Provoke enough dissent and you’ll reclaim the district in a fiery and violent purge of the invading forces. As well as seizing strongholds, Ubisoft-style, and using the clever level design which treats ruined buildings as complex entry and escape points for your attacks, there’s also the populace to consider: you’ve got to fight for their hearts and minds by stopping street beatings, killing officials, freeing prisoners and the like. It’s a cute system, shepherding players between all out action and light stealth, and it plays smartly into your role as a guerilla fighter, switching playstyles from straight-up assassin to agent of change. Districts are divided into three zones: Red zones see occupying forces shoot on sight yellow zones enable the player to move around freely as long as they don’t arouse North Korean suspicions (by say, drawing their guns or getting too close to patrols), and green zones are fortresses where high-level Korean governance is based. Philadelphia is under total Korean control, and it’s up to the player and the resistance to break their stranglehold.
Smash cut to the near future and debt-ridden America’s reliance on (compromised) North Korean technology has enabled the ‘Norks’ to infiltrate security networks and sweep across the US: first offering help to stricken, bankrupt US citizens, then cracking down in a brutal fashion. 70s Steve Jobs is Korean, essentially, and so Silicon Valley becomes Silicon River, Bill Gates goes to work for the Apex Corporation, and the concept of reserve currency doesn’t exist. It’s not a great one either, but it works as an urban Far Cry-alike, and in terms of mood and atmosphere it is surprisingly accomplished.ĭeveloper Dambuster Studios has, in a bid to lend authenticity to the setup, retconned the series’ nonsense backstory – North Korea invades the US – into yet more nonsense backstory. Surprisingly, despite its difficult production, it is not a terrible game. It could easily have limped out and been terrible, a warning about the turbulence and expense of the video games business. Homefront: The Revolution is the game that wouldn’t die, a survivor of failed publishers and near-total design changes, a sequel nobody wanted to a game not enough people bought.
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