Homefront – Korean Rage

Must be hard doing rebel stuff with your eyes covered

Homefront is Kaos Studios‘ second and final game. After the disappointing release of Homefront, THQ at the time decided to axe them. Another studio and brand are dead, in a sea of publishers looking for that sweet Call of Duty 4 money. This is a tale old as religion. Instead of focusing on what made their game good, they decided to chase trends, which in the end proved to be a futile endeavor. However, the game is not all bad, the campaign is entertaining at times, but long gone is the cool futuristic setting. Now, it’s set in a more contemporary setting with some light sci-fi stuff. Just like Frontlines: Fuel of War, Homefront has a strong multiplayer focus, but unlike Frontlines: Fuel of War, it never grabbed me as that game. It feels way too much like CoD. It also comes with added XP, leveling, and soldier kit upgrades – stuff that I don’t enjoy in an online shooter since it makes the immersion and balancing absolutely dreadful.

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Frontlines: Fuel of War – Nostradamus Edition

I used to play Frontlines: Fuel of War by the now-defunct developer Kaos Studios on the good old Xbox 360 because my PC was crap at the time. It was a hell of a game, the multiplayer was awesome, the setting cool, and the weapons interesting and deadly. I would even consider it better than the Battlefield series. It was an entertaining game with great gameplay that was ahead of its time in more than one aspect when it comes to multiplayer. Unfortunately, it didn’t take off, much to my dismay, and since then the genre has fallen off a cliff in my opinion.

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BROK the InvestiGator – Gator eats Gator World

Point & click and the beat ’em up genre combined, two genres that should never cross, like the beams in Ghost Busters. What is next, horror and comedy? Oh wait, that is a thing. Unlike that unholy meld, Brok the Investigator does the blending fairly well, which adds some gameplay to the otherwise pretty static adventure gaming. However, it’s not all happy sunshine, but COWCAT almost succeeded!

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Iron Marines – Copper Bullets

Iron Marines is both a casual and a hardcore experience at the same time. Yes, I know, it sounds weird, but it really is. The presentation and everything around that screams welcome to casual Ville – stay a while for an easy time. However, if you play on “hard” (which I did) the experience is anything less. The developers behind the game are Ironhide Game Studio and are known for their awesome series of tower defense game series Kingdom Rush. This is their first venture into the RTS genre, and it’s not a bad first try, but it comes with some frustration. I had a good time in general, especially for only 5 bucks spent on it, but I think the last area of the campaign was a mistake. As it usually goes, later areas are harder and require more from you, and I got nothing against that. However, the devs made the game harder through frustration, that in my opinion ruins the fun of playing an RTS – to actually kill stuff. You see, instead of making the enemies harder, now each dead unit heals another, and it has the effect of being the worst case of HP bloat I have ever seen – particularly going from one campaign section to another… It was like night and day, and it drained all the fun I was having in one go.

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Halo Wars – The Need For War

Halo Wars was initially an Xbox 360-exclusive real-time strategy game, but for some years now it has been out for PC. While it’s an RTS in the classical sense, it is designed around being played with a controller, which could be considered one of the worst heresy when it comes to this genre. And I would agree if it was made for PC this way from the start, but as it is (and since I have played it on the 360 before) the controls work well considering. There is keyboard and mouse support for the PC version, but I’m set in my ways and used a controller this time around again. Before we start the review for real, I just want to clarify that this is one of my modern cozy go-to games when I want a relaxing RTS fix, so this review will be fairly biased in favor of it, even if I recognize it has faults. Halo Wars was made by Ensemble Studios, and it’s one of the last games they made, so while I love this title, it is a bittersweet feeling playing it.

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