Multiplayer

Homefront – Multiplayer Impressions

Homefront is a first-person shooter and like most first-person shooters it has a competitive multiplayer component to go along its single player campaign. If i had to give a brief synopsis of Homefront’s multiplayer it would be its not a bad multiplayer at all, its just not over average either. I personally love vehicles in modern military shooters that Homefront incorporates. My gripe is that it just feels like i played this multiplayer before. Homefront was developed by Kaos Studios and published by THQ. For this particular Gamer Blog article i am playing Homefront on my PC via Steam.

The Multiplayer section of Homefront has the following menus: Quick Match, Join Match, Create Match, Armory, Challenges, Leaderboards, Recorded Games and Practice Map. The Challenges section shows which challenges you can complete in-game for rewards. Each challenge usually has a specific gun associated with a set amount of kills you must achieve. For example LMG: 5 kills. There are also vehicles challenges were you have to get a specific amount of kills with a vehicle. Challenges can also be completed by getting wins across certain gamemodes. I never saw what prize you get for completing these. I do know you will level up naturally by completing them. I also played a few Practice Map games. These were beneficial where you can practice driving vehicles and learning a map’s layout and structure.

When you play games in the Recorded Games section of Homefront you can participate in recorded matches. I played one game that was recorded but haven’t watched the match yet. I honestly haven’t even looked up how to watch my matches after playing a Recorded Games match. Like most modern military first-person shooters when you first see the lobby there is a loadout screen accompanied with it. Homefront’s screen has a Infantry Loadout section where you can pick and choose who you want to play with. There are four unlocked classes right off the bat you can play with and two locked reserved for higher level players.

The starting classes are Assault, SMG, Heavy and Sniper. You can pretty much figure out the base weapons and skills for those classes. The locked classes are Tactical (lvl 6) and Explosive (Lvl 35). There are also vehicle load-outs which i think is really cool. Homefront really incorporates their vehicles into there multiplayer. You can even spawn in vehicles when you play some matches. I spawned in a Abrams tank a few times. I started out playing with the noob class aka Assault. The Infantry Load-out menu lets you customize and choose what you wanna use depending on what you unlocked. You can change primary and secondary weapons. You can change weapons attachments and weapon camouflage.

You have two purchase slots where you can add special ”abilities” like Tactical Reload, Thick Skin, Ice Cold etc. Homefront has a plethora of multiplayer maps that can fit vehicle gameplay on. For the most part the maps were decent and featured various USA small town settings. Maps: Farm, Cul de Sac, Angel Island, Crossroads, Green Zone, Big Box, Spillway, Borderlands, Lowlands, Low Lands, Water Way, Overpass and Bridge. Matches can support up to 32 players. The PC version had many lobbies and matches going on everytime i played Homefront’s multiplayer. Matches varied along with rules and unlocks. I can say for sure many gamers on the PC still play Homefront.

I played Battle Commander mostly which is like Conquest in Battlefield. I also played the normal Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch gamemodes. I am sure there are more gametypes in Homefront’s multiplayer but those are the few i spent all of my time playing. For the most part the multiplayer in fun. The gadgets really do make a difference and i really enjoy the vehicles in Homefront. It doesn’t take long to learn the ins and outs of its gameplay. Prone is useful in multiplayer i learned that early on. However i always get that feeling that i been here before. I can’t really comments on killstreaks since i didn’t any. All i know they are there and have benefits.

Homefront’s multiplayer can best be called average in my opinion. Its not bad but its not great either. I do believe it’s a serviceable multiplayer which has a split divide of gamers who love it and some who don’t like it. I sorta fall in the middle. Thanks for reading.

Forza Motorsport 4 – Multiplayer Impressions

Forza Motorsport 4 is the grandest of all driving games available on the Xbox 360. Its deep, beautiful and has a multiplayer gamers need to check out if they haven’t already. This particular article will focus on my recent experiences regarding Forza Motorsport 4′s multiplayer. For the record i have played Foza 3′s multiplayer which was fun. I do believe Forza 4 upped the ante regarding multiplayer due to the increase driver count per match and new exciting gamemodes such as The Playground: Tag (Virus). Forza Motorsport 4 is a driving game developed by Turn 10 and published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for the Xbox 360. It released October 11, 2011.

The Community Menu houses all of the multiplayer menus for Forza 4. Its basically where you want to hang out if your playing online all day. Main submenus include: Race Online, My Club, Rivals, Leaderboards, Auction House, Storefront, My Profile, Message Center. At the bottom of the screen you can see Top Features, News Feeds, File Depot, Rivals Alerts and Car Club HQ. One thing Forza 4′s community especially Turn 10 manages to do is make you feel good by giving you free stuff. For example, just by logging into multiplayer i received a Daily Credit Bonus of 2,416. Thats not all, Turn 10 Community  also “gift” me a DB5 Vantage (James Bond old school).  ”My Profile” section of Forza 4 has all of your personal online info. Edit Playercard (can net you an achievement by setting it up), My Stats, Affinity, Media, Options and Team Credits. The Clubs section lets you create car clubs for multiplayer. Add players and give them access to your garage of cars to use (for all club members).  Its also where you can set up to compete against other car clubs.

The Rivals section has Monthly, Top Gear, Hot Laps sections you can try your hand at. Most of your time will be spent in the Race Online section of the Community Menu. Menus here include: Find Race, Create Race and Invite Friends. Find Race is where i started and has the following sub menus: Quick Match, Turn 10 Select, Circuit, Multi Class Circuit, Drift, Motorsports, The Playground, User Created Races. Turn 10 Select: Cycled Production, November Speed Pack, Ferrari Showcase, 5 on 5 Soccer. Multi Class Circuit: A and E, The A B Cs, Forza Le Mans, S and D. Drift: Unlimited Drift and Unlimited Drift RWD. Motorsports: American Muscle Drag, B Class Time Attack, RWD Unlimited Drag American, Stock Car, RWD- Unlimited Drag, Stock Car Unlimited Drag. The Playground: Tag (Virus), Cat and Mouse, Keep The It, Soccer, User Generated Races. That about covers all of Forza Motorsport 4′s online gamemodes.

The first match i played was a Circuit Race. I picked the Saleen S7R. I don’t remember the track honestly other than the fact it was a huge track and it took forever to complete five laps. The host of the race didn’t even compete. Since it was just the two of us he figured he would let me race alone until the next match filled up with gamers. I did end up winning the match. Gained 17,000 XP which boosted me to level 3 or Driver License D status. I was also awarded level 1 Affinity award and a level 2 Affinity award from Saleen and 2000 extra credits to spend.

The second section i visited was Drag. I figured i did drag racing in reallife so a videogame shouldn’t be a problem, wrong! I picked an old school ZR1 Vette. The problem at the time for me was that you can only modify cars you buy or win. I didn’t have a suitable car so i had to pick a car with stock tires, gearing and suspension. In other words, the cars were not set up for drag racing, they were just stock muscle cars basically. In every heat i got spanked by other gamers online by about 3 seconds in the 1/4 mile. It was fun still and quite addicting. I kept playing over and over. You can only quit a match after a race and you better be fast when you do it. Next time i play Drag i’m buying a car and modifying it specifically just for drag racing.

The Playground is a fun area of Forza 4′s multiplayer if you just want to act like kids and play around on tracks. I played Tag which was fun. It says “You are it” on the screen when your it. I was driving the wrong direction trying to tag other drivers. Everybody had mics and was having fun. One thing i want to make clear. If you want to level up fast i would play multiplayer for XP. Its fun and there are many ways of scoring huge amounts. Forza 4′s community is pretty big as it should be. Many people have mics. Afterall what other driving game does the Xbox 360 have similar to Forza 4?

Forza Motorsport 4′s multiplayer is addictive with interesting and fun gamemodes. Its also good for leveling up and learning how to drive. Thanks for reading.