Homefront!

So last night I picked up a few games from the local Blockbuster, one of these was Homefront.

Homefront is a game I saw the trailers for before it's release, but never really saw any reason to buy it. I only picked it up because it was part of a 4 for £20 offer. Buy boy am I glad I bought this game...

WARNING: This game does contain distressing events and scenes, while I will try not to go into detail on them they will be mentioned from the very outset of this article. Do not read if you're easily upset/distressed.

Set in (If I remember correctly) 2026, you play an American military pilot, living in Korean occupied America. Kim Jong Il has died and Kim Jong Un has taken his place as North Korean leader (Slightly worrying, as since the game's release this has actually happened). Un has set out on global domination, probably saw his father's depiction in Team America and got pissed off or something, and America was one of his first targets after taking Japan and South Korea, among other less powerful countries. You are rudely awoken and literally kicked out of your house to be bundled into a bus, on your way for something referred to as "Repatriation". On the journey you see many atrocities, such as men being hooded and shot, a couple being shot on a street corner while their young child watches and other such events, it's clear from the off this game is not for the easily distressed. You learn from another prisoner on the bus that you are all in fact pilots, you've been picked especially. Before you have time to think this over there's a massive crashing noise and your bus flips over, killing the pilot prisoner who'd been talking to you, a man enters and kills the Korean soldiers while they're still disorientated, you grab a gun and follow him.

This man, you later learn is Connor, he's part of the resistance, a group of people fighting for the freedom of America against Korean occupation. Connor's somewhat of a loose cannon, something you see later in the story as you witness mass burials of American citizens, which he reacts to by picking a fight with around 20 - 30 Korean soldiers and 2 automated sentry turrets, leaving you and Hopper, the techy guy, to sneak around and take out the soldiers and turrets before Connor gets himself killed. Other key characters are Boone, the resistance leader, an ex state policeman, with a calculative mind and way with other people, whether they support him or not (Many people you come across are happy living in the terrible conditions the Koreans allow them, for fear of the backlash that may be brought by fighting them), and finally Rianna, the caring one of the group.

Without going too much into what happens in each mission and the story as a whole (as I highly suggest you buy and play this game for yourself, it really is worth it), I should say that this is possibly the first time I've played a game with an American soldier protagonist who I actually sympathise with, and it's so refreshing! In other big franchises, Call of Duty and Battlefield being the two most obvious, the American protagonists are almost always the stereotypical, movie style, American marine hero, never showing any emotions until their best friend dies and then finishing the mission in the name of revenge for their friend. They're often unbearable characters who are represented as the 'every-man-soldier' and yet at the same time are some sort of super soldier who can take any sort of physical punishment and emotional torment without shedding a drop of sweat. Being the son of an ex British soldier, and friend to many an American airman and a few soldiers/marines (I live near quite a few US air bases) I know this is not how they are. They are normal guys, like you and I, the only difference being that they're job is to kill terrorists in foreign countries and generally protect our freedoms. This is how our character, and his team mates, are represented! They're every day guys trying to help their country! I normally end up playing through the campaign to save the world or whatever the objective is without caring when a character dies, but when one of these guys died (I won't say who) I genuinely felt sympathy, it was like losing an acquaintance, not a friend of course, but almost like losing someone I'd actually known, the characters are that well done that you actually end up caring about them and their cause.

A character I must mention, who's so special that he gets his own paragraph, is Goliath. Goliath is a piece of Korean technology captured by the resistance, he plays a vital role in one of the major operations carried out by the resistance. He is a remote controlled vehicle, driven by Hopper, with 6 wheels, each with their separate suspension systems, making him very manuverable, and a mounted guided missile launcher which you get to control. He is your only defence against the many Humvees and tanks the Koreans send your way and withstands a lot of punishment. I got very attached to Goliath while playing, partly due to his suspension systems giving him quite goofy, yet fast and precise movement, but also due to his total obedience reminding me of a dog, specifically my own dog. I was actually quite sad to see him go when he does, especially the way in which he goes.

The graphics of this game are astounding, for a so far stand alone title. Usually a stand alone title will have worse graphics than that of the big franchise titles, however this has obviously been made with the aim of creating a unique game, rather than making the most profit, something not seen so often now. The environments are incredible, well designed and well constructed, not the samey, generic environments displayed in previously mentioned big name titles. Despite them being designed in such a way that you can only go the way your are supposed to, it still feels like you can explore, simply because there's so much detail and variety, you could easily spend a few minutes after each fight just examining the area around you.

One last major feature worth noting (this does contain some spoilers from later in the game, but doesn't give away the ending) is that when you enter a survivors camp, ignored by Koreans, they turn on you because Hopper is Asian. While sneaking your way through the camp you come across many cases of American survivors torturing captured Korean soldiers and in some cases Asian American citizens who've gone to them for help. They are slowly going insane and taking their now racist hatred out on anyone Asian, putting them through torture equal to what the Korean occupiers are putting American citizens through. This game makes no attempt to pretend Americans are morally superior, it shows you with no pretence that anyone can do anything given the excuse and opportunity. One such shocking scene, when sneaking through a stream and under a bridge in this camp, you see a some boards from the bridge fall down and an Asian man, clearly not wearing a Korean uniform, drop through the newly formed hole, eyes wide, until the noose stops his drop and he swings. This of course comes after seeing a group of American survivors shoot a Korean after he digs his own grave. Such distressing scenes show this game has no intention of glorifying war, or making Americans, as I said earlier, appear morally superior. It shows war as war, and humans as humans.

I'd give this game a 9/10. It's very different from most, challenging, fun, shocking. My only problems would be the campaign is too short (I rarely buy games for the multiplayer, unless it's a purely multiplayer based game of course) and the automated sentries with the spotlights got a little boring the third time around, well, not so much boring as straight up annoying. Otherwise a great game, a real bargain bin gem that I highly suggest you pick up and play when you have the chance.

I was originally going to do a 4 part "Bargain Bin Review", however that went by the by as I'm finding the other three games hard to get along with. I shall explain why for each here, though please do not take these as my long term opinions of them, they're more first impressions.

Fallout: New Vegas - This is the first Fallout game I've actually played. There are two reasons I'm not getting along with it, one is that I think the disc may be damaged (it is pre owned, after all) and as such I'm getting a rather laggy effect when I move, it stutters a bit, which after 20 minutes or so gets really irritating. The second is I'm finding the idea of guns in open world RPGs really hard to get used to. I play Skyrim a lot, and love open world RPGs in general, but what I think of is a more Skyrim style combat and setting, swords, spells, bows and arrows. Guns feel weird in this type of game, but that's purely personal preference. That said of course, I enjoy GTA thoroughly and loved Fable 2, which both heavily feature guns, so maybe it simply is just this game. In the future I shall look out for Fallout 3, as I'm told that's better anyway.

Medal of Honor - Firstly, it's spelt Honour, EA. There's a U there. That bugged me from the off, but I guess that's what comes of being British. Secondly, while the story seems interesting enough, it's another FPS set in  the middle east. Chasing the Taliban. Originality (as mentioned in the above full review) is nice, EA, but then I guess it doesn't sell so well. I've played 2 or 3 missions and couldn't drag myself any further, the controls are loose, that's the only way I can describe them. A flick of the control stick that a minute ago barely made me move will suddenly make my character run half a mile, it's very unpredictable. Dice, the developers, have obviously decided to try out a cover system, if you hit B while running towards cover your character will slide behind it. Well, that's what happens in theory. Sometimes it does, sometimes he just stops and crouches in the middle of cross fire. As for graphics, it looks like the guys developing the characters and animations split off from the guys designing the environments, and then they just stuck them together at the end. It does look like the characters and animations come from a different game from the environments.

Viking: Battle for Asgard -  Another open world RPG, I thought this looked great, and having played it it still does. The graphics are beautiful, the killing is gory and action packed. The opening sequence has me excited as a child on Christmas day, a game developed by Sega (who did my all time favourite game, JSRF) about Viking's with various English and Scottish accents (I'm not being patriotic, I just find the idea of Vikings with English and Scottish accents hilarious) narrated by Brian Blessed! What's not to like? Well, the one big problem with this game is there is almost no help whatsoever. Very little guidance as to what you're supposed to do, how to do it or anything. This kind of freedom can be good in games, often games don't have enough freedom. When I finally found who I was supposed to be talking to and what I was supposed to do, I did it with little trouble and a lot of fun, however once done, found myself again with no idea what I was to do next. So I wandered around looking for something to do, I ended up wandering into an enemy camp which I was severely under prepared for. This lack of guidance got really infuriating after the 5th or 6th time being slaughtered by going to the wrong area.

That's it for my review of Homefront, a solid 9/10 and my first impressions on 3 other games. I will go over most of my other games hopefully before buying any more.

~Rusty Mongrel.