Homefront: The Revolution

An interesting but underwhelming take on the open-world shooter - novel, but seriously janky. [July 2016, p.68]

Homefront: The Revolution has some good ideas that make it different compared to other shooters, but there are important technical and playable issues.

It is clear than its development process hasn't been smooth. There's a lot of potential behind and, even though its issues are noticeable, if you're looking for an urban FarCry, Homefront can be interesting.

A competent shooter marred by bad writing. [Issue#175, p.76]

For almost every positive aspect of the game there is an overpowering negative one that drags it down, be it the satisfying weapons, the environmental design etc. Unfortunately the passion of Dambuster Studios can’t hide the fact that Homefront: The Revolution, even though had the fundamentals for a good FPS was nonetheless a product of a highly tumultuous developing cycle.

Homefront: The Revolution is a generic and repetitive open world shooter with some good ideas but poor technical performance. It feels good but not optimal, and even it reflects the guerrilla feeling in a positive, way we cannot forget all the annoying technical issues.

Homefront: The Revolution can be a great game, and maybe a few months from now Dambuster Studios will have fixed everything that's wrong with it. However, with the current state it is in now it's extremely difficult to recommend this game, even to the most ardent fans of Homefront.

Homefront: The Revolution is a good game, which offers a strong experience of open-world guerrilla fighting, but it suffers too many technical issues.

It is pretty clear that its troubled development prevented Homefront: The Revolution from living up to its true potential. And that’s a shame, because the game has some interesting ideas that haven’t come to fruition.

Homefront: The Revolution wears its troubled design and its unattainable ambition like a scar. There’s a decent game hidden in its core, but it would take too much work to turn the Revolution in to something worthy of attention.

The lack of passion Dambuster Studios clearly felt when developing Homefront: The Revolution shines through in the game’s lackluster story, bland gameplay, and misused setting. Even if you enjoyed the original Homefront, you’re better off sitting this revolution out.

Homefront: The Revolution fails to stir any real revolution of its own in the genre of first-person open world games. It still has a unique premise with the notion that a unified Korea could ever overtake the United States, but the game is simply adequate. Couple uninspiring gameplay with occasionally broken physics and stupendously idiotic AI, and this is a purchase for fans of the franchise only. Otherwise, just go play Far Cry.

A valiant effort has been made to salvage this long troubled game from the doldrums, but despite some good ideas, solid combat, and neat concepts, Homefront: The Revolution suffers for its long gestation more than it benefits from it.

Despite a great start and a unique setting, Homefront: The Revolution's technical weaknesses overshadow every aspect of this game that showed promise. Shame.

This game is predictable and is simply not inspiring, but above all Homefront: The Revolution is a technical wreck. Even after day-one patch it is full of serious bugs, an unstable frame rate and other flaws that are simple inexcusable.

Homefront: The Revolution is a game that dwells around missed opportunists and it has some poorly-executed ideas. Dambuster Studio needs more time, staff and money to succeed in what they have tried. Only the most patient ones will have their reward, as the enjoyable parts come late.

Dambuster Studios acts like it made a modern blockbuster: it offers an open world with side missions, dialogue filled with moral dilemmas and an intense crafting system. However, the game does not have a soul, it seems to be missing the ever so important finishing touches and it simply does not speak to us.

While full of potential with a robust weapons system, Homefront: The Revolution falters in its execution with widespread technical glitches and repetitive missions that make this one hard to recommend.

Homefront: The Revolution is a very ambitious game that has all the ingredients of a blockbuster, but somehow doesn't quite feel fully-baked. The single-player game has aspects that are interesting and challenging, but unfortunately it's let down by average gunplay and flawed AI. Add to that a multiplayer mode that's fun, but limited in scope, and you have a game that falls short of its considerable potential.

Homefront: The Revolution has plenty of ambition and a handful of good ideas, but it's spoilt by the clumsy execution. Much as we love the mix of gameplay styles and those classy customisable guns, we can't get over the lifeless gunplay, clumsy movement and woeful AI.

After capturing our attention with a strong concept and an intriguing open world, Homefront: The Revolution struggles with the basics: weapons feel unsatisfying to use, side quests are repetitive, characters are under-developed, and the online multiplayer represents a step back for the series. Sadly, for all of its ambition, there's just not much here worth fighting for.

The co-op action can be fun, but the rest of the game is just as dull and miserable as life in occupied America is portrayed.

Expectations may not have been through the roof to begin with, but it’s difficult to walk away from Homefront: The Revolution without feeling disappointed. There are some genuinely enjoyable bursts of gameplay to be found, but for each one you’ll need to wade through a sludge of repetitive mission designs and annoying bugs.

Ultimately, co-op adds little to the overall package, which is a shame since Homefront definitely needs some help. Its substantial story campaign is impressively rich and its shooting can be tense and fun, but half-baked stealth, an unfulfilling story, and a vast menagerie of technical inadequacies drag the overall experience into disappointing mediocrity.

This was probably the most heartbreaking game I ever had to review because I know this game went through so much developmental hell to get released and it really does feel like they tried, but sadly, the end product is just too broken to recommend.

Homefront: The Revolution has more problems than I can list, including some illogical design decisions I couldn’t wrap my head around. But it truly executes on some of the good ideas it presents, and redeems itself in its latter half to an extent.

The biggest issue with gameplay was the autosave feature. We’re all used to autosave these days; the swirling icon that either means you’ve just added something to your character or that presages an encounter. In H:TR the autosave feature also means that the game will freeze for a few seconds. It’s an ugly glitch and one that ruins that feeling I described earlier of dashing from cover and hoping that the patrol won’t see you. It’s a pretty big glitch and I am surprised it hasn’t been patched out yet.

Homefront: The Revolution is barely optimized enough, designed well enough, QA tested enough or balanced well-enough from a gameplay perspective to even be declared finished.

Homefront - The Revolution is spectacularly broken in a way that very few games can get away with and offers very little redeeming features to justify playing through it.

Botched and broken, irritating and offensive, this samey, soulless sandbox fails to overthrow the old regime's ruling shooters. Good guns, mind. [July 2016, p.75]

As it is, you’re merely left with a badly scraped old junker. Combat may offer passing pleasures, but in every other respect, this is more devolution than revolution. [August 2016, p66]

For me, leaving a game unfinished is like suffering an itch I can’t scratch. But I don’t think that’ll be a problem with Homefront: The Revolution. I’ve muddled my way through six of its eight open-world zones, and I’m just not interested in playing any more.

Homefront: The Revolution is not a very good game. It could have been an okay game if it weren't for the atrocious technical performance on consoles and the forgettable plot, which is filled to the brim with unironic and extremely patriotic nonsense from beginning to end. It's almost a parody of itself.

Despite all the technical problems, I still managed to finish Homefront's campaign, but I can't say I had fun. All of the game's ambitions are undone by its flaws, offering only the rare glimpse of what could have been. Dambuster has already stated they are committed to improving the game with additional patches, but given everything that's currently wrong, the studio faces a greater uphill battle than Homefront's desperate underdogs.

Sometimes my job is to play bad games so you don't have to. Homefront: The Revolution is one of those games.

It is a dull game that fails to offer more than passing enjoyment, hitching and glitching all along the way. It offers a middling co-operative mode in a field filled with games trying to innovate in that space. It struggles to say anything--even something bombastic and cartoonish--about crisis, nationality, or revolution. It tries to roar America, but instead coughs out a few, unintelligible grunts.

Homefront: The Revolution feels like it's arriving a decade late and under-dressed, and although it reaches for the heights, it never approaches them.

The first-person shooting genre is aching for some innovation, and Deep Silver’s foundation could have been that trailblazer. Unfortunately, the storyline, game mechanics, and the audio-visual quality issues just don’t cut it. Homefront: The Revolution is better suited for the bargain bin rather than the hefty price tag AAA games are known for.

Homefront: The Revolution has some good ideas and it has its moments that engage the player. But there are also too many technical issues and bugs for me to recommend it until they've patched the game.

Homefront: The Revolution is a reboot of a mostly acceptable game. A reboot that brings about nauseating visuals, lackluster combat, and a dull narrative. An impressive customization feature is far from enough to save this sad installment.

A messy jumble of broken parts. [Aug 2016, p.112]