Story:
Homefront developed by THQ is a first person action shooter, for those who missed my last post heres the story;
"Its the 2027 after the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jon-il, he son Kim Jon-un takes over power and unites South and North Korea to form the Korean republic, giving them the power to create a stable country both economically and military wise. All ready in conflict with Japan, Korea begin training up using American weapons and modern military training, building both a large and strong military unit via other eastern Asian countries. With all this training and the new experience Korea is then able to invade the USA, with precise military attacks including an EMP strike."
Without giving to much away, the campaign opening scenes begins with speech from the year 2011 of Hillary Clinton explaining how North Korean submarines are found to be guilty of firing a torpedo taking the lives of almost 50 South Koreans. A variety of news report audio is then played discussing the threat North Korea opposes with there rise in military weapons. The news report flash through the years to the year 2024, showing the invasion of Korean military launching attacks and over throwing America, causing death and destruction.
As the player the game begins with you waking up in an old room, in a house with the suburbs, military Korean soldiers then break in to your room, questing your rebellion against Kim Jon-un before taking you prisoner and placing you on a bus with another prisoner. Once on the bus the game allows to look out the windows showing the player the horror of what is actually going on. The normally friendly peaceful suburban streets are filled with Korean soldiers beating, torturing, shooting and capturing innocent American civilians.
After you seen enough you are then saved by your friend by the name of Connor, where the actually game-play then begins and from then on the game is basically you and too other companions fighting your way the suburbs until you reach California to fight off the Koreans.
The game-play overall wasn't to bad, although the story itself is extremely short lasting about 5 hours give or take. Despite the disappointing length I enjoyed the storyline and was able to immerse my self deep within it, imagining my self in the situations the game put me in. I honestly felt at times I was both playing and watching a movie, the music felt very similar to Uncharted at times with a more modern action movie twist, in other words dramatic and mellow at the right times and good cut scenes. Although the missions unfortunately aren't much of a challenge and the checkpoints are also pretty close to together making it easier to progress even if you die a few times. I felt I breezed through this game with only a few moments where I felt a little challenged and had put a bit more effort.
The AI, was not done well at all, I found my self getting stuck within doorways, with AI pushing me or trying to walk through me. The AI has been scripted so basically it just does its job at a particular time and will continue to do so until it succeeds, not taking into account the players character and programming the AI in a way to react to players positions or movements.
The were also a few glitches within the campaign, at times I would get stuck trying to climb objects and be forced to restart to checkpoint, which wasn't a big deal, as I mentioned earlier checkpoints are regular. AI spawns were really ridiculously random I would find my self shooting an enemy, and a second or so later a new enemy would spawn right in front of me in the same spot. What really annoyed me is that the credits glitched and just gave me a black screen with music at the end until I pressed 'A' and returned to menu, not a big deal but I still felt robbed!
The controllers feel quite smooth and easy to get used, although the running at times feels it could be a little bit faster, if I had to compare I would say the weapon use and fluidity feels a bit like Call of Duty, where as the players movement and pace feels alot like Battlefield. Sorry to make the comparison to these top well known FPS's, but as a player of both these popular franchises, I feel the developers; Infinity ward, Treyarch and EA have given gamers alot of new fun experiences, within this genre setting the bar for first person shooters.
The games soundtrack made the game feel like an action movie, great use of music which went well with every scene, reminded me of Uncharted and the feeling it of what's next with the dramatic music, keeping me immersed and playing to see what's next.
The character voice acting, was a little stiff and felt too scripted, felt very cheesy at times, witty remarks were sometimes repeated and the bad voice acting let it down, taking away from the movie like storyline.
The weapons sounds weren't great either, alot of the assault rifles sounded the same and some sounded as if they were silenced even though they weren't.
Graphics:
The environment and graphics differ from campaign to multi-player, the campaign gives reminded of the smooth and sharp colours of CoD , whereas the multi-player reminded more of Battlefield. Great use of colours not to dull, not to extrovert and enough to keep your interest. I played the game on the Xbox 360 and found the graphics to be a to be a pretty good standard, without a HD cable, I am unaware of the games visuals on other platforms.
(I haven't played enough Multi-player yet to review in depth , and I don't want to give any opinions before giving it more time =)
