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Protecting the Homefront
Product: Homefront
Company: THQ
Date: 06/11/2009
Avaliable On:

Homefront is a new first person shooter taking place about 20 years in the future and two years into the North Korean occupation of the U.S.

Not a lot of details concerning the overall story of Homefront could be revealed during the demo session (besides the fact that it was written by Apocalypse Now's John Milius), but the level we saw had the main character joining with a resistance movement that had just been hit hard by the enemy. Now you, and your new squad mates, have to repel the opposing force with anything you have handy. Primarily, this includes a series of guns that are just slightly futuristic. But it also includes a semi-autonomous robotic vehicle called The Goliath which has quite a bit of destructive power.

When activated, The Goliath can be targeted at anything from troops to vehicles. If it doesn't have a clear shot, then it will use its six-wheels to climb over any terrain it needs to in order to position itself for attack, and then it will unleash a flurry of rockets and rounds at the target you selected. Actually, at times, this vehicle seemed to prefer simply running over its targets, so it seems the weapon's A.I. is a bit more complex than simply maneuver and shoot. What was interesting was to see The Goliath crash through a few walls when it didn't have a good enough shot. I couldn't tell if the places it tore through were pre-designated locations or if the environment is simply highly destructible and the A.I. knew that. Either way, it was impressive.

Unfortunately, a release date for Homefront hasn't been announced yet, and the development team at Kaos Studios has only been working on the game for about a year, but that means the game has a long way to go and it already looks like a fun FPS experience. Homefront will be released on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

J.R. Nip aka Chris Meyer

GameVortex PSIllustrated