Homefront

First of all, let's talk about the great big elephant in the room. Homefront's story is about North Korea somehow reuniting with South Korea, then taking over Japan and large portions of Southeast Asia, and ultimately invading and conquering most of the continental United States. This situation is farcical and clearly makes no sense at all. Why did they choose to tell such an idiotic story? Well, from what I've gathered, the original story was going to be about China taking over the US. That also would've been a bit far-fetched and unlikely, but it would've been far more realistic than North Korea. Blair Herter was right, those North Koreans can't even keep their populace from starving, much less mount a credible invasion. But apparently commercial interests in China would've been a bit upset at THQ, so they changed the adversarial role. I find it repugnant that corporate pressure perverted creative integrity, but that's business I suppose. In any case, the resulting game turned out to be a failure, and would've been so with or without the goofy plot.

The guns in this game have no way to switch firing modes.  The M16, for example, is a semi auto assault rifle, and cannot be fired in three round burst mode. Well, that's no good. That's no good at all. Why would this game depict modern warfare/near future warfare if it can't even get something as simple as the M16's three round burst right? Everyone knows that assault rifles have fire selectors that let you switch from semi auto to three round burst to full auto. This makes no sense. All the Rainbow Six games let you switch between firing modes. This is an important detail that the Homefront developers just forgot? That's inexcusable. All they had to do was map it to the D-pad, am I right? In Medal of Honor singleplayer, you could press the D-pad and it would switch firing modes. It made sense. I don't know where they thought people didn't need firing mode switches anymore. Sometimes, you might want to just fire single shots, to conserve ammo. Other times, you might want three round burst or full auto for more firepower. That's the whole point of having multiple firing modes.

Homefront is supposed to take place in the modern world. It's supposed to be a game about modern combat, of a sort. Modern assault rifles all have this feature, so why would they drop it from the game? Who do they think they are? All the Rainbow Six games were very good about being realistic and having the ability to switch fire modes! Those games were amazing, why have we gone backwards as the years have gone by? Who thinks this is a good idea?! I don't. I wish Rainbow Six would make a resurgence, I really do! This sort of casual nonsense has to end, damnit. M16A2s are renowned for having three round burst. It's what makes them different from M4A1s and CAR-15s, which fire full auto. Homefront takes place in the future, but that doesn't excuse the lack of fire modes. Are future guns going to be designed without fire mode selectors? I doubt it, I really doubt it. And I can guarantee you that in the future, people are still going to be using M16A2s and A4s (M16A2s with an RIS built in). In the near future, those guns will still be readily available.

There's nothing appropriate about making a game about modern or near-future warfare when you can't even portray the fire mode switching. This is a basic feature of most assault rifles and submachine guns. It is paramount to the experience. The lack of this is a disgrace.

I'd like to single out the grenade throw animation as particularly silly in presentation. It basically looks like you're throwing the grenade at something two feet in front of your chest, instead of actually winding back and throwing an overhand toss towards a target out in the distance. We're all familiar with throwing baseballs out to the outfield or back to the infield, and that's what you'd expect for the grenade animation. Instead, the character looks like he's a LARPer at a D&D convention throwing a magical pretend-fireball at a friend he's talking to a few paces away. It's just awfully conceived and realized, much like the rest of the game.

Also, the singleplayer campaign lasts about four to five hours. I don't know what to think, but this fucking pissed me off. I was quite disappointed when CoD 4 came out and lasted about 8 hours. That seemed incredibly short to me at the time. But now, 8 hours has kinda become the standard length for an FPS campaign. I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is. Now we're getting games like Homefront that are 4 hours long. When is this shit going to end? I was honestly looking forward to this game, too. Like many children of the 80s, I love Red Dawn, I love John Milius's work. But that's not enough love for four hours of content. Fuck Kaos and THQ for trying to ship four hours for 60 dollars. That shows a fundamental disrespect for gamers and I'd encourage all of you to refrain from buying this product.

Now, let's talk about some of the actual campaign content. There's one point early on in the story where you're given control over a remote-control uhhh... tank? It's called the Goliath, probably named after the remote-controlled explosive on treads from World War II. But yeah, as the resistance, they basically get access to an incredibly powerful remote-controlled tank that's equipped with heavy duty rocket launchers. And you use it in a big climactic setpiece to wipe out a North Korean offensive. Now... this is terrible. This is a horrible, horrible misstep. Why, you might ask? Doesn't it feel good to control a big 'ol tank and wipe out lots of enemies? Well sure, in a vacuum that sounds good. But this is supposed to be a spiritual successor to the film Red Dawn, isn't it? Didn't John Milius write the story and everything? Isn't this trying to evoke that nostalgia for an '80s classic? Well then, why would you want to actually demolish all of that goodwill by putting in such a powerful asset as the Goliath?

The entire point of Red Dawn, and supposedly Homefront, was that the young, outnumbered, plucky protagonists had to resort to guerrilla tactics and scrounge and hide from their numerically superior Commie occupying force. That was what was great about Red Dawn. The Wolverines couldn't just outfight their Soviet enemies, so they had to resort to guile and subterfuge and sabotage and, yes, even some luck. Showing us a technologically advanced and rocket launching tank on the side of the guerrilla fighters destroys all of that. Remember that scene near the end of the film where the Wolverines get ambushed and attacked by a few Hind attack helicopters? How would you have felt if at that moment, they just whipped out a remote-controlled attack helicopter of their own which flew out and destroyed all the Hinds? Would that have been a good choice on Milius's part? I hardly think so. I just don't understand what they were thinking when they put this tank in the game, it's wrongheaded and lacks a fundamental understanding of the theme they were trying to emulate.

Is this a good first person shooter about modern warfare? No.
Is this a good value for your money? No.
Is this a good spiritual successor to Red Dawn? No.
Is this a good game? No.