Homefront: The art of hyperbole
Homefront is an example of a beautiful deception that has become a practice standard within the video game industry through the art of hyperbole. Turning nothing into something is an interesting use of false words and excitement to trick people into doing what they otherwise would not. However, it's also plaguing an industry that was once a stepping stone of innovation and technology. Why was Homefront such a disappointment? Let's find out:
Where Homefront fails the single player tries to make up for with intense fire fights and explosions that, unfortunately, runs dry with an uninteresting cast of characters, and dumb AI. For the most part the player doesn't need to do any of the heavy work, with the exception of painting targets for the RC Goliath to shoot at, destroying enemy vehicle road blocks, and taking out snipers which the player themselves need to accomplish to progress to the next chapter. Since the resistance team members, whom you fight with, do all the work, nor can they take damage nor die, the game itself feels a bit unpolished when the only easy way to beat the game is to ride the coat tails of the team mates until the player reaches the final act. Not to mention moments where the team mates will crouch in the same location, mere inches from the enemy, failing to see each other, eliminating the believability of the current situation. It's a simple, yet, lazy and unsatisfying, experience that leaves the player feeling empty considering that the game is only 3-4 hours in length. The setting for Homefront, however, is one of the most memorable themes that has ever embarked the market of video game entertainment.
The theme of a Korean occupied America painting the suberban landscapes with hate, despair, sadness, concentration camps and death will build-up the emotions of the player to take out any, and all, who stand in the way. Unfortunately, once the story begins, and the chaos ensues, everything will quickly be forgotten and replaced with the sense of disappointment due to it's lack of believabilty and environmental detail.
Compared to what was shown with promotional videos of interviews and multiplayer gameplay action from Kaos Studios, the sense of realizm is deminished with a bland, unimaginative, character and environmental detail. The trees that inhabit the game world look sickly with seemingly only a few leaves attached to them, bushes are as bland as a cardboard cut-out, and overall it seems that the SpeedTree technology used to create the environments was replaced with the toolsets that made Counter Strike and/or the XBLA game: Breach. For a AAA title, that is unexceptable.
With all of this, the online multiplayer portion of Homefront sports the Battlefield persona that attracted the masses. What you may have thought about this game - it is not. Despite the lack of detail the online maps, again, just as with the single player campaign, lack imagination and creativity. Couple this with a slow moving character, whom runs faster than he does sprint, and you've got yourself a slow moving, lack luster, title.
For what it's worth, Homefront has its moments of enjoyment. But it also should of been a downloadable only game. It would've been cheaper on everybody involved. At best it's worth a bargain bin purchase and/or a weekend rental. Disappointing.
