Homefront

[Stoney Mason]

Frontlines was hardly jank... that is a bit reaching man.

It was equally ugly. Had a weird control scheme. It was jank. It felt like what it was. A mod team trying to step up and make a big game and it suffered from all the issues that come with that.

I liked it but it was as janky as they come.

The core shooting mechanic in this is solid enough though.

[Stoney Mason]

Played the first two chapters. Apparently there are 6 chapters according to the achievements and those first two were pretty short so this is most likely a crazy short game not that, that bothers me much.

It feels like a poor poor man's COD as expected with less good set pieces. Of course it could get better as I play on but I think I have a pretty good handle on the sp and its nothing special. Certainly not worth buying a game over.

The mp as expected is a bit more interesting. It definitely feels different than COD or battlefield even though it borrows nearly all its elements from both of those titles. My initial impression is that its an interesting mix of the two. But I need to play a lot more to know if I really like it and if it holds up. Haven't tried the battle commander mode because that's locked until you reach a certain level.

[rodi]

This looks like a terrible game. Might wait until it's cheap as shit to try it out.

[Stoney Mason]

I've put in enough time in the mp so that I can comment at least a bit. Unlocked some stuff and played the battle commander mode.

The MP is fun. Its gonna be an acquired taste though and some people will absolutely loathe it. It's fun because its crazy. The graphics suck. The controls don't compare to the crispness of COD. It's doesn't have a lot of modes. Only ground control and TDM and I probably only really think ground control is worthy. But I like it.

It reminds me of an objective based Modern Warfare 2 on much larger maps. There are tons of drones and vehicles and air support up at any one time. If fact you probably spend as much time driving around drones or vehicles as you do running around in first person. If you're the type that hates getting killed by anything other than a gun from another player you will hate it. But I always liked that crazy feeling of MW 2. I just didn't like it on those small maps. The craziness fits the larger maps better and while its crazy I didn't feel like I was dying to crazy stuff as much you would think. There is something undeniably fun though about driving around a drone and mowing down people or using a spotter plane and just tagging everybody on the other team so your team can kill them. It's also really neat to sort of be a walking armory and be able to buy stuff on the fly as the situation calls for it.

Not for everybody but I like it.

The battle commander mode is fun also. It essentially operates as a spotting mechanism so its harder for one player to just rip it up although when he is ripping it up he's getting buffs to help him rip it up a bit more.

It's very easy to look at how ugly this game is and superficially look at how it is cloning other games but I think Kaos games does a good job of always adding in their own wrinkles so that it feels unique. Unlike medal of honor this actually carves out its own spot. Even though it looks like COD and BF it ultimately from moment to moment as you actually play feels different from those two titles.

I wish the games lasted longer though. By the time I feel like I'm in the groove, the game is always ending.

edit lulz. I haven't  been able to get into an mp game in a couple of hours. They say they need to bring on more dedicated servers.

[drew]

is it just me or is aiming down the sights harder to do than in cod?

[Stoney Mason]

is it just me or is aiming down the sights harder to do than in cod?

How do you mean?

I mean the default sensitivity is very low although I found when I increased it, it still doesn't feel as good as COD does shooting. I just think the aiming and shooting model while decent isn't of COD quality. Also this game has the slowest run ever.

[drew]

yeah i already bumped up the sensitivity, but it still seems like i'm having trouble getting on target, making small incremental adjustments seems ham handed - maybe i'm just rusty

[Stoney Mason]

yeah i already bumped up the sensitivity, but it still seems like i'm having trouble getting on target, making small incremental adjustments seems ham handed

I had the same issue. I bumped up the sensitivity at first and then bumped it back down to default. Because while it may be default sluggish at least I don't miss shots when I put it on people.

[Stoney Mason]

Just to close out my thoughts on the sp it's absolute garbage. I would argue there is no reason to even play it. The whole North Korea taking over the US thing isn't realized at all. Its a mostly boring backdrop that adds very little to the game.

Poorly designed. Completely derivative in nearly every aspect of gameplay. You've done all this stuff in COD games and it was much better designed and executed and themed there. Really shockingly bad the more you play. I got up to like chapter 5 which is the "sniping" mission and I debated with myself to even finish it. The engine is garbage. The missions are shit. Kaos and THQ knew the sp was complete bullshit so I'm wondering why they even included it. They would have gotten better reviews if SP was only a bot version of the mp. A mp only game would have been far more appropriate. One of the worst sp games I've played in quite awhile. Real Talk.


This game makes that recent Medal of Honor sp look good which is saying something.

The MP is fun though so that part of the package is mostly ok.

Edit: For what its worth I beat it. I played on hard which was an annoying sort of hard difficult rather than a fun one. Game was 7 chapters. The "best" chapter was the last one and by "best" I mean it would have been a sup-bar cod level that would have been cut from a cod game. 

[Herr Mafflard]

So if I hated the SP in MW2, I will doubly hate this?

[Stoney Mason]

So if I hated the SP in MW2, I will doubly hate this?

I can't really answer that since I loved the sp in mw2.


What I will say is that is clearly a game made by people who sat down and tried to ape a COD game without the talent, graphics, design chops, or controls to actually come anywhere near the goal. The attempt is so bad its laughable in fact.

Also on a side note here is another example of gamers being dumb. There are a lot of complaints about the length of Homefront and there was a story today from THQ saying that maybe Homefront 2 will be longer.

The problem with any game is never the length. If a game is 6 hours, or 10 hours, or 20 hours. That is what it is. As long as the content is interesting and fun over that time, length doesn't matter. A game should be as long as the content within it justifies. The problem with this game's sp is its shit. 8 hours of shit or 20 hours of shit is no better a proposition. In fact I would argue this game is too long. It wears out its welcome quickly.

[Herr Mafflard]

the multi sounds interesting enough, I guess

getting the PC version in a couple of days

anything that looks half-interesting and has steamworks, I jump on. You can usually get 'em 5-8 pounds cheaper in retail than on steam.

[Mr. Gundam]

$41.96 already at Amazon. Wow.

[Herr Mafflard]

mine worked out at about $32 usd

£25 minus £5 promo code = £20 or $32

[Stoney Mason]

the multi sounds interesting enough, I guess

getting the PC version in a couple of days

anything that looks half-interesting and has steamworks, I jump on. You can usually get 'em 5-8 pounds cheaper in retail than on steam.

You may or may not end up liking the multiplayer but its pretty clear where Kaos strength lies. THQ should use them as the multiplayer designers for their big mp games but give the sp to somebody else who is more competent in that arena.

[Mr. Gundam]

mine worked out at about $32 usd

£25 minus £5 promo code = £20 or $32

I'm not buying it, so I saved even more money.

[maxy]

THQ's new FPS franchise Homefront sold 375,000 copies during its first day on sale in the US, the publisher has announced.

"We are delighted with first day sales for Homefront and are already fulfilling re-orders for the game from multiple retailers," said CEO Brian Farrell.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-16-homefront-sells-375k-on-day-one-in-us

[Stoney Mason]

THQ's new FPS franchise Homefront sold 375,000 copies during its first day on sale in the US, the publisher has announced.

"We are delighted with first day sales for Homefront and are already fulfilling re-orders for the game from multiple retailers," said CEO Brian Farrell.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-16-homefront-sells-375k-on-day-one-in-us

Well it already outsold Bullestorm and Killzone 3.  I have a feeling its also going to outsell Crysis 2 but we'll see I guess.

I bear them no ill-will. crap sp. Good mp. I'll put more than enough time into the mp to get my $60 out of the game.

[tiesto]

So from what I hear, the storyline in singleplayer isn't really fleshed out throughout the course of the game? I am interested in this due to the whole theme of it, it's seriously like the type of videogame plot I'd write, if I was tasked to make an FPS.

[Ganhyun]

I gotta say, I love the premise of this game, but the execution is so so far off its sad.

SP needs so much work. MP has so many issues, the least being the server issues. I cant play a game except 1-2 an hour due to losing connection to the host, the no server available errors, and just general lag. None of my other online games even hiccup, just this one.

sigh.

[Stoney Mason]

I gotta say, I love the premise of this game, but the execution is so so far off its sad.

SP needs so much work. MP has so many issues, the least being the server issues. I cant play a game except 1-2 an hour due to losing connection to the host, the no server available errors, and just general lag. None of my other online games even hiccup, just this one.

sigh.

I have had mixed. Some games have been perfect and others have been lag-tastic. The major issue right now is that during any prime time the game is unplayable due to lack of servers. Like right now I can't play it.


The funny thing is that they suggest playing skirmish matches which are peer to peer instead of using dedicated servers but I can't get into one of those kind of games either.

 http://www.homefront-game.com/blog-post/homefront-dedicated-server-capacity-doubles-%E2%80%93-more-way

Not a great situation of course but the last two battlefield games I also had issues playing on the first week.

[Ganhyun]

odaknow where the p2p for skirmish came from but ive been connecting to a host server in those games.

[Sho Nuff]

Am I misinformed or did this game price drop to $39.99 within 24 hours of launch? 

[Stoney Mason]

We'll know the full sales picture in the next npd. Otherwise I would say without that sort of data people are just guessing about the sales picture of this game.

[demi]

So from what I hear, the storyline in singleplayer isn't really fleshed out throughout the course of the game? I am interested in this due to the whole theme of it, it's seriously like the type of videogame plot I'd write, if I was tasked to make an FPS.

Play Freedom Fighters...

[naff]

Apparently THQs stock dropped 25% with investors pulling out after bad reviews came in following the embargo. And they've also said they need to sell 2 mil just to break even on this game. Considering the content size and quality and it's an FPS on Unreal that seems ludicrous. Then again I know licensing Unreal can be really expensive and KAOS are scrubby devs
 
I guess they have possibly checked the right boxes for big sales in NA - acclaimed writer check, apocalyptic amurican setting check, decent multi, killing asians; I can see what sort of crowd this will particularly appeal to http://tinyurl.com/4vrcv4v .

[Sho Nuff]

2 million for an original IP at $59 this late in the console dev cycle? Even with butthumploads of marketing, I dunno mang

[naff]

40$  but seriously, that's what THQs VP and CFO is reported to have said http://www.industrygamers.com/news/homefront-needs-to-sell-2-million-to-break-even-industry-shooting-itself-in-foot/

[Stoney Mason]

Up to like level 20 in the mp now.

I gotta say the mp is really growing on me. I find it really fun. The power vehicles and weapons are pretty damn powerful but there are some counters to those if you save your money properly.

One of the lame things is that you really need to unlock a lot of stuff to have the full toolkit to play the game. An unlock system doesn't really suit this game the way it suits something like COD or Crysis or something.

This is all based on me playing ground control. Much like battlefield I don't think game has tight enough controls for me to find the tdm that much fun.

One of the really clever things about how the game is setup is that you need to create different classes to handle different situations and then switch between them as the game develops depending on what is going on.

[chronovore]

Apparently THQs stock dropped 25% with investors pulling out after bad reviews came in following the embargo. And they've also said they need to sell 2 mil just to break even on this game. Considering the content size and quality and it's an FPS on Unreal that seems ludicrous. Then again I know licensing Unreal can be really expensive and KAOS are scrubby devs
 
I guess they have possibly checked the right boxes for big sales in NA - acclaimed writer check, apocalyptic amurican setting check, decent multi, killing asians; I can see what sort of crowd this will particularly appeal to http://tinyurl.com/4vrcv4v .

Jinkies. Needing to sell 2m copies of this to break even, even with the 375k opening, they're a long ways away from breaking even...

[Great Rumbler]

Apparently THQs stock dropped 25% with investors pulling out after bad reviews came in following the embargo. And they've also said they need to sell 2 mil just to break even on this game. Considering the content size and quality and it's an FPS on Unreal that seems ludicrous. Then again I know licensing Unreal can be really expensive and KAOS are scrubby devs
 
I guess they have possibly checked the right boxes for big sales in NA - acclaimed writer check, apocalyptic amurican setting check, decent multi, killing asians; I can see what sort of crowd this will particularly appeal to http://tinyurl.com/4vrcv4v .

Jinkies. Needing to sell 2m copies of this to break even, even with the 375k opening, they're a long ways away from breaking even...

Unless it has a huge drop-off after the first day, it could make over a million the first month fairly easily.

[WrikaWrek]

Almost over with it on Ps3...man this game has really poor graphics. Looks like a 4 year old game or something.

[Stoney Mason]

Up to level 32 in mp. All I can say is this game has dope mp imo. Really fun stuff. This might be my main shooter until the fall.

[demi]

Almost over with it on Ps3...man this game has really poor graphics. Looks like a 4 year old game or something.

[WrikaWrek]

Almost over with it on Ps3...man this game has really poor graphics. Looks like a 4 year old game or something.

PC version wasn't out yet. Still isn't.

Doesn't matter, finished it. Game is average as they come, has some good intentions but it just doesn't quite do it.

[drew]

the eotech in this is pretty weak and jaggy, how you could fuck it up i have no idea

[maxy]

UK chart

1. Homefront (THQ)
2. Dragon Age II (EA)
3. Pokemon White (Nintendo)
4. Shogun 2: Total War (Sega)
5. Pokemon Black (Nintendo)
6. Fight Night Champion (EA)
7. Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft)
8. FIFA 11 (EA)
9. Killzone 3 (Sony)
10. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft)

PR

Those with long memories might remember Kaos’ first boxed release ‘Frontlines: Fuel of War’ on 360/PC which debuted at No4 in week 9, 2008.  On Xbox 360 ‘HomeFront’ is certainly performing well considering that in week 1 in the UK it manages to sell around 82% of what Frontlines on 360 achieved over 3 years. EA’s ‘Dragon Age II’ drops to No2 (-68%) and Nintendo’s ‘Pokemon White’ also drops one place to No3 (-47%).  Sega’s PC ‘Shogun 2: Total War’ by Creative Assembly debuts strongly at No4 and was in fact a Tuesday release in week 11.  Such was the demand for this title (if you were a fan of ‘Shogun: Total War’ you have only had to wait 11 years for this sequel) that almost 80% of retail boxed sales were made in the first 24 hours.

Also new this week is 2K Sports/Take 2’s ‘Top Spin 4’ on 360/PS3/Wii which debuts at No13, the previous iteration debuted one place higher at No12 back in week 25, 2008.  The final new entry this week is Sega’s ‘Yakuza 4’ on PS3, debuting at No25, with previous iteration also debuting one place higher at No24 back in week 10, 2010.

titanic 70 per cent of copies were sold for Xbox 360, leaving 26 per cent for PS3 and four per cent for PC, according to Chart-Track

01: Homefront - 360: 70%, PS3: 26%
02: Dragon Age - 360: 61%, PS3: 27%
06: Fight Night - 360: 51%, PS3: 49%
07: Fifa 11 - 360: 49%, PS3: 29%
08: Killzone 3 - PS3: 99%
10: ACBro - 360: 37%, PS3: 31%

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/mar/21/video-games-chart-top10

[Stoney Mason]

THQ’s announced that it’s shipped 2.4 million units of Homefront since it first launched last week


In addition, the Kaos shooter, which sees the US invaded by a United Korea, sold 1 million units in its first week on sale.

World wide numbers but still goes to show the game almost certainly didn't flop. It's also #6 this week on the xbox live activity chart which is a pretty good debut for a new ip.

1   Call of Duty: Black Ops
2   Modern Warfare 2
3   Halo: Reach
4   FIFA Soccer 11
5   NBA 2K11
6   Homefront
7   GTA IV
8   Dragon Age 2
9   Battlefield: Bad Co. 2
10  Call of Duty 4

EEDAR analyst Jesse Divinich said he thinks Homefront is now on track to sell 3 million units over its lifetime and believes investors have been too quick to punish THQ for early reviews.

"As an industry—and this is specifically targeted towards analysts and investors — it is easy to become too reliant on a single metric, which may erroneously drive forecasts and/or investment decisions," he said.

"In the case of Homefront, it is clear that the investment community did not take into account all the factors including the strong preorders and pre-release awareness that existed among consumers for the title. ... The reality is that numerous factors exist that can impact the overall sales performance for a title," he continued.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Herr Mafflard]

pld some multi earlier. It's really fun. You should play TDM more Stoney, some really crazy stuff happens when your not running around capture points.

The rc chopper is one of the most fun weapons in a multiplayer shooter ever. I love raining down on fools who think they can outrun it.

also, squaring up to big choppers with it and helping bring them down is so satisfying

[Stoney Mason]

Glad you like it. Yeah the multiplayer is really fun imo. I think a lot of people are sleeping on it because the single player in the game was so god damn awful but I think its legit really good on the mp side. That is when you can actually get into a game especially with a party which is currently very iffy and broken.

[chronovore]

THQ’s announced that it’s shipped 2.4 million units of Homefront since it first launched last week


In addition, the Kaos shooter, which sees the US invaded by a United Korea, sold 1 million units in its first week on sale.

World wide numbers but still goes to show the game almost certainly didn't flop. It's also #6 this week on the xbox live activity chart which is a pretty good debut for a new ip.

"Shipped" -- Not "sold through." THQ's marketing was clearly projecting massive sales for this title. Just because they've moved that many into channel, doesn't mean they've moved anywhere near that amount into people's homes. I hope they have, I really do. I like that they're doing an original IP, I like that they're challenging the competitive online FPS dominance of CoD. But I think this game is not doing ANYWHERE near as well as they'd hoped. Mainly because of that word, "shipped."

[Great Rumbler]

THQ’s announced that it’s shipped 2.4 million units of Homefront since it first launched last week


In addition, the Kaos shooter, which sees the US invaded by a United Korea, sold 1 million units in its first week on sale.

World wide numbers but still goes to show the game almost certainly didn't flop. It's also #6 this week on the xbox live activity chart which is a pretty good debut for a new ip.

"Shipped" -- Not "sold through." THQ's marketing was clearly projecting massive sales for this title. Just because they've moved that many into channel, doesn't mean they've moved anywhere near that amount into people's homes. I hope they have, I really do. I like that they're doing an original IP, I like that they're challenging the competitive online FPS dominance of CoD. But I think this game is not doing ANYWHERE near as well as they'd hoped. Mainly because of that word, "shipped."

Shipped 2.4 million
Sold through 1 million in first week

[Eel O'Brian]

i made it about 20 minutes in

it's not terrible, but after the initial opening sequence it went straight COD and my interest just evaporated

controls seem a little laggy, too

back to gamefly, the game just isn't doing it for me

[chronovore]

THQ’s announced that it’s shipped 2.4 million units of Homefront since it first launched last week


In addition, the Kaos shooter, which sees the US invaded by a United Korea, sold 1 million units in its first week on sale.

World wide numbers but still goes to show the game almost certainly didn't flop. It's also #6 this week on the xbox live activity chart which is a pretty good debut for a new ip.

"Shipped" -- Not "sold through." THQ's marketing was clearly projecting massive sales for this title. Just because they've moved that many into channel, doesn't mean they've moved anywhere near that amount into people's homes. I hope they have, I really do. I like that they're doing an original IP, I like that they're challenging the competitive online FPS dominance of CoD. But I think this game is not doing ANYWHERE near as well as they'd hoped. Mainly because of that word, "shipped."

Shipped 2.4 million
Sold through 1 million in first week

What was the "less than a half mil" opening then? Wasn't that for a full week? I can't recall, but I do see that it was widespread discounted almost immediately, which also makes me worry about them recouping the money. It's stated above that they needed to sell 2M copies to  break even, isn't it a safe assumption that it refers to full-price copies sold?

[Great Rumbler]

THQ’s announced that it’s shipped 2.4 million units of Homefront since it first launched last week


In addition, the Kaos shooter, which sees the US invaded by a United Korea, sold 1 million units in its first week on sale.

World wide numbers but still goes to show the game almost certainly didn't flop. It's also #6 this week on the xbox live activity chart which is a pretty good debut for a new ip.

"Shipped" -- Not "sold through." THQ's marketing was clearly projecting massive sales for this title. Just because they've moved that many into channel, doesn't mean they've moved anywhere near that amount into people's homes. I hope they have, I really do. I like that they're doing an original IP, I like that they're challenging the competitive online FPS dominance of CoD. But I think this game is not doing ANYWHERE near as well as they'd hoped. Mainly because of that word, "shipped."

Shipped 2.4 million
Sold through 1 million in first week

What was the "less than a half mil" opening then? Wasn't that for a full week? I can't recall, but I do see that it was widespread discounted almost immediately, which also makes me worry about them recouping the money. It's stated above that they needed to sell 2M copies to  break even, isn't it a safe assumption that it refers to full-price copies sold?

That was most likely just the American launch. The 1 million first week is worldwide, as is the 2.4 million shipped.

[Joe Molotov]

i made it about 20 minutes in

it's not terrible, but after the initial opening sequence it went straight COD and my interest just evaporated

controls seem a little laggy, too

back to gamefly, the game just isn't doing it for me

Single-player was kinda blah, but the multi is fun.

[Stoney Mason]

I hit level 50 level in the multiplayer which I believe is the last level with true unlocks. The rest of the leveling at that point is just for extra. Took me about 15 hours or so.

I've put more than enough time into this to say the multiplayer in this is really good. Kind of an unsung gem imo. Pretty darn balanced if your team is doing what they are supposed to be doing to counter the stuff. Every vehicle has a counter to it in some form. Every strategy has a counter to it in some form. You just have to be on a team that is executing the strategy properly.

Two good videos that kind of talk about strategies in the game.


[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[chronovore]

Just received this in email if ANYONE is on the fence about buying this, and has not tried a Gamefly "test drive":

THQ is proud to announce the Xbox 360 Homefront® Multiplayer Demo is now open for download on the Xbox 360 Marketplace to all Gold Members!

Fly helicopters, drive tanks and call in airstrikes as you experience large scale warfare, intense infantry and epic multi-vehicular combat in the Homefront® Multiplayer Demo for a limited time.  Battle with up to 32-players in Occupied USA on dedicated servers and get a taste of large-scale warfare in a brand new way. Home is where the war is, download it today!

But wait, that’s not all… Homefront DLC has arrived!

The “Fire Sale” Map Pack is available on the Xbox 360 Marketplace; featuring two all-new multiplayer maps for a suggested price of 240 Microsoft Points (MSP). “Spillway” and “Big Box” will carry you deeper into a twisted and war torn America, download and enjoy them today.

Also, now available from the Xbox 360 Marketplace are the 870 Express Shotgun (80 MSP) and a free Homefront Premium Theme! The entire team at THQ would like to thank you for playing Homefront and being a member of our community.

[DJ_Tet]

You can get it used for under $2 if you have the Gamer mag sub and coupon from Best Buy.