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Homefront Updated Impressions
We look at a future devastated United States in our latest preview of THQ's upcoming first-person shooter.
It's the year 2027, and a resurgent North Korea has invaded the United States of America. The North Korean army--a force numbering in the millions and backed by the world's most advanced weaponry--has taken over the West Coast and, by deliberately irradiating the Mississippi with nuclear waste, has created a gigantic radioactive strip across the middle of the nation, making it impossible for the enfeebled and disorganised US Army to muster a decent counterattack from the East Coast. Millions of Americans are left to fend for themselves, forced to live in sheltered communities that are heavily camouflaged from spying North Korean patrols. The only hope comes from a small but dedicated group of resistance fighters who have banded together to retake the nation, one town at a time.
This is the America that you'll be fighting to retake in Homefront, an upcoming first-person shooter from developer Kaos Studios, whose previous effort was the energy-resource-focused Frontlines: Fuel of War. Kaos and publisher THQ recently showed off more of the game's single-player side at an event in New York and went into plenty of detail about just how North Korea would be able to invade the US. But before we go in-depth into how the Hermit State could possibly have the resources and manpower to take on the world's only remaining superpower, we'll take a look at some of the new levels Kaos showed off from the game.
As we discovered in our first look at Homefront, in addition to the action you've come to expect from modern first-person shooters, the game will have plenty of what the development team calls "why we fight" moments. These story-focused sections--which will all be done within the game engine (similar to the Half-Life series)--aim to put a strong emotional context to all the fighting you'll be doing in Homefront. Our gameplay demo began with the title's protagonist--a helicopter pilot named Jacobs--waking up in a decrepit bedroom, with resistance leader Boone standing over him. Boone says he's glad you're awake (apparently Jacobs had been asleep for 14 hours) and then takes you on a tour of the house you're in. The house turns out to be home for a small group of refugees hiding from the North Koreans. As you look outside the windows, you see a ruined suburban street, and as you head outside, you notice camouflage netting placed across the top of the large yard to hide the location from aerial spies.
As you walk around, Boone explains that this location has become a safe haven, saying that "everything we eat, we grow." This community's self-sufficiency becomes evident as you explore further, with the yard having its own small greenhouse, rows of crops, water purifiers, solar panels, and even some livestock. There are a few people milling around, too--a mother with a breastfeeding child, a man pedalling away on a bike connected to what looks like a generator, an old man suspicious of your intentions towards his goats, and more. After walking around, you meet Boone back in the house, where he's joined by another resistance member--the rough and racist Connor--who says they need to head out on a mission to grab some tracking devices. Jacobs is handed a gun and some grenades before the three head into a tunnel hidden underneath some floorboards to begin the mission.
Unfortunately, we weren't shown what happens afterwards, and the demo instead skipped to a much more action-oriented mission in Chapter 3. This section started off with a pretty brutal introduction to another resistance member you'll be fighting alongside in Homefront, Rhianna, who was in the midst of choking a North Korean soldier unconscious as the level began. As both you and Rhianna move outside, you find yourself atop a small building overlooking a large car park surrounding a Home Depot-style warehouse, which the North Koreans have turned into a fortified base. Taking position on the roof, you watch as a van--fire blazing from its windows and "Great Balls of Fire" pumping from its stereo speakers--crashes through the base's front gates before coming to a halt against some barricades. Wary but curious North Korean soldiers start to gather around the van, at which point a bright, large flare shoots into the night sky, breaking up into dozens of other streams at its zenith. It turns out that this flare is actually a white phosphorous missile fired by the resistance, raining down fiery death onto the North Korean soldiers below and setting much of the base ablaze.
At this point, the resistance attack on the base begins in earnest, and it's Jacob and Rhianna's task to lend sniper support for the incoming troops. Our demo tester switched to a sniper rifle, taking out rocket-launcher-wielding sentries on guard towers and other soldiers attacking the small group of resistance fighters. At one point, Rhianna points out some North Korean soldiers still writhing around in pain after being set on fire by the white phosphorous and asks you to put them out of their misery. Our demo tester acquiesced, but his acts of mercy were quickly interrupted by screams of "misfire, misfire" over resistance radio channels. Another white phosphorous flare has shot up into the sky, exploding directly over Rhianna and Jacob's position, forcing both to jump to the ground below to avoid the deadly blast.
On the ground, the scene is chaotic, as our demo tester manoeuvres Jacob around flaming barricades and screaming people set alight by the white phosphorous (this includes resistance fighters and enemy North Koreans alike). Jacob and Rhianna eventually find shelter by climbing into a guard tower, but this respite is short-lived as the tower collapses after taking fire from North Korean rockets. As Jacob picks himself up amidst the rubble of the guard tower, he comes face-to-face with a North Korean soldier with his weapon aimed straight at him. But the resistance fighter is saved by Goliath--the remote-controlled armoured vehicle that featured heavily in our last preview session with Homefront--crashing into the North Korean soldier and allowing Jacob, Rhianna, and Connor (who has just found the other two) to regroup and take the fight to the enemy.
