Homefront

had mixed reviews on this game. did the single player campaign then thought i would give multiplayer a whirl. not expecting much i was extremely suprised. not full of campers like cods, large maps and lots of fun. spent much more online time on this than any other fps played.

First off I am not a fan of military FPS games, COD just isn't for me. So why buy this? Well I was looking through cheap games to buy and this popped up, after a few utoob reviews watched I thought why not it is cheap. So I get the disc, register on Steam and download (took 15 mins). Start game not expecting to be interested after 10 mins or so. The opening scene is gruesome and depicts a world that nobody will probably ever experience but is not far from possible.
Into the action. Picked up some "buddies" on the way, "buddies" meaning they don't give a s*** about you but hey just don't get in my way and we'll be fine. They very rarely get in your way, the AI is very good. They take cover, jump, use in-world objects, their accuracy is 50/50 but you really wouldn't do it without them helping. Only on 2 occasions, I think, was I left alone to fight and I really missed them. Face animation and AI movement is fluid with some good, sometimes cliché, voice acting. Enemy AI is also good, when shot or blown up the rag doll physics are very realistic. The NPCs that are in the game are also very good, from children begging to children on swings the animation is spot on. What stood out for me was the suburban environments. They are wonderfully drawn and very detailed, it really does look like an American neighbourhood complete with shopping mall albeit quite beat up. There are cut scenes but they are not long and they set up the next mission. Sound is very good, realistic gun shots and explosions and shouting is all around you.
Why I dropped 1 star. It is short and some controls I didn't like. All controls can be remapped but flying a helicopter really was a pain. The key, default W and S, which says in the control options makes you ascend and descend also makes you move forwards and backwards but not ascend and descend like it should. To gain altitude I had to fly into hills and bounce off them. Incoming grenades are impossible to see. You get a tiny icon displayed which indicates a grenade has been thrown but where it landed and how far away it is in respect to you is unknown. I found myself thinking I was running away from a grenade when in fact I ran into one. Died a lot because of that. Enemy AI are very accurate, especially RPG troops. In fact I died the most trying to fly a helicopter, although the flying mission is short it took me at least 10 tries to get through it. The sniping mission is good and frustrating. When told to kill a target a target appears and you have to look carefully. If it says "Wait" over the target you mustn't shoot until told, the word "Wait" is quite small.
All in all and for the price it is a good buy. I can see why it kind of flopped at its launch, it was up against the 2 big daddies of Military FPS but now with that hype over and if you need to pass a few hours killing on American soil for less than the price of a trip to the movies then this is a good game to keep you busy.

A decent enough action shooter with a story line that keeps you engaged enough to care about what is going to happen next.

My biggest gripe is with the controls, I use a Xbox game pad and at times I felt I was fighting the controller more than the enemy, there was one occasion when I was lost as what to do because the buttons didn't react when pressed - and it's not the fault of my game pad, this doesn't happen on any other game?

All in all not a bad game, decent enough fun and action with only the gripe with the controls to spoil the party. It's certainly no COD etc. but if you can pick it up cheap it will keep you entertained as long as you don't expect too much.