According to Homefront, "Home is where the war is"... and it certainly tries really hard to convince you that your home, in this instance America, has become a battlefield.

If you've read anything about the single-player side of the game, you should already be aware of two things: it can be a little brutal and that it's rather short.

To be fair to it, although short (even by current first-person shooter standards), it does try to pack a lot in. Written by John Milius (you know, that bloke that wrote Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn... amongst others http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0587518/ ) the game sets the background with Korea getting all cosy, forming the Greater Korean Republic and promptly setting about taking over the world... nice.

You start the single-player story as an American pilot, rescued by the resistance after carelessly getting yourself captured by the occupying force. What follows is a pretty hectic dash through suburbs, supermarkets and other urban environments while attempting to capture some fuel tankers to aid the US Army in it's attempts to claim back some of the west coast. The story itself, isn't bad. There aren't many real surprised to be had but it does try to be pretty honest (brutal?) about war and how it changes people on both sides. While the GKR are clearly the 'bad guys' in this tale, there are a number of sections showing that the American's aren't above some pretty disgusting behaviour. The gameplay doesn't really stray too much from the usual FPS staples and, at times, seems to be a bit of a box-ticking exercise: stealth section, check. sniper section, check. on-rails mounted weapon section, double-check. Even the sections with 'Goliath' where you mark targets for it to take out aren't exactly new. Although to be fair to the devs, if they didn't include a lot of these 'standard' sections, there would probably be complaints! Given the use of vehicles in the multiplayer portion of the game, I was a little surprised they hadn't include a few open sections where you were given a little more freedom and some toys to play with.

The strict, scripted nature of the game actually caused a few issues for me during my play-through. One section, for example, had me protecting my fellow resistance fighters from a high vantage point using a sniper rifle (box ticked). Unfortunately one of the team informs me that I can only take down targets they specify and only when they say! Ok... I'm a team player so I go with that. First target marked for me, I start to track him through my sights. When the guy on the radio finally gives me the green light I take my shot... and fail the mission. Sadly, me waiting for him to say it's ok to fire wasn't enough... I also had to wait for the little label above my target's head to change as well. So much for me being an efficient killer!

The amount of 'guidance' given throughout the campaign is also a bit of a sticking point for me. It seems the devs have seriously underestimated the intelligence of their audience and everything is clearly pin pointed out for you. Need to take out three guys with RPGs? Don't bother actually looking for them, just point in the direction of your objective markers (it's not like they're carrying a large, rocket-launching, metal tube eh?). It even goes as far as the other characters in the game; if there's a door they 'need' you to open, they'll stand either side of it and comment on it... every five seconds: "quick, get this door open", "what are you doing, let's get through this door", "where are you, we need you to get this door open" etc... Honestly, I really don't need the reminders. If I want to stroll around for a bit looking for ammo, guns or collectables, no amount of nagging is going to work!

Despite my gripes about the brief, linear, hand-holding nature of the game, it is an enjoyable campaign. There are some great set-pieces and the combat is pretty solid. Of course, that's not all you get for your money... there's also the multiplayer.

My time with the mutliplayer portion of the game (that some would argue is the main part of Homefront) has been pretty limited so far. However, what I've seen has been pretty encouraging.

Maps are large enough to make sniping a legitimate prospect and vehicles, both land and air, fun to play with. In contrast to the single player, your first game can be pretty daunting... especially as the match-making needs a little bit of tweaking. I picked a 32 player server from the in-game browser to begin with, which turned out to be a little bit of a mistake. As the only level 1 player (yes, there are ranks... box ticked) playing, I quickly found myself out-gunned... particularly when the other side dropped a couple of attack helicopters into the mix! After a few round of that I decided to give the match-making system another try. After first being put on an empty server and then a server with only one (high level) opponent, I finally ended up on a 20-player server with quite a wide spread of ranks... it was then things picked up and I was able to have some fun, rack up some kills and quite a lot 'Battle Points'.

Battle Points (BP) are Homefront's way of controlling the in-game economy. Rather than giving the players point/cash that can then be spent outside of the game to unlock new weapons etc... Battle Points are only valid during the match you are playing which means you need to think a little more carefully about how you spend them. Each class has a load-out based on a primary weapon, a special grenade, two unlockable slots and the, now standard, perks (box ticked?). The two unlockable slots are the most interesting ones and can range from a flak jacket through to remote drones; each costing a certain number of BP to be able to deploy them during the game. So, should your load-out include an RPG launcher and a tank rolls into play... simply select the weapon and, assuming you have the necessary BP, it appears in your hands. Of course, if you'd rather save your points up for something a little more... substantial... there are a number of high-cost items that can be chosen before you spawn, such as the previously mentioned tank or an attack helicopter!

Of course, they still need a reward system to keep people playing, so some items are only available once you've reached a certain rank (gained by earning XP like BP). So you do still face the problem of being out-gunned by higher level players, although, it seems, to a slightly lesser extent.

Given that it's still early days, I personally think that the multiplayer is great. With so many other titles following the Call of Duty formula it's nice to see someone at least trying to break away from the mold... even if they don't forget it completely. Already the Homefront forums are full of people complaining about one aspect or another. Snipers, for example, appear to be under attack because they are able to kill you "so easily" from an almost insane distance... which, as far as I'm concerned, is the point (even if I do seem to be on the receiving end most of the time). It's no real wonder that some developers tend to avoid their forums rather than take the abuse of the vocal minority. Fortunately, Kaos Studios do seem to be making a good effort to answer queries and keep the community up-to-date with details of patches and work-arounds for some of the issues players are experiencing.

Without giving too much away, I think it's fairly obvious that an expansion or DLC is probably not far off and I can't help wondering how this almost industry-standard approach to squeezing out every last penny from the consumers sits with a company that started out as free mod-makers for Battlefield 1942.

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