Review by: Tom Chick

There's nothing terribly wrong with Homefront. Well, nothing that isn't wrong with the average me-too shooter crassly built to grab a slice of the Call of Duty pie. But those shooters weren't made by the talented mod-makers who went on to form Kaos Studios and make the sadly underrated Frontlines. That game was a fantastic all-around package, with a surprisingly open and replayable single player campaign, and a surprisingly unique and ambitious multiplayer game.

So what happened that their latest effort went so wrong? Why did Kaos Studios decide to take all the cool stuff they did in their last game and chuck it out the window in favor of imitating Half-Life and Call of Duty without any appreciation for the writing and pacing that made those games great? Who knows? Aliens, gremlins, suits at THQ, sophomore slump, bad milk, lack of sleep, Frontlines' disappointing sales figures. Take your pick. It doesn't really matter. Let's just get this review over with and get to the business of waiting to see how Kaos' next game turns out.

There's not much to say about the single player except that Red Dawn wasn't supposed to be a serious movie. Well, any more serious than most of the junk made in the 80s. So, yeah, okay, in the future envisioned in Homefront, evil Koreans invade America. Ha ha. Oh, wait, they're not joking. Okay, dire stuff about mass graves and interment camps and screaming babies during gunfights. Okay, I can dig it. Oh, wait, you mean this is just one of those scripted corridor games where I'm waiting for a Korean head to pop out behind cover so I can shoot it? Yeah, I did that to the Taliban in that last Medal of Honor game. It was just as forgettable.

Wait, what's with all this dialogue and in-game cutscenery? Look, Kaos, I can grant you the one tram ride at the beginning of the game, but how often are you going to slow down the action for me to listen to two people talk? Oh no, something's blowing up and I'm being blown up, but I'm rescued and, oh god, the younglings have obviously been murdered even though you can't show it, and now someone is blowing our cover because he's screaming insanely at the horrible grimness of it all. (Did I mention that Red Dawn was a teen comedy that was supposed to introduce a little Young Guns levity to the Cold War?)

Now I'm hiding under a body -- well, waiting for the in-game cutscene of me hiding under a body to finish, at any rate -- and now Boone is dead, and... Wait, who? Who's Boone? I wasn't really paying attention. Boone from Lost? Why is that news? That was, like, season two.

Hey, Kaos, time out for a sec. You remember Frontlines? You had big open maps and just little obligatory shreds of exposition about oil shortages and then it was, like, hey, go! Get out there! Play! Do your objective when you're ready! Drive around or hoof it, whatever you like! Hang back with your dudes or push forward and Rambo it! We've made a big battle arena for you to play in! Whee! We've even got a few really cool surprises, and then some nifty replay challenges. Remember that? It was an angst-free playground from the kind of guys who I would have guessed understood what a goof Red Dawn was. The kinds of guys who didn't have any expectations that I was going to pay attention to -- much less care about -- who Boone is.