Homefront Notes

Patches already? only been out half a week.

No difficulty choice?

Controls
Usual analogue sticks
X is pick up / use / climb etc.
B is crouch / go prone.
A is jump.
Y switches weapon

Clicking left stick runs, right stick is melee.

Right bumper is grenade.
Left bumper is C4

Clicking left stick sprints.

We see news, North Korea testing nukes, UN sanctions. kim Jong Ill dies and his son takes over. It is 2013 and Korea is united, the middle east explodes and oil is scarce. It is now 2017 and everything is going to hell. Korea is taking over and is now called the Greater Korean republic invading all it's neighbors. A satellite is a a secret EMP weapon that knocks out USA power. The Koreans invade America.
The montage of stock footage ends with America invaded and it's people subjugated.

Mission 1
The game starts in a small room, the radio tells us that we are in Colorado.
The door is hammered on and three soldiers barge in. We are forced against the wall and one of them tells us that we are unpatriotic.
We are smashed in the face with a rifle butt and kicked down the stairs.
Outside loads of people are being herded around and we are dragged towards a bus.
We are herded onto the bus and as it drives slowly along the street we see about fifty people being tied up and cuffed, loaded onto vehicles. Some resist and are beaten, some run and get shot. A mother and father are lined up against the wall and shot in front of their very young child.
We are told by another bus passenger that these people will be taken to a labour camp.
The bus drives through a security checkpoint into a deserted broken down part of the city.
A lorry rams it and rolls the bus. A rebel comes aboard and knife the soldiers and sets us free. we run through a shop and are followed by soldiers. I get an assault rifle.
The people we are with are Connor and Rhianna, seems they targeted us for rescue for some as yet unknown reason.
I fight though some buildings and come to a petrol station, we fight from inside the shop as trucks filled with soldiers arrive.
Eventually it all blows up and we run off into a suburban area.
I am told to wait as a tank and loads of  soldiers pass down a street then sprint past behind them.
I come to a crash site of a plane and we fight soldiers through the wreckage.
The grenade indicator is the same as call of duty. In fact an awful lot is similar.
An APC needs C4 thrown at it and detonated twice.
We move into a civilian area and meet another resistance man. He seems to have some sort of plan involving gas and us being a pilot.
He is angry that Connor brought us to this residential area. He is proved right as the army arrive and starts shooting everyone, rebel or innocent.
We have to defend a house under heavy siege until tear gas is thrown in.
Then we run, a woman with a baby is hidden in the backyard and we run on to draw the army away from her.
We move into another house and the rebels have some heavy gear of their own. We get to use a humvee that is driven by remote control. It just needs pointed at stuff and it goes and shoots at them for us.
I use it to take out a few enemy vehicles and then a plane comes and bombs the area.

Mission 2
I wake up in a house, seems to be a rebel settlement, evidence of children and plant crops.
Boone and Connor argue about the timing of the plan.
After exploring the eco commune we are asked to go on a mission with the rebels.
We go through a tunnel and are told that the resistance built loads of similar tunnels.
We come up into another street.
There is an automatic sentry turret here, it is a chaingun connected to sensors.
We have to throw a grenade at it and stay out of it's searchlight beam.
Then we meet a patrol and fight them.
We then meet up with Rhianna in a school. She has some mortar shells.
Boone has been wounded, he is taken home by Rhianna.
We are going to recon a labour camp.
Recon seems to mean full frontal assault to these people.
We have to fight our way up a street, using back alleys and take out a sentry tower.
Seems we are looking for someone inside the labour camp. The full on attack at the front gates is a diversionary tactic.
We sneak inside using a tunnel and ditch our rifles, keeping only our pistols.
We are told to ask around for Arnie.
A slow walk around the camp reveals intense hardship, like an Indian slum with armed guards.
We find Arnie, who is meant to be leading us to some buses we are going to do something to.
Not very good at explaining the plot here guys!.
Anyway Arnie is a double crosser and we are captured. In slow time we shoot our way out.
We have to climb some stairs and take out all the guards on the balcony above where the two rebels are pinned down.
We then go into the guard station and take three beacons for some unspecified reason.
The plan is finally explained. We are tagging three fuel tankers. Which we will then be able to track. The plan is to fly out following them to a remote location where their support will be negligible and take the tankers.
We come to a baseball field and find the army digging mass graves with loads of victims to toss in.
We fight our way around the field until we take out two towers. We then have to evade a helicopter gunship. To do so we hide amongst the bodies.

Mission 3
We see Boone back to health and we are going on another mission, getting into a van.
There is a mortar in the van.
We are to be a sniper.
I follow rhianna up onto the roof of a building.
We are now looking down onto a walled yard with lots of soldiers.
The van is driven into the compound and crashed, it is designed to bring the soldiers towards it to kill more of them. The weapon we saw earlier is used, white phosphorous. It is a mortar shell that  goes up and then rains down a flammable substance which coats and burns anything below, including people. Lots and lots of soldiers die. We get to snipe. Then a second shell misfires and nearly hits us, lots of rebels and Koreans are caught in this blast.
We have to run through flames towards a tower. Which is then brought down by a helicopter.
We are nearly killed by a soldier when the goliath makes a reappearance.
We attack a more soldiers and vehicle using goliath.
Then we go inside a building and fight lots of soldiers.
We come out into a yard and find the tankers. They are leaving and we have to run to them and throw the tracking device onto one.
We then shoot up some soldiers and regroup.
We go back inside the building for some reason and shoot up some more people. The place is coming down around us and on fire.
We go to some stairs and head up. We are told on the radio to get to the parking lot, weren't we just there?
We go out and use goliath again to shoot soldiers.
We then have to sprint to a truck.
On the truck we have to use goliath to take out pursuers.

Mission 4
We are back at the little homestead, only the Korean's have been to visit. Everyone is dead and it is all burnt to the ground. Boone lies dead in the middle of it all.
Rhianna is distraught. Connor tells her that they have to go.
We are ambushed in a street and have to use goliath. The soldiers target goliath using rockets.
We then have a tank to deal with.
We are heading for the wall now, a wall built around what I don't know.
The Koreans are bombing the hell out of the civilian town in retribution for the resistance attack.
Rhianna is despondent, Connor tells her that we must honor Boone by carrying out his plan.
we meet some fairly banged up resistance fighters and make a plan to breach the wall.
Connor wants all the c4 they have to be placed on goliath and use it to ram and blow a whole in the wall.
We progress to some well defended barricades and must storm them and open the gates.
There is a little bullet time sequence here where I burst through a door and shoot people with a shotgun.
really bad checkpointing here.
We have to take out about four rpg armed soldiers and then open the checkpoint door.
We then have goliath arrive and shoot it with an rpg. This blows a hole in the wall. We steal an army humvee and drive through the hole. This is now an emplaced gun section.
We are told that we are going to a farm to collect a helicopter.

Mission 5
We are told about life after the EMP, which saw modern civilization break down, food became scares and countryside areas became dangerous places, cannibalism is hinted at.
The farmers were known to Boone, Hopper who is Asian is told to wait outside.
The chat with the farmers doesn't get much past the fact that Boone is dead, their leader seems to think the deal is off and just wants to have Rianna as his sex slave. Fighting breaks out and we are into a head on gunfight with the farmers.
We regroup after the first group of farmers and are now going to sneak in and steal the helicopter.
In not so subtle terms we are told this is a stealth mission. We are given a sniper rifle.
The farmers are redneck nutjobs, who were probably batshit insane before the war.
There are hanging bodies and Korean heads on pikes dotted around.
We follow a scripted path and see that the farmers are acting the same way that the Koreans are towards their prisoners. Is this a lesson on how war dehumanises people?
We shoot a few snipers in high places and watch as Rianna chokes out a guard. Then into a garage.
A Korean helicopter flies over spouting propaganda and asking for resistance members to be turned in. It is shot down. If we steal the chopper without taking the rpg's out then it will be a short flight.
We see the farmers making a Korean soldier dig his own grave before shooting him.
Incidentally I see a QR code on the wall here and it gives me a wallpaper.
More stealthy movement and shooting at select targets then it's back to normal with a pitched battle. The Korean helicopter that was  shot down has some survivors and they are fighting the farmers.
We fight both sides and push on through the area.
We can see the church where the helicopter is supposed to be. It passes overhead and appears to be landing at the church.
The chopper is heavily guarded, we are to go up into the bell tower and provide sniper cover for the other three who will attack head on.
I have to go alone and attack the church, after getting inside and halfway up I die and am sent back right outside the church to assault it again. Poor checkpointing is no excuse for a short game.
I get to the top of the tower and find a sniper rifle. Connor tells me what to shoot at.
After carefully shooting a few guards Conner then drives a truck straight at the helicopter and stirs up a hornets nest, so much for the careful approach!
I have to jump from the bell tower down the scaffolding and make it to the helicopter through the mess.
I get to the helicopter and we see it take off in cut scene.

Mission 6
This is a helicopter sequence and surprisingly I am actually in control.
It's quite hard to survive very long, it seems to be asking a lot of you straight off.
One or two hits from the rockets take you out straight off.
We chase the convoy of tankers. Then take out their escorts.
Now we have to hover close to the tankers and let the gang jump onto them and hijack them.
Now we have to escort the tankers and protect them from missile batteries and road blocks.
We take down a bridge in the progress and the tankers have to take a detour.
This is quite a fun section where we cover the convoy as it goes through a town and protect it from solider's, tanks and another helicopter.
There is a large road bridge out of the town and one of the trucks breaks down. we have to protect it as Hopper places c4 to take out the bridge. This will stop any pursuit.
We have a lot  of incoming vehicle to deal with.
Then the bridge is blown and that's it. We are to deliver the fuel to what is left of the military.
We arrive at the military base and join in on an assault near San Francisco.
I am to get into a helicopter.
We have a nice scene as we ride towards the golden gate bridge in the chopper and then start the fight. We have to use a grenade launcher to take out soldiers as we circle one of the bridge pillars.
Then we land and take an area from the Koreans.
Next we push on and find a tank. We have to avoid it's attacks and find something to kill it with.
It's all scripted but it's breathless fun. I find an rpg and then we shoot the tank thrice to kill it.
Now we have too climb up the bridge to the top.
At the top we meet up with the gang and some more soldiers.
We then move along the bridge with a convoy shooting the place to hell.
At a point we are blown off the bridge in cut scene and clamber back onto a lower level.
WE have to fight along underneath and we come up behind the sentry guns that are holding up the gang.
After the sentries are down we have a helicopter to shoot down.
Then we push on to destroy anti aircraft guns.
On the anti aircraft gun platform we have to defend until Hopper reprograms them and stops them shooting our planes down.
We then get to use air support to take out the convoy ahead of us.
Now we get into a humvee and meet a goliath.
We are chased about by it and have to use missile counter measures
We eventually shoot it and it blows up in our face.
In cut scene we see a convoy coming in, the air support has no firm target on it and needs something to shoot at. Connor gets up and using a flare runs towards the convoy. This allows the pilots to aim at the flare. Of course Connor is holding it and is vapourised along with the Koreans.
That's it, news reports tell of the fight in San Francisco and talk about European involvement coming to aid America. All set for Homefront 2 then?

4 hours 30 minutes.
120 achievement points which is quite stingy, though I suppose i only put in four hours work.
I found the difficulty settings buried in the options menu, strange choice. I was playing on normal.