Homefront - Ultimate Edition (2011)

The year is 2027. The world has suffered a decade-long energy crisis, and economies have crumbled. Reduced to a mere shadow of the super power it once was, the United States became the target of a North Korean takeover. American malls, suburbs and city streets are now battlegrounds as the civilian resistance fights for freedom. Featuring a compelling single player story crafted by John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn), Homefront immerses gamers in an interactive and cinematic FPS experience where they assume an infantry role or take command of a wide variety of aerial and ground vehicles. In a land stripped of freedom, the brave will fight for their home.


Shock and awe
That’s not to say Homefront doesn’t tell a good story. Leading into the five-hour appetizer campaign, the cutscene explanation of how the US was invaded is surprisingly believable, and its depiction of America after years of war and occupation is incredibly detailed. This is a tour of occupied America—you’ll see everything from a hidden refugee community to a locked-down metropolis with $20-per-gallon gas signs, starving suburbs with bodies hanging from water towers and horrific labor camps set in repurposed high schools. Moments into the game, it’s clear that Homefront’s seven missions are an excuse to show off its well-realized fiction. That’s what Homefront does right: it made me feel like what I saw was only a fraction of a fully imagined world.
Combat, though, doesn’t match the intensity of the story. The action is a mix of sniping, assault, and defense, but it boils down to ho-hum whack-a-mole gameplay that never made me feel like an outgunned, underdog guerrilla. Ammo is plentiful and AI compatriots are invincible. The remote-controlled Goliath tank is fun to use, but only in that it’s overpowered and quick to deliver explosions.



Warbucks
Homefront’s enduring appeal is in its class-based multiplayer modes. It follows the trend of class-based team warfare and unlockable weaponry, but its remote-controlled drones and an in-match reward system, called Battle Points (which you spend to buy equipment and drones), give it a unique feel. The blend of fast showdowns and large, multi-tiered objective-based maps are appropriately chaotic, especially on a full 32-person server. The hefty feel and sound of the rifles makes headshots all the more satisfying, and the ability to pilot remote-controlled aerial rocket drones adds suspense, forcing me to look not just left and right before running between cover, but also up. I also like the way that the Battle Points system adds enough persistence to reward players having a good day without making them overpowered in the next match.


Though the multiplayer maps vary in size, I found that the smaller maps provided Homefront’s fiercest firefights, especially once drones come into play. My favorite map is set in a suburban cul-de-sac, where I found refuge from the rain of rocket drone fire and assault choppers by sprinting into garages and ducking behind cars. Those nooks are also great places to deploy my own drones while remaining hidden.
I found myself really enjoying Homefront’s multiplayer for its polished mechanics and chaos on the battlefield. It’s too bad that same ferocity don’t manifest in the single-player campaign.

The official Ultimate Edition includes:

Homefront (main game)
Fire Sale Map Pack
The Rock Map Pack
Express 870 Shotgun

System Requirements:

Minimum
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.8 GHz
RAM: 1Gb RAM (XP) or 2Gb RAM (VISTA/WIN 7)
OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
Video Card: Shader Model 3.0 graphics card with 256Mb of memory (NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT or ATI Radeon 1600 XT)
Free Disk Space : 10Gb

Recommended
CPU: Quad Core CPU(AMD/Intel)
RAM: 1Gb RAM (XP) or 2 Gb RAM (VISTA/WIN 7)
OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 460/ATI Radeon HD 5700 or better
Free Disk Space: 10Gb