Could Kaos' forthcoming FPS batter COD and clip Halo's wings? Jack Arnott found out
In a better world, Homefront would be a Dad's Army themed shooter, putting you in control of Captain Mainwaring and Jonesy as they take on Nazi marauders armed only with a British stiff upper lip and a sidecar-mounted railgun.
Sadly, developer Kaos overlooked such rich source material to instead offer a generic, yet potentially promising FPS set in a near-future world where the US has been invaded by a North Korea-led Asian alliance.
It's a bold, and some would say foolish move to enter a market already saturated by triple-A heavyweights, but building on the relative success of their previous title, Frontlines, Homefront looks to offer something a bit different from the Halos and CODs of this world by focusing more on multiplayer action of a larger scale ? something I got to try out during a look at some early code of the game last month.
In terms of the basic gameplay, it's pretty unremarkable stuff. Squint slightly and you could be playing any old Xbox 360 army shooter. But it's some of the new ideas Kaos have brought to the table which could make Homefront a contender.
Battle Points, the games reward system, offers a refreshing alternative to killstreaks or levelling-up based kit unlocks. Do something good in the game (like capture a checkpoint, or blow someone up) and the game will reward you with points. These can then be saved, or spent immediately on a number of perks ? most of which involve respawning as vehicles.
This quickly encourages a spend/save philosophy ? is it worth buying a tank for the next two minutes if I could wait a bit longer and get a helicopter? - that offers a new tactical spin on even your most worn-out multiplayer formulas. It also means new gamers, with a bit of patience, can get their hands on some pretty tasty gear ? music to the ears for those of us who can count on one hands the times they've managed to summon an AC130.
The vehicles themselves, though not new to the FPS world by any means, are pretty fun ? though I found the controls very poor for some. The drones were the stars of the show, allowing you to zip around the playing field firing rockets, although I fear the novelty of this would soon wear off.
With up to 32 players able to scrap it out at the same time, you can create some pretty intense skirmishes with helicopters, tanks, jeeps and drones all colliding at once - and with no noticeable lag in the code we were playing.
The setting, though hardly groundbreaking, at least has a reassuring sense of legitimacy about it. Hollywood screenwriter John Milius was drafted in to create a scenario a cut above your standard action game plot ? and you could feel the added polish simply from the intro sequence.
Unfortunately for John (and Kaos) the hypothetical events leading up to Homefront's third world war ? based on Kim Jong-il's succession - may already have taken place by the game's release .
Obviously the considered approach to storylining will impact more on the single-player campaign, but its important too that the multiplayer arena at least makes sense. The armoury at your disposal is all based either on existing weapons and vehicles or ones currently in development ? 2027 isn't that far away after all.
Still there's little here that hasn't been seen already in MAG or Battlefield 1943. Homefront's single-player campaign set some tongues wagging at E3, but at the moment my simple advice to the more established FPS franchises out there would be: "Don't panic!"
Homefront will be released early 2011 for Xbox 360, PC and PS3
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