Homefront. Because I hate myself

Music of the post, from first to last

A review of Homefront, because ranting about a bad game is easier than finding my good books.

I had originally intended to compare and contrast World at War and Homefront, but it was too long. So I'll do that in World at War's review later.

Homefront was a game released with the advertising strategy of a believable plot of a future where the US has been occupied by the enemy. It was written by the guy behind Red Dawn and 'proofed' by an analyst. Just the one. It had originally been intended for the Chinese to be the enemy, but they didn't want to hurt their sales and went with the North Koreans instead. And for variety.

Homefront opens with you waking up in a sparse apartment. If you're the curious sort, you'll notice the mail opened and with large print looking for helicopter pilots. As you near the door, the North Koreans enter, beat you over the head and drag you out onto a bus. There's one other guy there and he talks. I called him expendable. You ride through the city, seeing the destitution caused by the communist occupation. You see a few people shot and a few people executed with the execution spattering bits of goo on the bus windows. It's actually pretty unsettling the first time you watch it, but it feels cheap if you think too much on it, they could've stretched it out through the whole intro mission rather than packing it all into a 5 minute bus ride. You're 'rescued' by the first of our intrepid retards heroes. They do this by driving a semi at high speed into the side of the bus. Your buddy, Expendable and the Korean guards are killed. You're just fine. Okay, cool. The guy that rescued you is a dick and suggests throughout most of the game that he's better than you in every way, even if you decapitate the next forty North Korean drones soldiers with one shot by yourself. Oh, and our player is a master marksman with every gun in the game. You escape with the other two heroes, Bipolar Chick and Token Asian through a neighborhood with the assistance of a large unmanned vehicle with a .50 on it. He was my favorite character, he never talked, always killed and didn't do staggeringly stupid things. So of course they make you kill it later. You escape into an 'abandoned neighborhood rarely patrolled'. Apparently the North Koreans don't know how to use satellite imaging or helicopter patrols either, because about half of the base isn't covered by the camo-netting that is the handwave for why they're not seen. You meet all of the doomed  redshirts fellow resistance members, get introduced to the leader, told you're important to their plans and then sent to the next trap mission.

It's not too hard to guess that I'm not a fan of the game's plot. North Korea merging with South Korea in a dominant fashion, then conquering Asia without any mention of China or Russia and then hitting the US is silly. But, in the game's setting and according to both Red Dawn's writer and the one guy they used as a reference, it could MAYBE happen if the planets align and C'thulu waves his left tentacle or something. The game has a number of points that had me laughing or yelling about the sheer stupidity of it. Your rescue, five minutes into the game is one of them. The trap on the next mission is another. It's so obvious they even comment on it in game, then continue on blithely. But, but, they do throw in a Red Dawn reference with GO WOLVERINES!. Makes it all better /sarc. The next aneurysm inducing moment is the use of incendiary mortar shells by a guy largely unfamiliar with the mortar in close proximity to friendly troops. You're allowed to mercy kill a bunch of enemies or let them burn for achievements respectively. No luck on your own guys though. This causes a lot of drama for Token Asian even though everyone there is to blame for a lack of critical thinking skills. Bipolar Chick screams how horrible it all is and how you should mercy kill the bad guys even though not 20 minutes earlier she was screaming for blood and how they should all die horribly. 20 minutes after this mission where you steal the stuff for the helicopter, she's back to hating them and demanding blood for the blood gods after you find the hideout burned to the ground. You leave the city, using the UGV(?) loaded with C4 to blow the door. Of course you're given the detonator too, the game wants to let you know it hates you by making you kill the only competent NPC in the game.

Leaving the city, you meet up with the people from wrong turn survivalists who even the North Korean troops  won't bother with because they're a mile out of town. Or something. They decide to arbitrarily betray you so you can see that some Americans can be bad too, then you sneak your way through camp, not allowed to use your suppressed rifle to remove stupidity from the gene pool. You find a carnival area where they have a North Korean tied to a spinning wheel with knives, one stretched out on a target and so on. It's supposed to be shocking. I thought it over the top and hilariously stupid. You steal the helicopter after a decent firefight and a section lifted from Bad Company 2's sniper support section. Then we get to the best mission in the game and one of the best sections in any modern games I can think of.

You take the helicopter and ferry people to semis to hijack them, then provide cover fire from the air. It's frantic, there's constantly crap shooting at you, you're constantly shooting and you can see how much damage your taking in the helicopter. Then it ends and we're back to mind numbing stupidity. Oh oh, keep in mind you're in the air for at least 20 minutes. It's established in the next mission that the North Koreans have air superiority.

Here we meet up with the US army. You're sent in with the troops since you brought supplies and all and.. really I'm thinking they recognized you as the only competent person for at least twenty miles in any direction. You assault the Golden Gate Bridge by helicopter, watching as other helicopters are shot down by enemy fixed wing aircraft. This is at the beginning of the assault, not even a few minutes in by the way. You fight your way across the bridge in an impressive display, but dull gameplay section. You hook up with the Army again, find out none of them thought to bring an AT4 or 2 along and you're stuck killing a conveniently spawned North Korean for his RPG. You're then back on the bridge, get blown off, survive by catching wires, then fight your way across a few squads of guys with helicopter support. For one guy. Who got lucky. No I don't know why. You finish the game by clearing the AA guns and marking an airstrike. And by that I mean Retard pops flares and stands out in the open because throwing the flares, or using smoke grenades would make too much sense. It's been a while, but I think Bipolar Chick and Token Asian survive. The game ends there.

Now as much as I tore into the game there, it did have some very interesting locations. A few neat ideas that didn't work due to poor planning and a fairly bleak look at a defeated America. One of the ideas I wish they'd worked into the game better is the lack of ammo. Your guns are whatever you can steal and use. The game doesn't want you having more than one or two magazines for the gun. Unfortunately, your guy is such a master marksman that if you're even a little patient you'll never have a problem until they forcibly take the gun from you. Increasing your gun sway and maybe offering fewer top end guns within easy reach would've helped here I think. The overall plot could've been interesting had it been handled in a less hamfisted manner. There are legitimately chilling parts and parts that are inspiring. Then there are parts so over the top, like hiding under bodies in a mass grave that you can't help but MST3k the game as it happens. The AI is lemming-like in it's insistence of walking into your guns, the automated turrets set up on cranes have an easily fixed weak spot and overall don't offer any threat anyway. Barring accidentally wandering out of cover and not paying attention to the game. The helicopter mission is a blast and for a while the only reason it stayed installed after I got sick of multiplayer was so I could occasionally replay it. Other than that, stupid characters, stupid choices and over the top scenarios take away from any of the horror they tried to set up. The inconsistent characters, or in the case of Token Asian, the lack of character bothered me to. I'm almost confident the only reason Token Asian was in game was for the joke, "I'm not Korean dumbass, I'm Chinese".

In contrast, let's look at the enemies and characters in Bad Company 2 for a quick second. The four man squad of Bravo-2-Actual all have distinct personalities, your hippy pilot is likeable, the enemies are presented in a largely competent, threatening manner. The enemy's motivation is a bit weak, but otherwise it's a much more solid 'invasion USA' idea. Overall, I would rate Homefront as mediocre at best. It has it's good parts, it has too many bad parts and it's plot is batshit crazy.