Homefront

As I've said throughout this review, the game is filled to the brim with genuine heart wrenching moments that are compelling and real. The writing of Milius shines through in every facet of the game. Clearly the guys at Kaos are looking to build a franchise, and if Homefront is any indication of how that franchise begins I'm looking forward to seeing what's next.

It is a breath of fresh air in a genre that tends to recycle the same old thing.

Homefront is the shooter-surprise of the last couple of years. A new setting about real threats and the great story telling are catching my attention. And on top of it, you have a really good Multiplayer, a mix of Call of Duty and Battlefield with some extra fine gameplay notes.

This is a gritty, brilliantly made shooter that will shake you up more than once, backed by a powerful story and the kind of action that you'd come to expect from a top-tier entry in the genre.

At times, too creatively conservative - but an engrossing, cleverly realised shooter with CoD-beating multiplayer.

Maybe the tasks are familiar, but the gritty concept of the game and its great multiplayer experience makes Kaos Studio's battlefield a great one. Fans of team-based online shooters will want to spend a lot of time on Homefront.

I love this game, and despite a few forgivable flaws Homefront is easily one of the most immersive and emotional campaigns that come to mind in my 30 years of gaming. Sure, the campaign is short. Deal with it. With that ending there is either going to be a sequel or some killer DLC. Meanwhile, you can reap the rewards and satisfaction of some of the best multiplayer combat we've seen so far in 2011.

The Multiplayer is fine how it is, the way I see it. As long as it maintains a healthy community of active players, it'll be around for a while.

Homefront is shocking, realistic and atmospheric. Unfortunately, your fight for freedom ends quickly. Good thing there is a sweet multiplayer mode.

Kaos Studios should be proud as they have done a highly commendable job of reinventing ideas we've seen in Frontlines , piecing them into a more cohesive palatable story and releasing a new game which feels accomplished and easy to play.

The story is way too short and the multiplayer doesn't deliver the fun you know from the Call of Duty or Battlefield games.

If you've been looking forward to Homefront since last year's E3 like we have, you'll be glad to know that Kaos has delivered a truly fantastic shooter. And if you're the kind of gamer that values quality over quantity, then you'll definitely want to check it out.

I have to admit that I had high hopes for Homefront. So the question remains, did it live up to the hype? Overall I would have to say yes, but there is a caveat here; don't expect it to be the best game ever. The story is solid, and there are some great turning points in the plot, but it just comes to an end too quickly.

Taken by itself, Homefront's campaign is just plain disappointing. A promising concept ultimately falls flat in the fast-paced, "I don't have time for reading" first-person shooter genre. Once you've accomplished all of the objectives in single-player, the game just "ends". Someone obviously wanted to leave room for a sequel. That person is saved by Homefront's well-designed multiplayer.

Homefront manages to deliver a decent FPS experience with a strong multiplayer experience and an interesting story arc.

Whether it's worth adding to your FPS library, however, depends largely on your own multiplayer desires. [May 2011, p.83]

The singleplayer-campaign may have nice story ideas and its iconic moments, but with only three to four hours of playtime and its disappointing and confusing ending, Homefront is certainly not worth your money, if that's what you are mainly interested in. If you are into multiplayer, it's a completely different story though! Nice Maps and Modes, exciting battles and a motivating XP-system make Homefront a worthy diversion until the release of BF3.

A gripping, disturbing tale that doesn't have the moves - or tech - to match its ambitions. [May 2011, p.78]

Homefront's campaign misfires all revolve around poor pacing and a lack of identity. It's not as polished or as fast-paced as Call of Duty: Black Ops or Bulletstorm, but it's also not as tactical or true-to-life as Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Its multiplayer, where those issues aren't a problem, is worth a look, even if you have to pony up for $10 when renting it without an online pass code.

A decent title game a campaign that doesn't meet expectations, but with a great and unique multiplayer mode.

I also find it intriguing that my journalistic brethren so easily throw a new IP like Homefront under the bus after lavishing perfect scores upon the laughably flawed Black Ops and Halo: Reach. With a few tweaks and a fresher paint of coat, Homefront would have been outstanding, far outshining either of those titles. As is, it's still worth a playthrough.

I'll say it right now: if you're considering buying Homefront today, it needs to be for the multiplayer. The campaign should only serve as a small distraction that you might want to goof around in if you're bored and have already gotten your money's worth out of the multiplayer.

With open battlefields, near-future toys, and fast pacing, Homefront's multiplayer is the real reason to purchase this game. It may not explode with content, but what it does, it does well.

Homefront does a whole lot right, delivering powerful imagery and actions on the single-player side, as well as interesting multiplayer alterations, but neither end feels fully realized. But I won't hesitate to recommend Homefront on the overall strength of its stilted campaign, which consistently delivers strong set pieces and alluring atmospheric moments amidst the chaotic combat.

The campaign's history is great, but it's far too short. Multiplayer makes up for that, offering interesting ideas that will keep us busy for a long time.

All told, the online component has all the right ingredients, and it manages to mix them into a mighty tasty meal. Multiplayer rescues the abrupt campaign from a rent-it-and-forget-it fate, although we can't help but be left a bit disappointed.

It is not without some minor freshman bumps, but the overall package is one of the more compelling so far in 2011.

Homefront doesn't provide a long single player campaign, and the good narrative doesn't feel fully developed. On the other hand, multiplayer is interesting and funny.

I had fun with the multiplayer game. The maps are well-designed, the action is good, the drones are great, and the game's dedicated servers make for a lag-free experience. It's a completely different scenario from the frustrating, buggy, and short single player campaign. So your buy decision will come down to how much you time you plan on putting into the multiplayer game. If multiplayer isn't your thing, you'll probably want to pass on the game.

Homefront's story-driven element is a disappointment, but you'll still probably return for a repeat visit. The multiplayer on the other hand is a far more inviting prospect and will likely burn up a fair few hours, days, weeks and even months if you catch the bug.

In the end, Homefront is a solid experience even if it doesn't quite deliver what it promised. As a FPS, it's competent. As a story device, it does tells a tale, just not quite the way it was billed out. The issues Homefront has are not terrible individually, though some may think twice once they are all lined up side by side.

Homefront succeeds in many areas. It's an improvement in storytelling and multiplayer in every way over their first game, Frontline: Fuel of War, and Homefront shows that in many areas they've clearly listened to the fans of their (underappreciated) first game. It's not the killer single player experience that having someone such as John Milius onboard should have given us, but it's still an enjoyable, if slightly dated, and short, experience.

While Homefront's overhyped single player campaign is a bit of a disappointment, it's under-hyped multiplayer portion is where the real fun is at.

It features plenty of enemies, some pretty awesome locations, and a killer premise. Though the story falls flat about halfway through, and the game needs at least five more chapters to feel complete, you will have lots of fun in the short amount of time that you do have with the single player.

Complemented by absorbing environments and evocative imagery, Homefront's presentation succeeds in immersing players in its plausible nightmare. Sadly, a weak script, unremarkable gameplay, and a short campaign undermine much of the promise in solo play.

Homefront didn't manage to deliver on its high potential: for a very good plot and solid gameplay, we find an excessive shortness in the single player experience, a lacking multiplayer and an unpolished techical side.

War isn't pretty and this horrifying tale of war on American soil makes for a heartfelt adventure. While the core gameplay feels a little "behind the times," the setting and narrative keeps things fresh.

One of the most interesting shooters of the year. [Issue#108, p.114]

Solid, but the story never grips you like was hoped, and before you know it the end credits are rolling. [Issue#70, p.83]

Homefront doesn't live up to the hype and suffers from a short campaign that will only entertain you for four hours. The graphics aren't great and the many glitches don't help either. Homefront's best points are its multiplayer and its brilliant vibe.

Homefront doesn't live up to its expectations. The emotional and atmospheric story of the (way too short) single-player slowly changes into an over-the-top first-person shooter that lacks in character. Homefront is one of the biggest disappointments of 2011, while the game in and of itself, isn't that bad.

Homefront is a game that will live or die based on its online component. For $60, if you are investing solely for the single-player campaign, you are truly wasting your money. The multiplayer has the potential to be something amazing with a few tweaks and a better selection of maps, currently there just aren't enough.

Homefront does enough to be an enjoyable and memorable ride, and enough to distinguish itself. Given everything that it had going for it though, Homefront could and probably should have been much more.

If you're strictly interested in what the single-player game has to offer, then you're better off renting this. It's short, not particularly outstanding, and doesn't deliver on its premise very well. If you're willing to delve into the multiplayer segment, you'll have a lot of fun with Homefront.

If you hate online multiplayer, avoid Homefront like you would a naked laughing man, waving his own severed leg in the air. If you're in it for the multiplayer, then it offers a clean, coherent and genuinely entertaining experience.

As the FPS genre marches towards a Call of Dutified heat death, it seems success is based more on the strength of a brand than any semblance of innovative game design. Homefront is only adding to this growing mass of homogeneous goo but at the very least it's a solid game with moderately entertaining mechanics; completely generic but generally agreeable nonetheless.

Homefront's campaign tells a good story, but that's about the only thing it does exceptionally well. The action is fun, but nothing special, and it sometimes feels so rigidly scripted that it's almost stifling. Meanwhile, the radically different multiplayer stands out as a much better game, with chaotic, drone-and-vehicle-filled action that's just fun an involving enough to make Homefront worth picking up.

Homefront's engrossing vision of the future and gratifying competitive multiplayer outweigh its squandered potential and workaday game mechanics.

Incredibly rough around the edges, wasteful of unique opportunities, and light on content, we quite frankly question the longevity of this title. But you know what? There are worse games you could spend your money on.

Homefront is a good game, capable of entertaining the fans of the FPS genre only for a short period of time in singleplayer. The overall quality of the multiplayer is good but it's clear from where Kaos Studios took the inspiration, and it's not able to surprise us with entirely fresh new ideas.

With its interesting premise, evocative opening sequence, and clever variation on multiplayer, Homefront has a strong foundation. It's a shame that technical limitations and a derivative single-player campaign keep the game from realizing its potential.

There's enough material within Homefront's concept for it to spiral into something more interesting, and with plenty of talk about a sequel it's clear that's what THQ and Kaos is looking for, but this first crack of the whip falls far short of the competition.

Homefront is worth checking out.

One of the most unique shooters I've ever played, driven by an ingenious and surprisingly well-fleshed out plot and a dark and dreary, realistic setting. But it also controls and feels like a typical shooter, looks like a game that's several years old, and most importantly, has an inexcusably brief campaign.

Homefront comes off as the K-ration of first-person shooters: Satisfying in a pinch, but why would you eat it if there's anything else around?

Homefront is a decent shooter but with a short play through time and limited online multiplayer, not to mention no offline multiplayer, it just doesn't seem worth full the retail value.

It's apparent that the story and atmosphere of the game is much more important than actual gameplay.

THQ assures that Homefront tries to be something different in the FPS genere, but it's just another copy & paste from the Call of Duty series. Only the multiplayer modes, which have their own gameplay style, are the highlights of a game with a repetitive and short campaign, along with many features that need improving.

A competent shooter but one that fails to innovate, expand or better what we've already seen from this genre. The multiplayer is a bit of a diamond-in-the-rough but, due to its 'me too' similarities to the competition, it's unlikely to win over fans of the established franchises for long.

FPS with a lot of potential, but in the end falls short in every area.

This isn't necessarily a downright disaster of a game, but you sure as hell have played it before.

THQ should have made a deal with MGM to turn Homefront into a tie-in for the upcoming Red Dawn remake. That game would have been way better than what we have now.

Despite being written by John Milius, the characters lack any hint of personality, though, and ultimately the single-player campaign is short and disappointing.

Kaos Studios manage to offer an intense campaign with several memorable moments in what seems to be a very faithfully-realized urban American environment. Unfortunately, the campaign easily ends in less than five hours, making it hard to recommend it to anyone who is not interested in the competitive multiplayer portion of the game.

There is nothing wrong with Homefront from a technical point of view, but as a whole the game feels incomplete. The extremly short single player campaign and the large but anonymous multiplayer mode gives me the feeling that something is askew, and that I'm missing out on a great experience.

Homefront is a pleasant diversion at best. At worst, it's a sub-par action game riddled with flaws and design missteps. Perhaps an option for pressing "A" and skipping the entire campaign would have been better advised.

Homefront is a solid, if uneven, experience that features an excellent multiplayer mode, with a very average single-player campaign attached.

The storyline just has an amateurish overall feel to it, and the adventure is over almost before it even started. The multiplayer component somewhat saves the day, but in the end, Homefront is a big letdown.

There isn't enough game in Homefront The Game to contain Homefront The Multimedia Concept. It would work great as a film, and works just fine as a game-based counter-culture argument against the complacency of modern Americans. As a game, however, it just doesn't cut it.

Homefront is a classic first-person shooter, of which you could say it's efficient. But its looks seem old, it lacks ambition for its solo, and its multiplayer is scrawny, barely offering the minimum. It's a shame, because its story remains good, but a good game isn't a great game, and it's not like there's no great FPS out there.

For a team based shooter, I'd say it's on par with the entertainment value of the early Battlefield games like 1942. In the end, you have to weigh how much value the multiplayer is going to be for you. If you love alternate reality shooters, I would say try renting the title before looking for a cheap used copy (assuming you love the team based multiplayer).

Kaos obviously had ideas for this game, yet seemingly couldn't bring any of those ideas to total fruition. The end result is a brief, brittle campaign bereft of impactful storytelling or creatively designed action, one that ends not with a bang, but with the build-up to a bang, followed by a title card.

It's a shame that Homefront's gameplay is so blunt and creatively barren, as the world Kaos has built around their (ludicrous) premise is superb.

Homefront floats in the limbo between "not bad" and "pretty good", and is hamstrung by a single-player element that feels like a half-hearted obligation. What's most disappointing is that Homefront wanted so much to join COD and Battlefield at the top of the genre, but has ended up as merely a weekend timewaster for players waiting for the next shooter fix.

The core focus of Homefront is online but with rival releases doing this just as well if not better, there isn't any real incentive. A fun rental perhaps, but spend your money elsewhere and you'll thank us.

Although Homefront has a compelling multiplayer and a interesting story, its singleplayer campaign storytelling and lack of player involvement is no short of being awkward. With its average game mechanics and bad design choices, it really isn´t a game one could recommend except for the most action-hungry FPS-players.

It's a shame the game engine isn't flashier, because it does put up a good fight, but without a sexy bullet point like Killzone's graphics, Bad Company's destructible buildings, or MAG's 256 players, it's going to be hard to draw new players in.

The question then (and isn't the question always some variation on this?) is how did Kaos Studios and THQ go from that great germ of an idea to the brain-dead, dull and frankly pretty lousy final product they're releasing today?

If you're looking for the total package, Homefront doesn't even come close. Gamers wanting a fulfilling story-driven single-player campaign should take the next bus to Playing Half-Life 2 Again Town. But fans of competitive multiplayer should at least give Kaos' latest a look, even if it's unlikely to replace their shooter of choice.

Its faults are many, but they're magnified by the obvious comparison: this isn't an alternative to COD, but a game in thrall to it. [Apr 2011, p.84]

But the problem with Homefront isn't just that it sucks, which it certainly does. The problem is that it reveals just how badly many first-person shooters are starting to suck. It's a game that magnifies the preexisting trend of developing to the lowest common denominator.

It is difficult to say anything good about Homefront. It's a half-baked idea crammed into a half-baked game, and while I'll freely admit that a quasi-realistic military-style first-person shooter with a heavy focus on the multiplayer mode is not exactly my cup of tea, I've played enough of them at this point that I feel confident in saying when one has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Scenario and atmosphere are here. The rest is just missing or undermined by flaws, from its dramatically brief campaign to the numerous technical limitations. What came as a challenger for Call of Duty doesn't even end up close to a good FPS. So much for the promises, Kaos Studios.