HomeFront

Giving the Americans a taste of their own medicine, Homefront is the story of a country invaded as the North Koreans march into the good old US of A. The dog-worriers promptly set about enslaving everyone and generally acting like Uncle Sam’s worst nightmare. Only a handful of freedom fighters survive to try and restore truth, justice and the American way. No prizes for guessing which side you are on in this game…

A first-person shooter, Homefront attempts to cash in on the current trend that Modern Warfare is to blame for, but fails in almost every department. It is far too heavily scripted in single player mode that you really do feel that you have no control over where you go or what you do next. If you look at games such as Fallout 3 where you can literally choose to go and do anything you want to, this is the complete polar opposite. Maybe it is the developers little in-joke that anyone who plays this has no freedom to do anything but follow the oppressive script, but this drains any replay factor away from what could have been an engrossing game.

 
Before playing this game I was quite looking forward to what, according to the blurb splashed all over the box, comes from the same creative talent that brought us Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now. Wonderful. Two of my favourite films. Any enthusiasm, I had quickly disappeared once I had started playing though, as all the hype gave way to what was yet another Call of Duty clone. And not a very good one at that.

 
Considering the writing pedigree behind this that is rammed down your throat, the story itself is rather weak. The very concept of it is one that will never happen – that of North Korea invading America – but even if you suspend disbelief it is still one that is riddled with clichés and it isn’t hard to guess the events of the game before they even happen.

 
The solo game is incredibly short and unoriginal, and the multi-player effort is also one that you have seen before, albeit handled with more care and attention to detail than what we have here. This seems to be a common theme throughout the whole game, cherry-picking gaming moments from other more popular titles and including them here, albeit with all the style and playability sapped out of them.

 
Sure there are good points to this game, the impressive graphics in particular making it is a very detailed affair to play through, but the bad heavily out-weighs the good. You really have seen it 100 times before. Yawn.