Homefront Review

Homefront was a game I was expecting to be terrible going in, I was expecting myself to play and dislike it as much as the campaigns to Battlefield Bad Company 2, Battlefield 4, Medal of Honor 2010, Medal of Honor Warfighter and Ace Combat Assault Horizon but surprisingly, I got some enjoyment out of it, sure the game is a CoD clone to the point if you put a screenshot side by side of this and a CoD game from that gen, you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. Yes, games like Freedom Fighters are much more realized and better executed game with a similar premise. And yes, this game isn't going to win over the people who don't like these style of scripted military shooters but I'd say Homefront is an acceptable CoD clone than an insufferably bad one like the aforementioned games. I'd say it's a CoD clone on par with the James Bond games from the Activision era.

Two of the big reasons as to why is that for one, it checkpoints well, rarely if ever has moments where the scripting becomes so obvious that it breaks the illusion like say prison to ski lift shootout in Battlefield 4 or that building sniper section in Medal of Honor Warfighter and the game is pretty short and goes by quickly like a movie does. Another good thing it does, and this could be as a negative for some but the game tells you during it's more scripted sections who to kill and what precisely to do during them meaning there be less restarts because of ambiguity of not being able to tell what to do during scripted sections.

The gunplay is pretty similar to CoD especially the CoDs in the 7th gen, you got the two weapon limit, grenades that will rarely be used since all you fight are human infantry soldiers, lots of interchangeable hitscan weapons where reliable aiming is through ADS and the difference between them being the various attachments, but it does replicate CoD's combat decently enough, at least weapons have decent firing sounds and damage animations to enemies have decent feedback.

However one thing I do like is that using the sniper does not require you to hold your breath and you can fire away with it which makes it a weapon I want to use. I also like that weapons run out of ammo pretty often even on easy meaning I have to use guns enemies use from time to time which makes combat slightly more dynamic.

There are some cool moments like battling on the San Franciso bridge, escourting multiple trucks while riding a helicoptor(this never got as obnxious as the protect missions in Ace Combat Assault Horizon), and fighting through a store where the infamous white posphorous scene happens.

Some negatives is that easy mode doesn't make a difference since your player character's health is pretty low even on that difficulty. CoD's easy modes does at the very least give you more HP.

The story also isn't that good but at the same time, I'm more annoyed by the silent protagonist since the characters talk to him a lot and he never says a word. I find the concept to be wildely outdated especially in games where the story involves characters interacting with each other.

There was glitch where an NPC was supposed to open a door but it wouldn't causing me to restart the mission and then have it happen when getting to that part again.

Overall, for a game I was expecting to be completely garbage, I kind of liked it, is it something you should go out of your way to play? No but if you want something to beat in an afternoon or weekend, you could do worse than this.