Kris Wall reports from EGX 2015…
Waiting in line to play Homefront: The Revolution, the propaganda style introduction video flooded my brain with visions of Red Dawn, I was going to take up arms and take back the good old US of A from the pesky North Korean invaders who had taken control of the greatest country in the world, I was raring to go, viva la revolucion and all that. Then I sat down with the controller and began playing and remembered that I’m not from the greatest country in the world, I’m from Birmingham, England and this game needs a lot of work before release so it wasn’t off to a great start on both fronts.
For a next gen game, Homefront: The Revolution is not very good to look at it and could quite easily be from the last gen of consoles were it not for the fact that it has been developed exclusively for current gen hardware, paling in comparison to most other games shown on the event floor. Control felt loose and aiming was imprecise as I found myself struggling to hit targets and opting for a run ans gun approach instead and hoping for the best. The weapons themselves seemed to lack weight and power too which isn’t really what you want or expect from a first person shooter.
That’s not to say I didn’t like the game at all, I really liked the idea of liberating towns and my efforts influencing the citizens to rise up and take back their country part of the game. The ability to customize your weapons on the fly with no attachments in real-time was really cool and I loved the use of the motorbike for traversing the city. The developers have said they drew inspiration from the Trials series for the best way to include the motorbike and it really shows as areas have crazy amounts of verticality to them with ramps and stairwells easily allowing the bike to get up on to rooftops and through buildings which was great fun. It’s just the core game doesn’t match up to these parts right now.
There’s a great game hiding within Homefront’s current build but it needs a lot of work to bring it to the fore. I liked the ideas and mechanics the game is touting, especially that motorbike but at the moment it just felt scrappy and was one of the most disappointing offerings on display at EGX this year . There’s still a lot of time between now and Homefront’s unconfirmed 2016 release date and I remain cautiously hopeful that my dreams of living Red Dawn can be fulfilled by then.
Homefront: The Revolution is release for Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC in 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=oIqao-7FJ_I
Originally published September 30, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
