Homefront: The Revolution (Xbox One) - Review

Homefront: The Revolution is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £44.99.

Unless you've been living under a rock you'll have heard a lot abut Homefront: The Revolution. Most likely, none of it has been good. From what I have read it has been the PS4 and PC versions which have been slammed the most. So I went into my Xbox One copy feeling grateful that I personally favour the XB1 pad.

With that said I still encountered some problems on the XB1 version and I'm gonna get them out of the way here. I don't usually approach a review in this way, but I feel like most people have come to a Homefront review already "knowing" how it's going to go. Many will have already made their mind up before reading anymore reviews based on what they've heard. And that's fine. But I just want to get the negative stuff out of the way so I can talk about what I did like about this game and end this review on a more positive note.

The biggest problem I encountered whilst playing Homefront: The Revolution was lag. The lag was pretty terrible actually and made it feel like a chore to continue playing rather than fun way to use my precious spare time. It lagged when I aimed through my scope, it lagged when I had an enemy in my sights so that the gunfire sound was playing but nothin else was actually happening. It lagged every single time I used the little locker/store thing or accepted a mission. If you're sitting down to play this game for a prolonged period of time this lag really starts to get on your nerves. I sat through two hours in one sitting and the pull to turn on another game was very strong, let's put it that way.

The graphics have been given a lot of crap and I honestly don't think they're bad. Whilst it is certainly not the prettiest game we have seen so far this gen it is by no means the ugliest (has everyone forgotten Toro?!). Nah I'm being unfair there, we shouldn't compare this to Toro, but my point stands. This game does not look like a previous-gem game at all and in places it was actually really nice looking. It's mostly down to the light usage I think, but I'll tweet out some screenshots after I've published this review and you can tell me what you think.

The load times are also terrible. I honestly wondered whether the game had crashed entirely. And the death animation is laughable, really. But that about wraps up the bad things I have to say about this game. Don't get me wrong, the lag especially, are pretty big bads but I'm sure that future patches will make all of these better. Now onto what I enjoyed!

The story is really interesting and the introduction sets it up perfectly. I couldn't wait to play and find out more (damn you lag!). The game is set in an open-world version of Philadelphia after the "Norks" (no, really. They're not big boobs, it is in fact slang for North Korean, apparently) have flipped a switch in all of our tech and invaded. Wandering around the city feels great, and actually captures that feeling of dread much better than The Division does. You feel oppressed. Nervous at what you might find around the next corner. The atmosphere is really fantastic.

The gun animation is great too. You can swap your load out on the fly, including attachments to your gun. Your avatar will lift it up and you press the button corresponding to the bit you want to change (scope, under-barrel etc). You then detach what is there and attach the new part. It's all very slick and the guns look fantastic. I'm a big fan of the hack mechanic too, which works a little bit like the hacking in Batman: Arkham Knight.

Overall this game is never going to win GOTY but it is a solid single player FPS experience with a great open-world to explore. Yeah there are big problems with lag at the minute, but I'm sure it will be patched eventually. And with the bad press this game has received it is already available for less than £35. In a few more weeks it'll likely be around the £25 mark and I think you should definitely think about snapping it up then.

6/10 TRY IT!

A copy was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Watch Dogs - Xbox One

It's been a busy few weeks here, but I have actually managed to fit in some game time! And for the past couple of weeks I've mostly been playing Watch Dogs, so I thought I'd pop by and give you my thoughts...

Watch Dogs was incredibly hyped last year, you couldn't hear mention of the next generation of consoles without someone citing Watch Dogs. It was earmarked from the beginning as the game to have on the next gen. It seems to have taken an age for it to be released, but when it came around we bought it, an early Fathers Day present for the other half (although I have actually played more of it!).

So firstly lets discuss the graphics. The intro video looks amazing, but I feel like after that some of it looks pretty shoddy. Aiden looks good, but the rest of the character models look pretty tired really, and don't really look like I thought the 'next-gen' would. Cars look good, buildings look good and the environment as a whole looks alright. But nothing special. Graphically it definitely doesn't blow me away.

A LOT of people have likened this game to Grand Theft Auto, something I find quite annoying. Why is it that when a game features an open world it is inevitably compared to either GTA or Skyrim? I don't see any similarity past the fact that they both occur in an open world city and feature cars and guns. Oh and a male protagonist, maybe I don't read enough into these things but for me this doesn't mean anything - MOST games feature a male protagonist yet we're not constantly comparing them. And lets be honest, the shooting in Watch Dogs is not so good. But thankfully we can be sneaky, which I believe is the way in which this game is supposed to be played. I'm not too far into the story yet, but I have been running around unlocking all of the ctOS towers and am yet to fire my gun.

The sneaking system in this game is fantastic. I love being able to press A on the next cover and Aiden will automatically dart there. It feels good, unlike the driving which I find incredibly arcade-y. There seems to be no logic to it, with the heavy vehicles being able to make corners neatly at speed, but the motorbikes mostly missing the corner and diving into a nearby wall instead. Which doesn't knock you off the bike, or even noticeably damage it.

The Fixer Contracts are a massive bone of contention for me. It feels like they cheapen the game a little, if only for just how many there are! Don't get me wrong I don't hate them quite as much as i first did, when on the first one I'd randomly chosen it turned out to be the hardest I have done so far and sits still unfinished.

This is far from an in-depth review, more just a little post collecting my initial thoughts. I'll probably post back with a proper one at some point in the future. But for now I'd say it's definitely worth getting. There still aren't enough games on the One in my opinion for you to be able to overlook this. The hacking is good and some of the phone calls you can hack into are hilarious, as well as some of the intrusion scenes. Don't take in all the hype, don't expect too much from it and above all just play it for a laugh and I believe you'll have a great experience with this game.