Homefront: The Revolution
Homefront: The Revolution has had a troubled journey, starting out development by Kaos Studios and THQ, but when THQ went down, The Revolution was sold at action to the highest bidder; Crytek. But even then Homefront’s journey wasn’t over with Deep Silver purchasing Crytek and the rights to a partially developed game. But despite the troubles the game faced and the delays, I was still hopeful that the sequel to one of 2011’s most anticipated games would see the light fo day. And now it has.
The game is set in Philadelphia in 2029, the United States is under the oppressive control of the Greater Korean Republic. Homefront: The Revolution is a sequel but not a continuation of the original game, the back story is pretty much the same, but with a much deeper back story and a more tech dominant reason for Korea’s ability to invade America, and under the guise of a humanitarian effort, albeit a forced one.
Things however are far from humanitarian a few years into the occupation and you play the role of a freedom fighter named Ethan Brady who joins the guerrilla movement to help take back America.
Unlike the original Homefront, this is an open world game, which is set up like a first person shooter, but plays very differently with some heavy RPG elements and a more reactive environment rather than the linear focus of the first fame.
Philadelphia is broken up into different zones, each with different levels of KPA (Korean Peoples’s Army) influence. It’s up to you to employ all your smarts as a guerrilla fighter to gain influence over each sector and encourage the people to rise up and support you. You do this by disruption the KPA,completing missions and unlocking safe houses.
Sounds simple right? Yeah, nah. It’s not.
Because you are a guerrilla fighter, everything you use is home-made. So you have to scrounge for resources, and make your own weapons and bombs. That’s the easy part as the leveling system also gives you credits to purchase certain items from your favorite guerrilla retailer. The good thing about hand crafting weapons is that your can manipulate them on the fly, meaning that you can turn your hand gun into an SMG if you’re carrying the right parts.
So lets just go in guns blazing.
Doesn’t work. Despite it’s first person look and feel, Homefront: The Revolution is more of a stealth game. You are afterall a guerrilla army, and not some super army with an endless supply chain feeding you guns and bullets. Stealth is a key component of the game. Destroy one of the KPA’s CCTV Cameras and they will come to investigate. The KPA is one onto it army. Take down one of their boys and they will investigate. So it’s play in the shadows time, slip out to do something then slip back away.
It’s a great approach to the game and works well for the most part.
I say most part as the stealth mechanics don’t always work as they should, and there are some serious graphical glitches that kinda destroy the whole stealthy thing. Like KPA soldiers randomly materializing in front of you. Yep that’s some freaky kinda annoying future teleportation tech them Koreans have!
Homefront: The Revolution could have done with a bit more spit and polish, but hopefully Deep Silver are still working on it and will release a few updates to make the game a much better experience.
As it stands Homefront: The Revolution is a solid game, with some great gameplay that will immerse you in the world of a guerrilla fighter presenting you with a nice alternative to the run and gun mechanics of traditional first person shooters.
Rating: R16 Violence and offensive language.
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