Developer: Dambuster Studios
Publisher: Deep Silver
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: Xbox One
Homefront: The Revolution – Review
Even though the first Homefront game was developed by the now bankrupt THQ, its legacy lives on after Deep Silver picked up the pieces. While it seems not much has changed when it comes to the backstory of the game, things have received a modernized coating, but it seems Deep Silver’s knack for releasing bug riddled games has not changed at all. We decided to take the plunge into a world where the United States are being controlled by North Korea, as they were unable to pay off their debts.
Story
Homefront: The Revolution plays itself out in the same alternative universe as the original Homefront. Instead of America being the ‘top’ country of the world, all the glory went to North Korea, whose technology is spread all over the world. Due to this, America has a massive amount of debt towards North Korea, and when they can’t pay what they owe, the backdoor of all the chips delivered to the United States renders all of their technology useless. In a state of chaos, the North Koreans, called ‘Norks’ by the population show up and act like the savior. Sadly, it becomes clear rather fast that they are there to oppress the people and those who don’t fall in line get liquidated.
You, Ethan Brady, are a new asset for the resistance, and you’re expecting a personal audience with Benjamin Walker, who is aptly named ‘the Voice of Freedom’. Walker is considered the face of the revolution and has a knack for inspiring people simply by using words, rather than actions alone. Of course, such a key figure has to be taken out, and thus the Norks track him down and arrest him, but spare his life, to publically execute him at a later date. You survive the attack and come in contact with the head honchos of the resistance, and it seems you are slowly becoming the new hope, as you’ll be given one task after another, and you keep coming back alive to complete even bigger important missions.
Overall the story value is rather slim and this is due to the fact that progress is made rather slowly and the plot itself is a fairly simple one. Nonetheless, the tone and the atmosphere are properly set, but in a game like this it’s often the gameplay that makes or breaks the game.
Graphics
Homefront: The Revolution leaves us with rather mixed feelings. Things like the weapon skins, some of the faces of main characters and certain sceneries are finished with topnotch graphics, while the rest is often done in a fairly mediocre way. Even though the world is filled with enough clutter to make things seem rather ‘full’, there are hardly any civilians, making it seem like there are more soldiers than actual inhabitants of the city. Also, the clutter itself is often copy pasted, making you come across the same obstacles over and over again. Also, the movement of the mouths of many of the main characters is horribly synchronized, making it seem like we went from Xbox One to the first Xbox.
Honestly, the game could have looked rather good, it there was a bit more ‘life’ added to the environments and if it wasn’t filled with more bugs and glitches than one could possible count. We haven’t found that many doors, where the arm of our character didn’t go right through when opening it, or invisible walls when trying to shoot through a fence with big open gaps. Well, we couldn’t shoot through the holes, the enemies could. Other things like getting stuck in passages, even though they were wide enough to let a bus pass, or constant frame drops truly spoil the party. It’s not a pleasant gaming experience, when action is swelling up, that the game moves like a picture book or when during the many autosaves the game simply freezes for five to fifteen seconds. It’s clear this game was hardly tested at all before it was released.
Sound
The music in Homefront: The Revolution is quite decent and serves more to set the right tone. When you are detected by the ‘Norks’ the music immediately comes to the foreground, with a certain dramatic undertone, while when everything is in order, you’ll be treated to a more subtle soundtrack.
All in all, the voice acting is on point and adds a certain sense of realism, which couldn’t be found in the buggy graphical prowess of the game. Decent and convincing voice acting carry the game to a certain extent, but there’s only so much this small part of the game can weigh up to the rest.
Gameplay
Homefront: The Revolution is an open world first-person shooter pretty much along the lines of the latest Far Cry installments. While comparing the game with the likes such as Far Cry might be a bold statement, it’s not that far off from the truth. Outside of the main objectives, you’ll occupy yourself with capturing or destroying many points on the map, such as enemy bases, activating resistance broadcasts, cutting off the power from the Norks, and so on. Nonetheless, beneath it all there is a rather generic shooter, with both fun features as well as very disappointing ones.
Overall the game will always be the same thing, namely you’ll get an objective and you’ll have to clear the target area of enemy opposition. All while you’ll be able to take over enemy encampments or key points, in order to gain more control of the area, or reduce the enemy patrols in said area. This is a formula that is being used in many games as of late, especially the Far Cry series, Mad Max, Just Cause and so on. When a formula works, there’s no point in changing it, even though it might become a bit overused by now. From time to time, the game does an effort to spice things up, forcing you to defend a base or something along those lines, granting you a small change of pace.
One thing Homefront does really good is the weapon system. Not how they handle, as this is actually rather subpar compared to other shooters, but the customization and overall arsenal you have at your disposal. The game will allow you to equip a lot of attachments, but also simply alter the gun itself into something different. Certainly a system that is amusing to mess around with. Your gear itself is a bit more bland, as it’s basically a system of passive upgrades and a shop for grenades and hacking tools. Nonetheless, there is some weaponry and gear to look forward to.
While the overall atmosphere of the game is spot-on, even though most of the areas are void of any innocent bystanders, the game quickly turns into a bland mess. There are different zones, one being guarded heavier than other, and while this is no real issue, it becomes rather annoying when the patrols spot you immediately when they have their backs turned towards you, or when they can fire through walls or even from outside a possible line of sight. Getting an occasional hit wouldn’t be a real issue, if you wouldn’t die after only a few hits. The overall difficulty level of Homefront: The Revolution is already high, even on the easiest difficulty setting, these bugs and annoying factors immediately crank up the difficulty once more, be it in a very unfair way.
The difficulty aside, the game is simply riddled with issues that should have been resolved before the game hit the stores. As mentioned before, frame drops and constant freezing hamper the flow of things and at times it makes the game simply unplayable. If you throw in atrociously long loading times, you have yourself a game where you’ll constantly be waiting to start or respawn, instead of actually properly playing the game.
For some reason the developers also implemented rather useless things. For example, you’ll find motorcycles scattered across the map, which you can commandeer to reach your destination quicker, at least that’s the idea. You’ll notice that with the clutter filled map you’ll have a hard time driving properly and in many ways walking will eventually get you to your destination quicker, especially when you’ve upgraded your running speed. You’ll constantly get stuck behind items with your bike, but you’ll constantly be stuck behind clutter anyway. Even in this area there are a lot of bugs. Also, the motorcycle would have been nice, if the map was actually open, as claimed by the creators, but it’s actually divided in small portions, which you’ll have to fast travel to, instead of actually being able to cross sections seamlessly. This makes the long loading times even more moronic.
Conclusion
Homefront: The Revolution has many great ideas but fails to execute them properly. While the proper atmosphere is present and there’s a fun weapon system to mess around with, it all gets covered in a very bug-riddled and bland blanket. While the game is still worth playing for fans of both the story and/or the original game, in its current state it should not have been released. This game still holds a fair amount of promising gameplay features, if they worked properly at least. As it currently stands, it’s a mediocre shooter that claims to be an open world experience, but even that is a promise they can’t keep.
Homefront: The Revolution - Review,
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