So here we are with Homefront: The Revolution. With a which is very intriguing as it shows America falling to Korea, who just had to flip a switch to make that happen.
Story is dull and boring, you won’t even be interested in it. It’s full of characters who are either stereotypes, spewing cringe worthy one-liners, or background cannon fodder whom you never care about.
Philadelphia certainly feels like an old city, with older-looking buildings placed throughout, and narrow corridors to get lost in, or to find rebel stashes of valuables. There’s no landmarks to speak of, and the whole city looks monotonous. You should expect to navigate by GPS alone, because most of the streets look the same.
The CryEngine makes for some great-looking cinematics, but the actual game suffers a bit. Game stutters a lot and it seems it never hits its target 30 frames per second. Recent patches have improved the performance somewhat but the game still suffers.
The game physics is wonky too, bugs out every now and then. Containers collide one another without any force and make loud noises. Trash can and other particles sink through the floor. The game outright freezes for a few seconds whenever a checkpoint is reached. It seems Homefront: The Revolution could have used a bit more polish before shipping.
All NPCs seem like they don’t have any A.I. controlling them. Dambuster Studios compensates for this in the game’s regular and hard difficulty levels, by simply increasing the enemy’s health, decreasing their reaction times, and weakening you. Yet that compensation doesn’t work all the time, because many a times NPC were still slow to react and became easy kill.
You can recruit a small army of revolutionaries to help aid you in battle. Make sure you’re in front of your group, otherwise NPCs will block doorways, run out from cover, and generally be as useful as a jammed rifle.
With a campaign length that was boasted as being 30 hours in length or longer, it sounds like you’re in for a treat. Unfortunately, most of your time spent in Philadelphia will be done doing the same basic kind of missions, to win the hearts and minds of the citizens in an area, before unlocking the area as an overwatch. In Homefront: The Revolution, some tasks involve locating a hidden radio and tuning it to the resistance station. Problem is, some of these radios are too well-hidden, and you’ll waste a lot of time trying to jump onto platforms, only to fall because the game’s physics decide to move you when you didn’t press a thing.
Modifying your equipped weapons can be done at any point, away from the rebels’ base, which is a nice touch. There are enough different base weapons, such as pistols, rifles, shotguns, and rocket launchers, that it doesn’t really make much sense to worry about swapping out parts.
Homefront: The Revolution supports co-op, This Resistance mode supports up to four players, and tasks you with performing various objectives without all of you dying. It’s lean on features, but does boast a separate progression chain from the main game, so it’s something to check out if you get bored of cutting power to a KPA generator for the umpteenth time in single player.
