Homefront

Complemented by absorbing environments and evocative imagery, Homefront's presentation succeeds in immersing players in its plausible nightmare. Sadly, a weak script, unremarkable gameplay, and a short campaign undermine much of the promise in solo play.

Homefront didn't manage to deliver on its high potential: for a very good plot and solid gameplay, we find an excessive shortness in the single player experience, a lacking multiplayer and an unpolished techical side.

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.

One of the most interesting shooters of the year. [Issue#108, p.114]

Solid, but the story never grips you like was hoped, and before you know it the end credits are rolling. [Issue#70, p.83]

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.

Homefront does enough to be an enjoyable and memorable ride, and enough to distinguish itself. Given everything that it had going for it though, Homefront could and probably should have been much more.

If you're strictly interested in what the single-player game has to offer, then you're better off renting this. It's short, not particularly outstanding, and doesn't deliver on its premise very well. If you're willing to delve into the multiplayer segment, you'll have a lot of fun with Homefront.

If you hate online multiplayer, avoid Homefront like you would a naked laughing man, waving his own severed leg in the air. If you're in it for the multiplayer, then it offers a clean, coherent and genuinely entertaining experience.

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.

Homefront is worth checking out.

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.

Homefront comes off as the K-ration of first-person shooters: Satisfying in a pinch, but why would you eat it if there's anything else around?

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.

THQ assures that Homefront tries to be something different in the FPS genere, but it's just another copy & paste from the Call of Duty series. Only the multiplayer modes, which have their own gameplay style, are the highlights of a game with a repetitive and short campaign, along with many features that need improving.

A competent shooter but one that fails to innovate, expand or better what we've already seen from this genre. The multiplayer is a bit of a diamond-in-the-rough but, due to its 'me too' similarities to the competition, it's unlikely to win over fans of the established franchises for long.

FPS with a lot of potential, but in the end falls short in every area.

This isn't necessarily a downright disaster of a game, but you sure as hell have played it before.

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.

Despite being written by John Milius, the characters lack any hint of personality, though, and ultimately the single-player campaign is short and disappointing.

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.

There is nothing wrong with Homefront from a technical point of view, but as a whole the game feels incomplete. The extremly short single player campaign and the large but anonymous multiplayer mode gives me the feeling that something is askew, and that I'm missing out on a great experience.

Homefront is a pleasant diversion at best. At worst, it's a sub-par action game riddled with flaws and design missteps. Perhaps an option for pressing "A" and skipping the entire campaign would have been better advised.

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.

There isn't enough game in Homefront The Game to contain Homefront The Multimedia Concept. It would work great as a film, and works just fine as a game-based counter-culture argument against the complacency of modern Americans. As a game, however, it just doesn't cut it.

Homefront is a classic first-person shooter, of which you could say it's efficient. But its looks seem old, it lacks ambition for its solo, and its multiplayer is scrawny, barely offering the minimum. It's a shame, because its story remains good, but a good game isn't a great game, and it's not like there's no great FPS out there.

For a team based shooter, I'd say it's on par with the entertainment value of the early Battlefield games like 1942. In the end, you have to weigh how much value the multiplayer is going to be for you. If you love alternate reality shooters, I would say try renting the title before looking for a cheap used copy (assuming you love the team based multiplayer).

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 that Homefront's gameplay is so blunt and creatively barren, as the world Kaos has built around their (ludicrous) premise is superb.

Homefront floats in the limbo between "not bad" and "pretty good", and is hamstrung by a single-player element that feels like a half-hearted obligation. What's most disappointing is that Homefront wanted so much to join COD and Battlefield at the top of the genre, but has ended up as merely a weekend timewaster for players waiting for the next shooter fix.

The core focus of Homefront is online but with rival releases doing this just as well if not better, there isn't any real incentive. A fun rental perhaps, but spend your money elsewhere and you'll thank us.

Although Homefront has a compelling multiplayer and a interesting story, its singleplayer campaign storytelling and lack of player involvement is no short of being awkward. With its average game mechanics and bad design choices, it really isn´t a game one could recommend except for the most action-hungry FPS-players.

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.

The question then (and isn't the question always some variation on this?) is how did Kaos Studios and THQ go from that great germ of an idea to the brain-dead, dull and frankly pretty lousy final product they're releasing today?

If you're looking for the total package, Homefront doesn't even come close. Gamers wanting a fulfilling story-driven single-player campaign should take the next bus to Playing Half-Life 2 Again Town. But fans of competitive multiplayer should at least give Kaos' latest a look, even if it's unlikely to replace their shooter of choice.