What a ride

[Bullett00th]

While I understand the backlash at the game due to a poor launch that I luckily didn't experience, having just finished it I feel like having played a completely different game to what the reviewers described.

I have this thing for games that go through development hell and get released not because of, but in spite of circumstances.
Having lowered my expectations enough to tolerate bugs, lack of content and unfinished features, I started the game only to have my mind slowly but steadily blown away.

I just didn't expect many things:
- the graphics to be this beautiful;
- the atmosphere to be this thick and immersive;
- the HUD to be this customizable (thank you, thank you for this. played through the whole thing without the minimap, ammo/health indicators, spotting or objective markers);
- SOME of the guns to feel that good (Battle Rifle love);
- the parkour to have this perfect flow;
- the streets and houses to be this seamless to traverse through;
- the locations to be this diverse and surprisingly memorable;
- the enemies to be this challenging;
- the combat to have this variety of approaches;
- the progression of liberation through your actions to be this palpable;
- the cover system to be this effective and intuitive, especially for an FPS. one of my favorite features in the game;
- the city to be this alive, with pockets of resistance randomly fighting the norks AND being able to truly help you in battle;
- finally, I didn't expect this journey to last 50 whole hours (some AFK time included, but still no less than 40 hours of pure gameplay).


I generally despise the busywork Assassin's Creed formula that all open world games fell victim to lately. So when I play modern open world games, I either try to stick to story missions, or abandon these games barely halfway through, sometimes just a few hours in (I'm talking about you Far Cry 4).

Homefront? Before the end of the game the whole city was blue. Funny thing is, it wasn't even worth it rewards-wise during the last 15 or so hours, since I've unlocked everything and weapon upgrades were all the same. But I still did every single side mission. Simply because it was fun.

I'll be giving the game a proper review on the store page, just felt like sharing the purely emotional side of my impressions here.

I don't know if the devs read these forums but THANK YOU for this wonderful game. I am 100% certain that, given the time and resources to properly polish it and implement all planned features, it could have become a GOTY contender and easily stand alongside Far Cry in the realm of open world FPS games. It didn't, but you clearly had enough love for the project to fix as much as you can and even add extra singleplayer content which I am looking forward to.

Long live the Resistance.

[UnKn0wN]

totally agree with you, just bought this a couple of days ago and already have 21 hours out of it but I think I will spend at least 50 hours too before completing it.
I get the game launched in a very poor state so the negative reviews are to some extent justified but I also read a lot of BS regarding this game and how crap, laughable and awful it´s supposed to be.
don´t know how it was before the many patches but in its current state it surely is not, I´say it`s better than some other overhyped games, it has a lot to offer and it´s very enjoyable.
like you I stopped playing FarCry 4 after a couple of hours or so, it was just boring and felt like FarCry 3 but with less compelling story.
this game instead is just very addictive and immersive, at times it reminds me even of good old STALKER games.
I am glad I gave this a chance and I think I will even buy the expansion pass for extra SP content once I am fully done with the main campaign.

[Bullett00th]

Originally posted by marauder47:

this game instead is just very addictive and immersive, at times it reminds me even of good old STALKER games.

glad you're getting that too.
It also feels like Far Cry, but more like Far Cry 2 than the newer ones.

I strongly suggest you to at least try and play like I did with most HUD elements disabled:
-minimap
-health&ammo
-detection indicators
-hitmarkers
-no camera spotting

i even sometimes disabled the main objective marker because you can manually set your own markers on your map and have them visible in the game.
This turns into a different game when you don't have a piece of the screen telling you exactly where all enemies are. Firefights become much more intense, ambushes require more planning, flanking feels more rewarding and running away becomes a much more viable option.

I tried to play FC4 that way but it simply isn't designed to properly function without the HUD. Homefront on the other hand gives you a TON of visual and audio clues for being spotted, hitting an enemy (headshots have a separate sound effect), being tracked by a sniper, staying in cover, being hidden etc.

More games should have that.

[UnKn0wN]

yeah I already turned off some of the hud stuff but I will soon turn everything off now that I fully understand the game mechanics.
and btw FarCry 2 is still the best FarCry game to date for me too.
FC3 was okay but at the same time I was disappointed because it didn´t had that serious, kinda realistic approach like FC2, it turned instead into that childish UBI formula of late..., FarCry3 screams "you are playing a video game" whereas FC2 tried to immerse you in that situation...the theme is also more mature and grim, you are right, HTR without hud is close to FC2, that’s one of the reasons why I like this game.
it has something "old school" for me and that is exactly why I dig it.
good game.

[Wayz]

My only disappointments in this title are the dlc being standalone short stories and not connected to the main campaign in anyway apart from storyline. Should have been tagged on as new areas to continue your campaign of insurrection.
That and the coop got pretty much abandoned so there is only a few maps to play on, lots of room for improvement there or even better release tools for modders to expand on this.

Besides these I agree with OP 100%, I loved tearing the maps apart into civil chaos with repeated insurrection & down right dirty hit n runs.

EDIT: also very miner thing, but why did all the weapons look so beaten up lol. America is full of firearms, no need to make them look like they are made of junk parts;P modding could have helped here too.

[MTL5]

Originally posted by Wayz:

EDIT: also very miner thing, but why did all the weapons look so beaten up lol, america is full of firearms, no need to make them look like they are made of junk parts;P

The Apex Corporation has been the only weapons manufacturer anyone has cared about for quite a few years. The guns you're using are modified relics, basically.

[Wayz]

Originally posted by MTL5:

Originally posted by Wayz:

EDIT: also very miner thing, but why did all the weapons look so beaten up lol, america is full of firearms, no need to make them look like they are made of junk parts;P

The Apex Corporation has been the only weapons manufacturer anyone has cared about for quite a few years. The guns you're using are modified relics, basically.

This is the states we are talking about lol, There would be stockpiles of assault everything stashed all over the nation thanks to lax gun laws , the NRA and the many militias and survivalists not to mention TEXAS.

As I said is a very miner thing, I loved the gun modding and enjoyed the hell out this game.

[Bullett00th]

@Wayz you gotta give it some suspension of disbelief.

I mean the setting itself with North Korea occupying the US is second in ridiculousness only to Splinter Cell where the land of freedom was invaded by Georgia of all places...

In this case having a few worn guns isn't much of a stretch in terms of believability)))

[Rickidoodo]

Substitute "China" for "North Korea" and it becomes chillingly believeable.

I'm guessing it wasn't a China based story for sales reasons.

[Wayz]

Yeah I know, not really complaining. All things considerd if thats the worst I can complain about with this game, thats high praise to the devs in my book, certainly not as bad as the haters made this game out to be in reviews.

[Bullett00th]

Originally posted by Rickidoodo:

Substitute "China" for "North Korea" and it becomes chillingly believeable.

I'm guessing it wasn't a China based story for sales reasons.

ha, I never thought of it like that, but yeah you're totally right. It IS a story about the Asia getting more powerful and advanced in tech, which is exactly what's happening.

Originally posted by Wayz:

Yeah I know, not really complaining. All things considerd if thats the worst I can complain about with this game, thats high praise to the devs in my book, certainly not as bad as the haters made this game out to be in reviews.

I really don't think those were haters, it was just clear that the game was unfinished and, afaik, it launched in an EXTREMELY poor state. Add on top of that the fact that it was a sequel noone asked for to a game that noone asked for and that failed miserably.
It was just a great scapegoat for anyone willing to kick it for its shortcomings.

[MTL5]

Originally posted by Wayz:

Originally posted by MTL5:

The Apex Corporation has been the only weapons manufacturer anyone has cared about for quite a few years. The guns you're using are modified relics, basically.

This is the states we are talking about lol, There would be stockpiles of assault everything stashed all over the nation thanks to lax gun laws , the NRA and the many militias and survivalists not to mention TEXAS.

Apex's weapons are so much better, though. Every military on the planet buys from them. It's like mobile phones. Sure, there are a fair number of old phones floating around, but most people replaced their phone with a fancy iPhone, or in Homefront: TR's case, the Apex aPhone. And Apex worked fairly quickly to disarm the population because, you know, the terrorists. And since the entire US military, and anyone else who had bought from Apex, no longer had functional hardware, it's not like anyone could stop them.

Originally posted by Rickidoodo:

Substitute "China" for "North Korea" and it becomes chillingly believeable.

I'm guessing it wasn't a China based story for sales reasons.

I feel that's unlikely. The Crysis series had technologically advanced North Korean antagonists. The game really has little to do with Homefront 1, which used Korea to avoid upsetting China.

The entire underpinning point of HFTR's story is that North Korea isn't communist. They're technocrats. They're paradoxically humanitarian and also amoral jerks who just want more resources to make cool tech even if it means killing people to do it. Their entire American invasion is about access to mineral resources.

A lot of people don't know this, but in the real world North Korea was once a much nicer place to live than South Korea. The communists didn't get control of NK until the 80s. In HFTR's timeline, the communists don't keep control. NK becomes a wonderful, albeit slightly dystopian place to live.

I think HFTR's biggest missed opportunity is it doesn't let us visit Korea. We don't get a sense of how the Koreans live, which is in a super clean utopia built on the backs of Chinese sweatshop labour.

[Bullett00th]

Originally posted by ;2765630416809071910:

I think HFTR's biggest missed opportunity is it doesn't let us visit Korea. We don't get a sense of how the Koreans live, which is in a super clean utopia built on the backs of Chinese sweatshop labour.

The game isn't about that at all though

[MTL5]

Originally posted by Bullett00th:

Originally posted by ;2765630416809071910:

I think HFTR's biggest missed opportunity is it doesn't let us visit Korea. We don't get a sense of how the Koreans live, which is in a super clean utopia built on the backs of Chinese sweatshop labour.

The game isn't about that at all though

It is, though. Even if the game doesn't really expound upon it, everything mentioned in the Apex mockumentary is in the game in some form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk10PzMRPmE

The ingame news broadcasts talk about John Tae-se. He's very rarely mentioned ingame, but he runs APEX, and he also runs Korea. And he's the grandson of an American GI. In the game's canon, Apex built their empire using mistreated Chinese workers. This is partially because Apex is a blatant Apple Corporation expy, and Apple worked with Foxconn, who have in the past been responsible for horrific human rights abuses.

The game is partially a critique of America. It's more than that -- it's British people making a game about America being invaded by a Korean version of Apple. The game is about an outside force coming into America and doing to Americans what Americans do to other countries. The Green Yellow and Red zones are based on a system the Americans set up in Iraq. The fact the guy running Korea obsesses over his American heritage is part of the picture.

There are quite a few journal entries you can read concerning KPA troops and how they feel about the situation. They're unhappy. They see themselves as the good guys. They see you as evil, inhumane terrorists. But we never see their lives up close. We never play as a KPA character. We're like random Arabs in some Iraq war game fighting American troops who are taking our oil and torturing our civilians. It's all very one sided and narratively fragmented.

If they ever make a sequel to Homefront: TR, it needs to be at least partially set in Korea. Where people enjoy a quality of life that comes at the expense of everyone else -- Chinese workers in particular -- which is again an intentional critique of America that HFTR keeps making. Everything Apex does has some kind of parallel to something America or one of America's allies has done in recent years or even in the distant past -- Crawford makes a vague reference to the displacement of the Native Americans. There's a blatant nod to the Gaza situation, where the KPA are prohibiting fertilizer because it can be used to make bombs, and this is causing potential crop failure.

The KPA aren't outright malicious. They just don't care. And they will kill anyone who gets in the way of them and the natural resources they feel entitled to. It's all very "Let's go to middle eastern counties and steal their ♥♥♥♥ because something, something, terrorism."

What's interesting is that Apex intentionally makes their troops faceless. The masks are intentional. The realtime translators they wear give them all the same voice, and this is, again, intentional. This issue is discussed on one of the rebel radio broadcasts. But that's not the reality. And HFTR is weakened narratively because we don't really get a chance to lift the mask and see the real Korea. We read journal entries. We hear news broadcasts. But we don't see the real Korea with our own eyes. We never, ever TALK to any Korean characters. Homefront: TR ended up being too America-focused, which is a problem because the underlying story isn't really about America. Just as Half-Life 2 wasn't about that city. It's about the Apex Corporation. Just as HL2 was about the Combine and the intergalactic forces at work.

Every major piece of technology in the game was created by APEX. Yet we never interact with APEX in any meaningful way. They're this distant antagonist.

[Bullett00th]

That's a pretty good analysis.

That said I still don't believe they intended OR needed to feature Korea itself. It would simply take too much time and resources, and as we clearly see they barely managed to make the US part function.

The game being too America-focused is intentional as well I believe. It VERY clearly mocks patriotism and shows that nothing is black&white, mostly through Dana who seems like a person who can really be herself only in a situation like this which allows her to unleash her desire to cause others pain.

Next game I'd be glad to see a bit of Korea, IF there is a next game in the series, which I really hope there will be someday. And that's something I would have never said after Homefront 1.

[UnKn0wN]

good points, I am not done with the game yet so I won´t comment on the story yet but I´ve read about how the story and setting of this game was supposed to be that lacking/ stupid/ laughable...
I really don´t get that kind of critique, IMO it´s good enough to make the game world believable and on top of that it also offers quite a few incentives to think about as you can see in this thread.
and if you think about the current situation between North Korea and US... it suddenly becomes less and less unrealistic lol