Homefront

The Multiplayer is fine how it is, the way I see it. As long as it maintains a healthy community of active players, it'll be around for a while.

Homefront is shocking, realistic and atmospheric. Unfortunately, your fight for freedom ends quickly. Good thing there is a sweet multiplayer mode.

The story is way too short and the multiplayer doesn't deliver the fun you know from the Call of Duty or Battlefield games.

If you've been looking forward to Homefront since last year's E3 like we have, you'll be glad to know that Kaos has delivered a truly fantastic shooter. And if you're the kind of gamer that values quality over quantity, then you'll definitely want to check it out.

Taken by itself, Homefront's campaign is just plain disappointing. A promising concept ultimately falls flat in the fast-paced, "I don't have time for reading" first-person shooter genre. Once you've accomplished all of the objectives in single-player, the game just "ends". Someone obviously wanted to leave room for a sequel. That person is saved by Homefront's well-designed multiplayer.

As a five-hour solo-player game, it's clearly rental only. For online players the value is far greater - a solid, varied, Call of Duty rival, with fresher weapon load outs, plus vehicles and drones... Shocking but short, this is an intense shooter with a lack of finesse. [Apr 2011, p.66]

Homefront manages to deliver a decent FPS experience with a strong multiplayer experience and an interesting story arc.

The singleplayer-campaign may have nice story ideas and its iconic moments, but with only three to four hours of playtime and its disappointing and confusing ending, Homefront is certainly not worth your money, if that's what you are mainly interested in. If you are into multiplayer, it's a completely different story though! Nice Maps and Modes, exciting battles and a motivating XP-system make Homefront a worthy diversion until the release of BF3.

We came to Homefront for its front lines and its heart, and it's here the war is won. [May 2011, p.80]

Ultimately, Homefront a mixed bag. There's a lot of good in the single player game, weighed down by older mechanics and events that pull the player out of the excellent story. Meanwhile, the multiplayer is fairly terrific, but would have been served well by going a little further with the Battle Commander.

Homefront's campaign misfires all revolve around poor pacing and a lack of identity. It's not as polished or as fast-paced as Call of Duty: Black Ops or Bulletstorm, but it's also not as tactical or true-to-life as Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Its multiplayer, where those issues aren't a problem, is worth a look, even if you have to pony up for $10 when renting it without an online pass code.

A huge surprise. Whilst we went into it hopefully, we didn't quite expect such excellent gameplay in such a detailed world, and we certainly didn't expect to find revolutionary multiplayer concepts.

A decent title game a campaign that doesn't meet expectations, but with a great and unique multiplayer mode.

I'll say it right now: if you're considering buying Homefront today, it needs to be for the multiplayer. The campaign should only serve as a small distraction that you might want to goof around in if you're bored and have already gotten your money's worth out of the multiplayer.

It is not without some minor freshman bumps, but the overall package is one of the more compelling so far in 2011.

Homefront, with its gripping premise and well-orchestrated battles, is all about ambiance and emotion. This is a great starting point for a new series, and if Kaos Studios can fix some of the minor issues, Homefront could potentially topple its well-established competition.

Great multiplayer. Quality, yet anorexic single-player. Knock [20] points off this score if you're an offline-only gamer. [April 2011, p.68]

Homefront doesn't provide a long single player campaign, and the good narrative doesn't feel fully developed. On the other hand, multiplayer is interesting and funny.

Homefront is a strong multiplayer game with a weak single-player campaign trying to drag it down. So if you like your FPS online then you'll have a great time, otherwise you might want to pass despite all the hype.

Homefront is a pretty short shooter with an unique setting and a great story. The game is original in most aspects, but way too short and the graphics are a bit poor. There are also a lot of annoying bugs that's making the game impossible to play.

In the end, Homefront is a solid experience even if it doesn't quite deliver what it promised. As a FPS, it's competent. As a story device, it does tells a tale, just not quite the way it was billed out. The issues Homefront has are not terrible individually, though some may think twice once they are all lined up side by side.

It's a solid enough game that has its flaws. There have been better on the market in terms of technical prowess and overall well thought out gameplay options, however it's certainly worth experiencing.

It's one of those instances where if you go in with high expectations, you're bound to be left feeling a tad empty, but if you're more moderated in your anticipation, you'll be better off. The campaign is worth playing; there's no doubt about that...But there are extenuating circumstances…

It features plenty of enemies, some pretty awesome locations, and a killer premise. Though the story falls flat about halfway through, and the game needs at least five more chapters to feel complete, you will have lots of fun in the short amount of time that you do have with the single player.

War isn't pretty and this horrifying tale of war on American soil makes for a heartfelt adventure. While the core gameplay feels a little "behind the times," the setting and narrative keeps things fresh.

There isn't really a climax. It just finishes, coitus interruptus-style. [May 2011, p.114]

Homefront is not an easy game to digest. If you look at quickly pointing out all the errors, it will certainly not be a very rewarding experience. But if you leave aside its flaws, there is "life" beyond them.

It's not a terrible game, but it's agonisingly close to being SO much more.

Homefront doesn't live up to the hype and suffers from a short campaign that will only entertain you for four hours. The graphics aren't great and the many glitches don't help either. Homefront's best points are its multiplayer and its brilliant vibe.

Homefront doesn't live up to its expectations. The emotional and atmospheric story of the (way too short) single-player slowly changes into an over-the-top first-person shooter that lacks in character. Homefront is one of the biggest disappointments of 2011, while the game in and of itself, isn't that bad.

Homefront is a game that will live or die based on its online component. For $60, if you are investing solely for the single-player campaign, you are truly wasting your money. The multiplayer has the potential to be something amazing with a few tweaks and a better selection of maps, currently there just aren't enough.

'Kaos' may have been trying to spread their wings a bit, but the overall story in the campaign may have clipped their wings, more so with an abrupt ending. As interesting and deep as the SP world and MP gameplay can be, it's a tad outclassed by the rest.

You can complete Homefront Campaign in less than 4 hours. And the multiplayer is miles away form the CoD and Battlefield excellence.

As the FPS genre marches towards a Call of Dutified heat death, it seems success is based more on the strength of a brand than any semblance of innovative game design. Homefront is only adding to this growing mass of homogeneous goo but at the very least it's a solid game with moderately entertaining mechanics; completely generic but generally agreeable nonetheless.

Homefront's campaign tells a good story, but that's about the only thing it does exceptionally well. The action is fun, but nothing special, and it sometimes feels so rigidly scripted that it's almost stifling. Meanwhile, the radically different multiplayer stands out as a much better game, with chaotic, drone-and-vehicle-filled action that's just fun an involving enough to make Homefront worth picking up.

Homefront's engrossing vision of the future and gratifying competitive multiplayer outweigh its squandered potential and workaday game mechanics.

Incredibly rough around the edges, wasteful of unique opportunities, and light on content, we quite frankly question the longevity of this title. But you know what? There are worse games you could spend your money on.

Homefront is a good game, capable of entertaining the fans of the FPS genre only for a short period of time in singleplayer. The overall quality of the multiplayer is good but it's clear from where Kaos Studios took the inspiration, and it's not able to surprise us with entirely fresh new ideas.

With its interesting premise, evocative opening sequence, and clever variation on multiplayer, Homefront has a strong foundation. It's a shame that technical limitations and a derivative single-player campaign keep the game from realizing its potential.

There's enough material within Homefront's concept for it to spiral into something more interesting, and with plenty of talk about a sequel it's clear that's what THQ and Kaos is looking for, but this first crack of the whip falls far short of the competition.

One of the most unique shooters I've ever played, driven by an ingenious and surprisingly well-fleshed out plot and a dark and dreary, realistic setting. But it also controls and feels like a typical shooter, looks like a game that's several years old, and most importantly, has an inexcusably brief campaign.

An entertaining, if not a little under-polished, FPS that dares to strike out in new directions. [Issue#203, p.82]

Homefront is a decent shooter but with a short play through time and limited online multiplayer, not to mention no offline multiplayer, it just doesn't seem worth full the retail value.

It's apparent that the story and atmosphere of the game is much more important than actual gameplay.

It's an easy game to recommend for a rental since the story is too interesting to pass up, but for those who were interested in buying it, wait to see if there is still a community after the title has been patched.

THQ should have made a deal with MGM to turn Homefront into a tie-in for the upcoming Red Dawn remake. That game would have been way better than what we have now.

Kaos Studios manage to offer an intense campaign with several memorable moments in what seems to be a very faithfully-realized urban American environment. Unfortunately, the campaign easily ends in less than five hours, making it hard to recommend it to anyone who is not interested in the competitive multiplayer portion of the game.

Homefront is a solid, if uneven, experience that features an excellent multiplayer mode, with a very average single-player campaign attached.

The storyline just has an amateurish overall feel to it, and the adventure is over almost before it even started. The multiplayer component somewhat saves the day, but in the end, Homefront is a big letdown.

Kaos obviously had ideas for this game, yet seemingly couldn't bring any of those ideas to total fruition. The end result is a brief, brittle campaign bereft of impactful storytelling or creatively designed action, one that ends not with a bang, but with the build-up to a bang, followed by a title card.

It's a shame the game engine isn't flashier, because it does put up a good fight, but without a sexy bullet point like Killzone's graphics, Bad Company's destructible buildings, or MAG's 256 players, it's going to be hard to draw new players in.

Every aspect of the single-player campaign is poorly executed and designed. And when you finally push through it, the ending leaves far too much open to feel any sense of closure - you can tell that a sequel was always planned from the get go. Bad news Kaos and THQ, if this is what you give us, we don't want anymore.

The improbable plot ends up being almost the only point of interest in this vapid and hopelessly unoriginal first person shooter.

Homefront is an ambitious title with a solid idea, but lacked the courage to distance itself from the (media established) king of First Person Shooters.

I'll admit that I've played games that are technically worse than Homefront, but I have not played a game that irritated me as much as this in a very long time.

Yet for all the hours I've enjoyed putting into the multiplayer, I still feel insulted by the thoughtlessness of the single-player.

But the problem with Homefront isn't just that it sucks, which it certainly does. The problem is that it reveals just how badly many first-person shooters are starting to suck. It's a game that magnifies the preexisting trend of developing to the lowest common denominator.

It is difficult to say anything good about Homefront. It's a half-baked idea crammed into a half-baked game, and while I'll freely admit that a quasi-realistic military-style first-person shooter with a heavy focus on the multiplayer mode is not exactly my cup of tea, I've played enough of them at this point that I feel confident in saying when one has gone horribly, horribly wrong.