It's a good couple of years since the disastrous release of "Homefront: The Revolution" was first released and though things have improved and the game has at least been patched enough to be playable - little could be done about the boring repetitive gameplay that caused me to eventually give up on it well before the end of the story.
Playing as Ethan Brady, a member of the American resistance fighting back against North Korean invaders in a somewhat desolate future Philadelphia. The game works with you slowly liberating city blocks in various regions of Philadelphia at which point that locations resources and freedom fighters become available to you as an asset. Winning over the block takes the form of one of a few mission types, sometimes simply clearing out the enemy soldiers is enough, but occasionally there is a need to reprogram a security system, or take possession of a radio. Here's where the real problem is, there isn't anything like enough variety in these for an entertaining game - the first section of town uses each of these twice and though it improves a bit as the game progresses, not by enough. I feel like the game would have been better with a more structured cinematic narrative rather than the open world they decided on. Much of the game is spend wandering from place to place, as death pushes you back to the most recent safe house. It works quite hard to give the illusion of lots to do, but really the "jobs" aspect of it, little bonuses offered for doing something generally end up with you using the camera phone to photography 10 of . . . whatever, for a cash bonus. (Annoyingly - these reset each time you start the game too, so the whole job needs to be done in one sitting). On top of that, the gunplay and controls don't sit particularly well, they aren't horrible but they're nothing special either. I often struggled to identify friend from foe in the game too, particularly at night.
The gun customisation is well done, with attachments swappable around different base guns, and the ability to rejig firearms into significantly difficult weapons. The game is pretty free and easy with money too, so establishing an armoury fairly quickly is easily done. It looks good, the crytek engine put to good use and though samey the desolate areas look decent.
It's just too dull in today's AAA gaming market to warrant you spending your time on it. Gunplay is better in the "Destiny" and "Call of Duty" series and open world is done better in "Assassins Creed" and "Fallout" games. Life's too short.
