Homefront Vs. Bulletstorm

Two of the big First Person Shooters of the moment are Homefront and Bulletstorm, so let’s see them go head to head to find out which one is the best.

ROUND 01: COVER

   

Homefront’s cover is very reminiscent of old school Command and Conquer with the headshot of the lone soldier’s obscured eyes staring out towards the player.  It is simple yet powerful and sets the tone the developers were looking for.  While Bulletstorm’s cover has more colour, it’s going for a more high energy feel and is falling short, mainly due to the two supporting characters is the background standing a bit limply.

WINNER:

 

ROUND 02: STORY

Here is Homefront’s story in a nutshell:  Koreans have invaded and now occupy America.  There is no fuel because of a fuel crisis before said Occupation.  Rebels capture three tankers of fuel and use the fuel on seven helicopters.  Seven helicopters are all it takes to turn the tides of battle in the good guys favour, it seems, and though it means a supporting character is killed by friendly fire, the first battle against the Koreans is won.  No, really, that’s it, and considering how much they promoted the involvement of John Milius, it’s a complete disappointment of a story, relying on one or two shock moments to con you into thinking it is deep.

I wasn’t expecting much from a game like Bulletstorm, and was surprised to find a nice story evolve over the course of the game.  In a nutshell, you land on the holiday planet from Hell and stuff is trying to kill you.  It’s a revenge story that basically hits all the cliché's, but is held together by a group of great voice actors including Steve Blum (from The Big O and Cowboy Bebop) and Jennifer Hale (from Metal Gear Solid and Mass Effect 2).  What’s also great about Bulletstorm is that it knows it’s limitations.  Homefront is trying to be something it’s not.  Bulletstorm knows its a revenge story with crass language and immature humour, but still manages to slip in those little character moments now and again that lets the story rise above something that’s there simply to join the levels together.

The ending to both of these games strongly hints that a sequel is possible or even in the works.  Given the choice, I’d rather go back to Bulletstorm and go on another adventure in it’s world.

WINNER:

 

ROUND 03: CHARACTERS

The main character in Homefront is Jacobs.  He is a pilot.  That is all we ever get about the main character.  He’s a silent protagonist and with the exception of firing a gun and flying a helicopter, he contributes absolutely nothing to the game or it’s story.  The supporting characters don’t fare much better and were so unmemorable, I can’t even remember their names.  There was Angry Guy, Emotional Woman, and Token Asian-American Guy.  They argue constantly, but their arguments don’t bring anything to the story, they grieve over the death of characters the players don’t know or care about and they irritated me so much I was sorely tempted to leave America to its fate.

Bulletstorm’s Grayson Hunt, on the other hand, is a fully fleshed out character.  I didn’t like him during the opening of this game.  He was an alcoholic scum bag who casually killed a man and put his whole crew in danger on his quest for revenge.  But as the game progressed we saw more and more of him human side and his desire to keep the few people left in his life safe.  Ishi makes for an interesting supporting character, a man who’s slowly loosing control of himself to an AI in his brain.  He betrays Grey a few times over the course of the game, but they always come back together because of their friendship and by the end of the game, Ishi has found his humanity again.

WINNER:

 

ROUND 04: GAME PLAY

Homefront is glitchy.  It’s nothing major that cause the game to crash, but it’s lots of little things that grow into one big irritation.  You will get stuck in the graphics and run into invisible walls.  Animation is rough and enemies don’t so much stand up from cover as pop up.  Enemy AI is terrible and they are quite happy to running into your cross hair then falling down dead.  Homefront wants to be Call of Duty but ends up being nothing more than tedious and boring.

Bulletstorm is not only a solid shooter, but combines shooting and melee combat better than any FPS I’ve ever played.  Animation looks great, I never got stuck in the graphics and not a single enemy ever ran into my cross hair.  In fact, in this game, they even try to out run your sniper bullets.  Add to that, it’s over the top violence and the creative ways in which you kill people makes the game a lot of fun to play.  Even when I wasn’t playing the game, I was thinking about how much I wanted to be playing it, and even though I have now finished it, I’m going to be replaying it for a long time.

I’d also like to add that Homefront has no variety of enemies, where as Bulletstorm has a vide variety that require different strategies to defeat.  Homefront has no stand out Villain, while Bulletstorm has General Sarrano, a nasty piece of work who wont hesitate to destroy a planet to kill Gray and Ishi.  Homefront has no boss battles, while Bulletstorm has many, including fighting a giant killer plant that would put Audrey II to shame and the giant monster that is so big, it had to be dealt with with a mounted gun in a helicopter.

WINNER:

 

 

OVERALL WINNER:

While it’s crass language and immature humour will instantly turn some people away from it, for those who aren’t bothered or find that funny, they’ll find a great game that is well constructed but also a lot of fun to play.  If you’re humming and hawing over which one to play, I can’t recommend Bulletstorm highly enough.