Homefront: The Revolution (Xbox One) Second Opinion Review

By Sandy Kirchner-Wilson 29.03.2017

Review for Homefront: The Revolution on Xbox One

Deep Silver and Dambuster Studios bring the latest Homefront offering to PS4, PC and Xbox One. Homefront is a short series with a relatively interesting history. The original game was developed by Kaos Studios and published by the now bankrupt and dissolved THQ, and received mixed reviews due to its decent, but short campaign, and average multiplayer. The franchise was sold to Crytek who then sold the game to Koch Media who passed it to their subsidiary Deep Silver. Homefront: The Revolution is the child of this bizarre series of events, and it's time to delve in and see if it came out on top.

There are sometimes where booting a game up instantly gives a sense of exactly what to expect, and boy did this deliver that. Upon loading, the AI glitched, trapping the main character in a small room with no way forwards. Thus the *sigh* began… and it lasted for quite a long time, as the rest of it all revealed more and more little niggling bugs.

The story covers the Korean occupation of the USA, the occupations history, and the revolutionary (hence the "Revolution" of the title) groups pushing to free them from the oppressive forces. It's a dark story that features torture, punishment, death, and, uh… more oppression! It's hard to like the characters, though, as often the good guys feel like bad guys, and none of them are relatable. The story structure and writing are really quite a let-down, especially considering the last one had some unique points that elevated it.

Screenshot for Homefront: The Revolution on Xbox One

As for the gameplay, it's a typical first person affair, with solid and simple controls are solid. Gunplay is surprisingly satisfying, flashy, and with has loads of impact; traversing the dystopian open world is quite fun; and to augment travel it's possible to ride motorbikes. These, however, control like the devil in an ice palace - so awkward that it's safer to run between areas. Enemies are pretty bog standard, from grunts to tanks. The AI suffers at times with foes occasionally becoming inactive or losing a crouched player… but they are damn satisfying to shoot, due to the immersive body physics and sound effects.

The open world mission structure starts off like a Far Cry game, or the newer Deus Ex titles, but it doesn't quite open up as much, or become interesting enough to hold the attention. The missions are usually a standard A-to-B fare followed by a firefight, and while it's engaging, in some respects the lack of variation wears the missions thin fairly quickly. If the world was a little more diverse, then the experience would be much better.

There is plenty of niceness to the presentation. Lots of the surfaces are reflective when it's raining; there's a sparing amount of bloom used to accentuate lights in the environment giving the scenery an injection of colour; characters are usually well modelled even with their oft times janky animations; the world design is alright with plenty of little nooks and crannies to discover; and the soundscape is also pretty good, and while the music isn't that memorable the voice work and sound effects are pretty enjoyable throughout.

Screenshot for Homefront: The Revolution on Xbox One

Cubed3 Rating

5/10
Rated 5 out of 10

Average

This is not a bad game. It has a few technical hitches, but beyond that, there are some rough diamonds begging to be polished here. The gameplay is full of punchy and satisfying gunplay that controls very smoothly, and the visuals are shiny and crisp even if the animations can be a bit stiff, among many other things. Ultimately, its tumultuous development cycle doomed it to mediocrity. For fans of the first game, there is a little of the original atmosphere here, so it's worth a look.

Developer

Deep Silver

Publisher

Koch Media

Genre

First Person Shooter

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  4/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

Comments

Comments are currently disabled

Subscribe to this topic Subscribe to this topic

If you are a registered member and logged in, you can also subscribe to topics by email.
Sign up today for blogs, games collections, reader reviews and much more
Site Feed
Who's Online?
Azuardo, Ofisil

There are 2 members online at the moment.