Ever since hearing that there was to be a sequel to Homefront, I’ve been wanting it to be great. I really enjoyed the first one despite its flaws. I enjoyed the world it created, the premise of the story, even if the gameplay may not have been the best, and there has been so many road blocks in the development of the sequel there was a point where it looked like it would never happen. Now we’re a few months away, Homefront: The Revolution is a reality. It is sort of like rooting for the underdog in a way, no one expects it to do anything, but there are plenty that want it to. And over the course of its development the things that have been said by the devs has sounded positive – open world, bigger, better, blah, blah. It is all words until you actually see gameplay.
My first foray into Homefront: The Revolution came in September last year and the EGX 2015 event in Birmingham. I went it with high expectations and left feeling remarkably underwhelmed. I experienced a bog standard mission to go to point A, kill some people, then to point B and do the same. It was very difficult to find a redeeming quality in what I played, the graphics were average and the gameplay felt dated. I had hoped that this was just a very small glimpse at what the game was, and may this was just a side mission to a bigger overall narrative.
Fast forward nearly 5 months later and the opportunity to play the closed co-op Beta presented itself. Over the course of last weekend, 3 missions were available to play in the online co-op mode in the game. Great, time so see if the last few months has been worthwhile, and whether I could look forward to Homefront again. From what I’ve seen, I really can’t look forward to it, and it is a huge shame.
Before really getting into this, I would say that I think developers are using Beta’s all too frequently now, and they are becoming more of a demo purpose for people to get a taste of what the game is like. I totally understand the reasoning behind Beta’s for large online games. Server testing for the likes of Halo, COD etc. And for MMO’s the same thing plus checking for bugs, glitches and the like. But what Homefront has given is essentially a demo. And one that has totally put me off the game at that. And it’s not down to little bugs or issues that can be ironed out, or server drops, or anything like that. It is down to the content, gameplay and graphics, which at this point, are likely to be what we’ll see in the final version.
Firstly, I knocked through the 3 missions in a total time of around 40 minutes. Playing with up to 3 other people online through bog standard missions against dull AI enemies. It was more of what I saw at EGX. Go to point A, interact with something, kill some people, then to point B and so on and so forth. Of course each had a different premise – go hack radar dishes, survive an ambush etc. These missions are all part of a ‘Resistance Mode’ within the game, so whether this is totally separate to the main game is to be seen. Let’s hope that is the case.
Graphically, it looks like it could play on the last generation of consoles…seriously. There is graphical pop in, bland textures, nothing that you’d expect to see over two years after this generation has been out. The gameplay engine feels like it has been dragged from yesteryear aswell and it feels so far behind most of the other FPS games at this point, and the AI is some of the most unresponsive and downright stupid I’ve seen in a long while. It really has painted a grim picture for me.
If there are any positives to draw they are minimal. There seems to be some decent customisation options (though I’m not sure how far these will go bearing in mind it is all from first person perspective so you can’t see your changes anyway), and I didn’t actually get to play with many of the gadgets, so there may be some redeeming factor there. Other than that I can only hope that the story can save Homefront. I have been rooting for it for so long, but I think I have now ran out of cheer.