Homefront: The Revolution (Xbox One) Second Opinion Review

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.

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.