Homefront (PC, PS3, XB360)
Studio: Kaos
Size: Full disk (about 8 gigs)
Release: March 15, 2011

Invaders must die!

Homefront is one hell of a ride. Its an intense, balls-to-the-wall action game that is frenetic, fast paced, and very much enjoyable! During my test-run I got to play through the first two levels and from what I could see, Homefront is every bit the game I have been anticipating… Maybe even more.

The game was written by John Milius, who co-wrote Apocalypse Now and wrote/directed Red Dawn. That says a lot right there. In the very first cutscene, the game gives you a very clear understanding of the predicament the US is in. Its royally fucked. North and South Korea have joined forces under Kim Jong Eils’ son’s regime. Over the span of 14 or so years, Korea’s power increases as America goes down hill. It culminates in Korea occupying the US. When your player comes into the picture, he is being forced out of his residence by Korean Peoples Army personnel into a bus. As you ride down the street with several other prisoners, you look out the window at the horrors taking place in your hometown: Montrose, Colorado.

Homefront is a very aesthetically pleasing game. If you combined Call of Duty: Black Ops with Resistance 2, Homefront is what you would get. The level design consists of you fighting your way through back yards, destroyed houses, urban streets, and any shit left in the wake. In one area, I had to walk through a destroyed airplane IN someones back yard. The shards of metal and wiring jutting from the planes fuselage was very cool looking. As for particles and filters, Homefront didn’t leave them out in the cold. In fact, they are used quite liberally throughout the game. The shaders and textures are high quality, but not incredible. They are about on par with the bitmaps in Killzone (If you looked really close at anything in Killzone, you know what I’m talking about). As far as character design… its ok, but it sure isn’t Uncharted. Here is a pointer, don’t look at child models… You will find yourself wanting to shoot them. As far as gameplay goes, there are quite a few weapons. All of which are VERY satisfying to use. They look good and represent real guns. You get grenades and C4, but I think the best thing is Goliath. Goliath is a minigun-wielding, rocket firing UGV. You have a designator. he has the firepower. together, you fuck shit up and watch Koreans fly while screaming funny little death screams.

As far as the technical aspects of the game…. Well lets just say, I hope some patches come out fast. I did my game test on the PC and had a plethora of problems. Lets start with the audio. All the minor sound effects (wind blowing, fire crackling, footsteps) were WAY louder than the characters voices. Whenever I brought up the menu, it would regulate the audio for a few minutes till it would fall back into disarray.  Even though the sound equality was balls out-of-wack, they still sounded pretty good. The optimization was awful. I’m going to assume that its system-specific. On my system, I couldn’t hardly play the game on the lowest settings. Knowing that this must be bullshit, I pumped it up to full throttle and it worked great… I don’t even want to fucking think about how that worked. Other than that, the controls were tight and worked perfectly. For a cover based, headshot style shooter, its very important to have pin controls. If I may say, these controls were indeed pin. Everything snapped well, heads were easily visible, camera drift was well calculated. It was good. Over all (except for a few bugs that I would assume are specific to PC) the game is almost perfectly crafted. No falling through the floor like in Wet.

As for how M it is… Its M. quite M. While on the bus at the beginning, I didn’t even notice that anything important was going on outside until I heard a gunshot and blood splattered all over the window. After that, I noticed mothers and fathers being gunned down in cold blood as their child watched in horror. Screams and crying could be heard at any moment. Body bags everywhere. rotting corpses. The blood that comes off enemies is stringy as visceral. I didn’t notice any gore, but hey, it wasn’t missed very much. According to ESRB, you wont get any decapitation surprises either as the rating only contains “Blood, Strong language, and Violence”. There is language too. Everyone says Fuck. I liked that. Fuck is a fun word. All in all, this game isn’t as gory or disturbing as it is scary and disconcerting on a very deep level. I got shivers several times during my play. The game is scary because all of what happens is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE.

Demo: None. I doubt there will be one either.

Fucked-0-meter:     [*******-__]     7 and 1/2 out of 10

FU Rating:                  [********__]     8 out of 10

Final verdict: This game may actually be too much for some players. Its real. Its in your face. Its fighting in your fucking back yard! I advise this game very heartily.