Homefront (Xbox 360) Review

Homefront tells the story of a futuristic America in the year 2027 which North Korea occupies the United States. This is a first person shooter which feels about the same gameplay wise as many shooters on the market. The big difference between this one is the writing. The game is written by John Milius who wrote Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn. The writing is definitely the strong point, the dialogue is strong and the characters are very well developed.

During the single player campaign I encountered many AI problems and glitches. In one instance one of the characters became stuck on a door which caused the game to not be able to advance past a certain point and i had to go back and hit my AI partner until he was in the door frame. Multiple times throughout the game I encountered problems of getting stuck while trying to advance due to my teammates falling behind.

One element about the gameplay that I did enjoy was the fact that you felt as if you were constantly running out of ammo. This made you have to constantly go into harms way to pick up fallen enemies guns and also take better shots instead of "spraying and praying."

The single player map designs are wonderful and help the world seem very real. A few times throughout the campaign I found myself in awe of the world around me and what America had become. This helped add realism to the game and make the already well crafted story even more believable.

There is a helicopter level in this game which you pilot a helicopter which has become common in most military shooters. This I felt was one of the weakest helicopter levels in a game, the flying felt unnatural and the whole sequence felt awkward.

The single player ends pretty quickly, I finished it in around 4 hours on normal difficulty. It was disappointing to see the game end so early but the game does go out with a bang and one of the best single player levels in the game and in recent memory.

The multiplayer has some great map designs. The multiplayer is fun and with the ability to gain ranks and unlock new abilities can keep you coming back for a while. Hopefully the game is able to keep it's audience so the multiplayer can stay alive.

Overall Homefront is a very fun and interesting game. While I wouldn't recommend going out and purchasing this at $60 (although at the time of writing this review Amazon had it for $40 with $15 credit), this is still a great game that should not be missed. Go rent it, or wait until it becomes cheaper, the single player of this game while short is very entertaining.

I give Homefront a 6.5/10