Homefront: The Revolution review

That's a hard thing to say about a shooting game, admittedly. Homefront nails so much but somehow fails at the first hurdle of making an FPS - using the guns is rubbish - the assault rifle kicks all over the place so you can't engage with it, and eventually I found myself stuck to using a battle rifle and a pistol because they were the only guns I could reliably hit anyone with. I had a lot of time for Homefront because there are plenty of good ideas, but all of that time was spent fighting with the game's selection of weapons to actually hit anyone. Adding scopes to the mix later on didn't help much either, they just all handle fairly poorly.

The shooting feels bad when it happens to you, too. There's very little feedback offered when you're shot, and as the single and multiplayer modes both have waves of enemies assailing you from every direction, it can be tough to work out what the hell you're supposed to do to escape the withering gunfire before you drop dead.



It's a shame because there's just so much to like here. I love the relentlessly bleak atmosphere, and the idea of a technologically superior enemy that you're fighting with IED's, molotov cocktails and a smartphone. You really do feel like the insurgent, and as you slowly take command of the district you'll win over the support of the public, through a convenient hearts and minds gauge that tells you exactly how into you the folk on the street are, and they'll pitch in too. There's something to be sad for attacking a Korean patrol and a civilian randomly tossing a molotov into the mix to help you out.

It feels like a Red Dawn video game, and I feel like every member of the Wolverines by myself, without even touching the main story. Just running around the world, whether on your feet or straddled on a dirtbike, is enough to evoke powerful feelings.

But the actual combat part is just so bad it undoes all of the work they've done everywhere else.



I did have a lot of fun with Homefront's co-operative mode, which allows you to make a resistance member and then sends you and 3 others on absolutely rock-hard missions. You'll fail repeatedly as you learn the rules: strike hard, run fast, totally leave your friends behind if you can make it to the escape.

Each failure brings money and experience though, and eventually you'll be able to buy more gear and learn some skills, and you'll become hardier revolutionaries, well equipped to handle missions the game throws at you.



Here too, the crappy combat hampers things, but for a moment you can pretend as you sneak around trying to assassinate sniper teams and infiltrate bases. Sadly there are only 6 missions in the game currently, and I played, and failed, most of them within a couple of hours. There's a chance that extra missions could encourage people to stay with the multiplayer, but with the fact that the base act of pulling a trigger is so lacklustre… it just feels like Homefront the Revolution is an unfortunate miss. It's one of the best mediocre games I've ever played.