prompting a 10 minute cover-based firefight that culminates in you having hide under dead bodies with the on screen button prompt of, and I kid you not;

“Press X to Hide in Mass Grave”

*sigh*

The ending of the game is also somewhat bewildering. Not because it leaves things open – this was clearly intended to be the first game in a series and the story of how the resistance to GKR occupation took it’s first steps towards reclaiming America – but because in the space of about 3 seconds a main character decides to sacrifice himself to save the mission. I don’t want to give away too many details but you spend the prior 30 minutes fighting improbable odds, then you get a quick cut away to somereinforcements – you’re thinking, alright, I guess we have to kill them too – but then your squad-mate decides he’ll just off himself to save the day.There’s zero build up to what should be a very dramatic moment -  he just sees the bad guys and then he’s off toget himself killed and I’m left there with the controller thinking;

i.                    Wait...what just happened? Did he just kill himself? Did the game just end?

And

ii.                  He really didn’t need to do that. At all. Particularly since we spent the rest of the game fighting similarly bleak odds.

                      

It would be like an alternate cut of Return of the Jedi where, when Lando Calrissian is flying deep in the bowels of the Death Star, lines up to shoot the reactor core and then at the last minute decides to fly the Millennium Falcon into it killing himself and poor Nien Nub – roll credits. What. The. Fuck?

Gameplay-wise I think Homefront got a bad rep from a lot of mainstream reviewers as it’s a perfectly serviceables hooter. The aiming and movement mechanics are generally tight and there’s a nice weapon selection. It’s completely linear and scripted but so are the single player experiences of most first person shooters. It doesn’t have the sharpness of the CoD engine and it doesn’t have the destruction found inB attlefield but it’s still fun to aim down the sights and take out bad guys.

The biggest shortcoming of the single-player is the length. I am not particularly great at shooters but I finished this game on the default (Normal) difficulty setting in three and a half hours! While I don’t expect shooters to have 20+ hours of gameplay, three and a bit hours is frankly ridiculous. I’m not particularly upset since I bought this game used for less than ten dollars but if I picked it up for full price I would have been pissed.

There is a very robust multiplayer component to the game but since I bought it used I’d have to pay $10 for an online pass to be able to play beyond the first 5 levels (of player progression). I hit level 5 in about 40 minutes and while it’s a fun experience with some neat ideas (you use points you get from killing enemies/achieving objectives to purchase in-match vehicles, weapons, etc) I would still rather play Battlefield 3 or even CoD.

Despite some pretty poor scores from high-profile gaming sites (Gamespot gave it a 4/10) Homefront still managed to sell around a million copies – largely in part to some very aggressive (and undoubtedly expensive) marketing. Unfortunately, expectations from publisher THQ were much higher and this resulted in the closure of the developer Kaos Studios.  It’s a shame because there are some very neat ideas here. Fortunately, Crytek Nottingham have been tasked with making a sequel which makes me quite excited. I really loved Crysis 2 and hope Crytek’s Nottingham studio is as talented as their Frankfurt one.

Lavan