14 DAY TRIAL // Homefront's story may borrow heavily from Red Dawn and it may be quite short, lasting about four hours, but its multiplayer mode does manage to bring quite a lot of interesting things.
While at first, Homefront's competitive online mode may seem a bit bland, having just two types of gameplay, team deathmatch and ground control (a mix between classic ones like occupation and king of the hill), if you opt to play with the Battle Commander option, things get a more strategic layer.
Besides the traditional gameplay, where you need to go around killing the opposing force, in team deathmatch, and also occupy control points, in ground control, the battle commander option manages to spice things up by making matches more dynamic and tasking you with various in-game missions or objectives you need to complete.
Case in point: as you accumulate a kill streak, meaning you kill enemies one after another, the AI-controlled battle commander for the rival team marks your last known position on the map and players are urged to go and neutralize you.
At the same time, if you manage to keep your kill streak going while being marked, you gain buffs like a flak jacket, allowing you to stay alive in front of the enemy assault.
This provides a thrill of the hunt sensation both for the designated target, who gets to show his worth, and for the hunters, who are urged to work as a team and avenge their fallen comrades who were struck down by the enemy.
In Homefront's multiplayer you accumulate not only experience points, which allow you to progress through levels, as well as battle points, which allow you to gain access to better equipment, including special weapons or items, like RPG launchers, but also the ability to spawn directly in vehicles like APCs, Humvees or other such things.
Once you become a target, you accumulate even more battle points, not to mention XP, while the enemy that kills you also gains a bigger bonus for neutralizing the threat.
The whole Battle Commander aspect is a great addition to the traditional first-person shooter multiplayer and, even if it does not justify buying Homefront full price, it will certainly delight owners until the next big military shooter comes around.
For a brief taste of how multiplayer in Homefront works, check out the video below.