Homefront released this week. Actually, 2 days ago. I’ve already finished the campaign. No, I did not spend all night playing either.  It was something like 5 hours long and that was with a lot of dying on a few missions.  That is pretty short.  I would not mind the length really if it was not for the fact the story was one of the big selling points of the game.  It was written by the guy behind Red Dawn so I was expecting something a bit longer.  Still, the story is the one good thing about the campaign, and even it was not told that well.   Between missions there are cut scenes telling what happened next because of the actions of the characters who the who the story follows, but right in the middle of the scene a giant “Press A to Skip” button comes up. So much for being immersed in the story.  Gamers are smart. We know how to skip a cut scene.  If you really need to tell us how to skip a cut scene then put it in the corner out of the way and make it small.

Even without the giant cut scene skip info the campaign is hard to get immersed in. The graphics are nothing special and the controls are pretty standard. Unfortunately the shooting is not very good. The guns require you to be extremely accurate to hit enemies.  This would be fine for sniping but when I’m using an assault rifle from 10 feet away I should not need to hit the middle of someone’s chest or head with half a clip to down them. Especially when the enemies are able to kill me with just a couple bullets.  I would not mind the low health or high damage per bullet if it was done evenly.

Even just walking around feels off.  You move slowly like you are walking through molasses and sprinting feels like a slow jog. They give you a large section of cities and suburbs to play in but don’t bother trying to flank enemies unless your team mates tell you to.  The game blocks off every where it does not want you to go with fences and broken cars so that you have to go down the very linear path they want you to.  It is really frustrating to have a while wide area out around you and not be able to use any of it tactically.  Some areas seem like you should be able to access them by jumping a low fence or crawling through a broken wall but the game has invisible walls in place to make sure you do not.  This is doubly frustrating because the objective markers are often not very clear.  When the objective is not currently visible you pretty much have no way of knowing which way to go other than to just wait for your team to eventually advance and follow them.  Try going off ahead of them to get a head start and most likely you will find yourself waiting for them to open a door or move an obstacle.  That is assuming you can even figure out the right path to take.

The AI is pretty weak throughout the campaign for both the enemies and your group or rebels. Everyone pretty much just stands in place and keeps shooting until their clip is empty and then goes into cover to reload.  Even though everyone else in the game can use cover there is no cover mechanic for the actual player.  You can crouch and go prone, but no using cover other than just getting behind it.  And, you better get behind it because the enemies pretty much shoot at you and only you.  Either that or your friends are bullet proof.

All of these frustrations and faults are really a shame because there are some awesome settings and set pieces throughout the campaign that could have been truly epic if the game just did not suck so much.  I did have a good time controlling the Goliath during those sequences. Of course shooting dozens of enemies with homing rockets fun in pretty much any game.  The only other times I really had fun was when I was sniping.  There are a few sections where you get to just sit back and pick off enemies with a sniper rifle and those were nice.

I have not played any multiplayer yet, but unless it is something really remarkable I would recommend skipping Homefront.  I guess if you wanted a few each achievements you could rent it and play through the campaign on a day or two, but I would say avoid Homefront if you were at all hoping for a good campaign.