Homefront: The Revolution ist ein sehr interessanter Shooter.

Die Story

Multiplayer / KOOP

Alles in Allem:

Overview: A Monotone Buggy Slog

The Good + The Bad

• Zones - while big - are not meaningful differentiated. From one end (of any given map) to the other you will see so many reused visual assets that exploration feels monotonous & dull. There is not enough distinctive variety that places feel lived in, unique, or have character. For example, you'll never see a small park with trees in any of these urban environments. Games like Dishonored 2, Batman: Arkham City, or Skyrim are gold standards for crafting compelling and unique environments - Homefront's environments feel like an early rough draft by comparison. The dullness of the environments is also reinforced by a lack of reward for exploration. Since all upgrades to your gear/weapons are bought through (what are essentially) vending machines at the bases or radio towers you regain control of, there is no need to explore the environment for loot (beyond ammo or trash items to sell at said vending machines). You will not find a house with an equipment upgrade or a NPC that could give a quest for a new weapon, piece of gear, etc. The only point of moving through the map is to either A) get to the main mission marker or B) kill a few NPCs at a location to regain control of said location for the resistance (thereby lessening the number of enemies in that zone).
• Gunplay is more than serviceable but runs into the biggest failures of the game - the AI of NPCs & NPC pop-in/out. This is one of those games where you run around a corner and NPCs will suddenly appear or disappear. NPCs are also seemingly too smart at times and know exactly where you are, with wave after wave darting to your position after sniping only one of them (from far away) or in open combat they will run back and forth never being sure of what to do (presumably from bad path-ing code?). These failures are the biggest reason the game feels so unsatisfying on every level. The core experience of a game like this is running through environments and shooting things. For that to be compromised with bugs ruins much of your experience with the game.
• Light Stealth is at times fun - but usually annoying and painful. When alarms sound, enemies will hunt you for far too long. There's no upgrade or equipment that shortens the time it takes for enemies to reset to normal. Animations for stealth kills take too long, leaving you vulnerable to being spotted. The silencer on your pistol is not treated as a silent weapon requiring you to use one of your two other (precious) weapon slots (if you truly want to use a silent weapon like the crossbow) and remain unspotted.

Technical

• NPCs in the game will pop in and out when you run from one area to another, or around a corner etc.
• NPCs and objects will also sometimes clip through objects, float above ground or appear half-below the ground.
• If you're using a lower resolution than your native screen resolution the game will never open to full screen mode. You will have to minimize your game and then reopen it for the full screen option to enable itself. (You can also go to the graphics options when you start the game and change from full screen to something else and then back to get 'full screen' to take effect).
• A few hard crashes occurred when playing or finishing the DLC campaigns

Conclusion

Story-line

Gameplay

Visuals

Sound

“You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world”
~The Beatles, Revolution 1

What you need to know about me and this game:

The 2020 *Simple* Review

Homefront®: The Revolution