Homefront [Download]

by THQ

Product Details

• Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address.
• Note: Gifting is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B004NBZBME
• Release Date: March 15, 2011
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,777 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PC Download

From the Manufacturer

A once proud America has fallen, her infrastructure shattered and military in disarray. Crippled by a devastating EMP strike, the USA is powerless to resist the ever expanding occupation of a savage, nuclear armed Greater Korean Republic. Abandoned by her former allies, the United States is a bleak landscape of walled towns and abandoned suburbs. This is a police state where high school stadiums have become detention centers, and shopping malls shelter armored attack vehicles. A once-free people are now prisoners… or collaborators… or revolutionaries. Join the Resistance, stand united and fight for freedom against an overwhelming military force in Homefront’s gripping single player campaign penned by John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn). Stand alongside a cast of memorable characters as an emotional plot unfolds in this terrifyingly plausible near-future world. Experience visceral, cinematic first-person shooter action as you fight your way across Occupied USA using guerrilla tactics, and commandeer military vehicles and advanced drone technology to defeat the enemy. Multiplayer brings epic warfare to the online arena as infantry, tanks, attack helicopters and combat drones battle across huge, open battlefields. A rich feature set offering layers of tactical depth combined with a game-changing innovation in the multiplayer space will set a new benchmark in online warfare. Discover a terrifyingly plausible near-future world - the familiar has become alien in this nightmare vision of Occupied USA Fight for a cause - join a cast of memorable characters as your resistance cell wages a guerrilla war against overwhelming military odds in the name of Freedom Witness the human cost of war - a gripping story from the pen of John Milius is told through immersive, interactive 1st person cut scenes Experience explosive FPS gameplay - battle through a dynamic mix of infantry and vehicle combat in a gripping single player campaign boasting intense, memorable set piece Take the battle online - experience large scale multiplayer action like never before in epic infantry and vehicle warfare System Requirements   Minimum Specifications: Recommended Specifications: OS: Win 7, Vista and XP Processor: Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.8GHz Intel or AMD Quad Core 2 GHz+ CPU RAM: 2GB 2GB RAM or higher (XP, Vista, Windows 7) Hard Drive: 10 GB   Video Card: Shader Model 3.0 graphics card with 256MB of memory, NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS or ATI Radeon 1900XT 3D Compatible NVIDIA GeForce 480/570 Series GPU, NVIDIA 3D Vision Kit

Installation Note
Requires online Steam account for installation and online play.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 96 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Great premise, unfortunately misses it's mark March 15, 2011

By Aaron Davis

Platform for Display:PC

Fun: 2.0 out of 5 stars   

A little about my gaming experience, i've been playing PC FPS games since DOOM including Counter-Strike, all the PC Call of Duty games, all the PC Battlefield games, and so many more. I would consider myself a fair reviewer, I even found the 2010 Medal of Honor to have its redeeming qualities despite most others disliking it.

Prior to this games release I saw some promo material such as videos and the interactive website, which were masterfully done, to set the stage for what should have been a great game with an interesting story. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

First off, the graphics seem below par for the genre but are not horrible. The animation seems worse off though, as the way characters movement seem jerky in a way that is obnoxious and an eyesore.

Single-Player:
The game was noticeably short, clocking in at around 5 hours. The characters, environment, and story was surprisingly generic and the ending was an abrupt one that brought no closure. This was done on Normal difficulty by an experienced FPS player, so your mileage my vary. This was by no means an attempt at clearing it in a short time either, this included me dying at several places and reading several of the in-game history documents scattered around. While single-player campaign was surprisingly uninteresting given the great story they had to work with, it wasn't terrible. Even though the majority of it was bland it still had some fun moments.

Multi-Player:
This is the mode that I value the most in any FPS I buy as it is ultimately what I spend the most time playing. Homefront's take on multi-player has it's unique elements, such as aquiring Battle Points (BP) from doing actions such as killing an enemy or capturing an objective. This in-game currency and the only way to get power-ups such as RPGs, vehicles, remote-controlled attack drones, and such. One major issue with this system is that all items that destroy heavy vehicles are BP purchases. If you are stuck with low BP you can very easily be repeatedly killed or spawn camped by a helicopter with no way to destroy it.

The next major issue is sniping, in which the flaws of Homefront being console developed and ported to PC become very apparant. Players can start with a default sniper rifle which is semi-automatic with very little scope sway and recoil. In addition to this, it is a one shot kill to the body with no bullet drop. The combination of all these factors with the large maps makes it a sniping/camping nightmare. There is little skill needed to one shot kill someone from far away, as the sniper rifle has a high rate of fire with fairly low recoil.

There are many other smaller issues that I could go on about, but i'll try and shorten it into the all encompassing idea that Homefront just lacks polish. Everything seems rushed including balance issues and content. What could have been a great game got bogged down by poor implementation of ideas.

Bottom line:
Homefront does not stand up against any other quality FPS. Whether you are a fan of Call of Duty, Battlefield, Counterstrike, or any other FPS, you will probably find this game lacking in the aspect that makes that FPS series your favorite. Unless there is a major overhaul with future patches, I would not recommend this game to any FPS gamer.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Multiplayer is where the fun is March 15, 2011

By Not Available

Platform for Display:PC

Fun: 4.0 out of 5 stars   

{{Note: This review might not follow smoothly in terms of paragraph, world choice or language in general. I plan to make it up by including some facts that hopefully will help you.}}

The developer of this game Kaos Studios was formed in 2006 by THQ for sole purpose of creating FPS games. Kaos launched it's first game Frontlines: Fuel of War in 2008. It was an average game. Now 3 years later Kaos has released Homefront, which is in some sense similar to Frontlines...drones, emps, global crisis etc. If you liked Frontlines, you most likely won't be disappointed by Homefront. The only downside over Frontlines is possibly the fact that they lowered maximum pc player number from 64 to 32. Anyway getting to Homefront now...

SINGLEPLAYER:
There's been a lot of hype about the single player campaign. It is written by John Milius, co-writer of Apocalypse Now (Three-Disc Full Disclosure Edition) (Apocalypse Now / Apocalypse Now Redux / Hearts of Darkness) [Blu-ray] (1979). If you're into storylines, then you'll most likely love it. There's enough dialogs in the game, the characters are uniquely build. If you're into shooting, then there's some good shooting for you.

The downside is --
(1) A typical gamer would be done with the missions in ~4 hours. If you're planning on buying Homefront ONLY for singleplayer mission, then it's not worth $50.
(2) You're continuously being told what to do which includes following your teammates till the end. I personally don't mind that but I figure there are people who prefer to do things there own way. Meanwhile, the upside is your teammates let you use the toys. You get to use Goliath from time to time... and Chopper too...both are loads of fun!

MULTIPLAYER --
Multiplayer is what everything this game is about.
I really like two unique features of this game:
(1) Battle Commander game mode: Each team has a AI commander. They assign "priority threat" to enemies who go on killstreak.
(2) Points System: this allows you to "buy" weapons on the go. I can buy RPG (given I have enough points) to take out a tank that's pissing me off. Nomore hiding from the tank b/c I don't have the correct loadout. I hope other games think of features that allows me to get weapons on the go.

The bad--
(1) The graphics aren't amazing. For me it has more than my computer can handle. But I've heard some people say it's going backward in terms of graphics. Just thought I should throw it out there.
(2) Animation for grenade throw is awful. Hopefully they'll patch it up.
(3) There aren't that many types of gameplay. COOP is not there. I personally am a sucker for COOP gameplay. There's no attack and defend type of game mode either??
(4) Not completely destructible environment.
(5) You need steam. This will annoy those who don't like steam.
(6) Installation procedure is awful. I downloaded ~7.5 GB from the site I bought Homefront. When I tried installing it started steam for me. The game got added to stream BUT...wait for it...I still had another 50% (or maybe 30% i can't remember exactly) to download off stream. That had to be one of the worse installation procedure for a game.

Other random thoughts...
(1) You can prone in this game.
(2) I've heard talks about sinper being overpowered. I didn't notice much of this on my first day of gameplay.
(3) The "enemy spotted", "need a ride" radio feature seems something like that of Battlefield 2 (?) / Play4Free.

Lastly I realize that lots of you still aren't sure if you want to buy this game or not. This is possibly why you're reading these reviews to being with. I don't blame ya, they gave no demo or beta for us to test. I would suggest you to watch videos over youtube (there are plenty there already...and many more to come). And if you've got questions, feel free to drop comments. I'll keep an eye on it for next few days/weeks.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great entertainment April 15, 2011

By Michael J. Nellett

Platform for Display:PC|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 4.0 out of 5 stars   

I am not a fanatic gamer, just an older guy (58) who enjoys a little escapist entertainment! This game will give you a lot of chances to shoot the bad guys and wreak havoc on the world. If you're looking for the most difficult game in the world then this isn't for you! The graphics are good with a lot of action in every scenario. I enjoy it and it makes for a great companion for my other modern FPS's.