Well, I decided to rent Homefront on recommendation and check out Crysis 2 on the 360 for some easy gamerscore and to see how it fairs on console.
I do have to say that while Crysis 2 is a poor Crysis game, it is a decent CoD clone. The console version had a lot more physics glitches than I saw in the PC version, and I still could not find the story outside of "aliens invade New York and there's a PMC group that needs to be killed (because any PMC in a shooter made Post-Blackwatergate has to be eeeevil)". The suit's fun to use, but the linear structure of Crysis 2 makes it feel limited. The biggest gripe I have with it is the way it takes all the thinking out of its encounters. Crysis, like Halo, was at its best when it dropped you into an area, showed you what you were up against, and then just told you to make it through however you wanted. That freedom of choice is what I've always loved about Halo and it's what really made Crysis and Far Cry special. Crysis 2, however, forces you to rely on its scan visor to keep track of enemies (lest they blend into the background), and that scan visor also tells you everything you need to do. If there's a way to stealth across the level, the visor will show you the path to take. If there's a good sniping spot and lots of ammo, it'll show you where to go. If there's a power weapon, it'll show you where it is. Good luck finding any other creative options beyond "kill everything with a SCAR". Does Crytek really think I'm too stupid to be able to take out a handful of guards without them holding my hand through it? Still, it was an easy 600 gamerscore and none of the single player achievements were too difficult.
Homefront, on the other hand, was a mess. Beyond the single player campaign that I beat in three and a half hours and the multiplayer that it wouldn't let me play (when it wasn't demanding that I pay $10, it was telling me the servers were down), I was also treated to its "disturbingly plausible" storyline that made my head hurt. If this is the best John Millius can do, then his best days are clearly behind him. This was one of the least intelligent and poorly thought out storylines I've seen since Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and Haze. The game wants to be looked at through a microscope and almost begs you to take in the immersion of occupied America. However, the more I looked at the game, the more stupidity I found. The game also loved to kill its own pacing by slowing down and showing how eeevil the enemy was (except for the part where we were supposed to feel sorry for them for some reason), which usually just meant giving us HL2-esque police brutality scenes that were made even more tasteless by adding small children into the mix. Gameplay wise, it's a CoD clone with less weapons and even less interesting weapons. I could trace almost every one of the game's setpieces to one of the last four CoD games. The game's greatest moment, the last level, is idiotic in concept but damn fun. It's a shame that the game is over just when I start enjoying it. The one thing that Kaos could learn from Infinity Ward and Treyarch is the idea of forgiveness. To quote another reviewer, the game seems to love killing you out of spite when you don't do exactly as it tells you. This manages to kill any replay value the game might have had because every skirmish has literally one solution that doesn't lead to instant death. It's taken to its logical extreme when it tries to copy CoD4's beloved sniping stealth mission. Not only does it fail you if you hit an enemy that it didn't tell you to kill, it will fail you if you hit the right enemy at the wrong time, even if there is no logical consequence. I know some might think I'm nuts for saying this, but I think I enjoyed Turning Point better. Turning Point was really dumb, but at least it didn't try to convince me otherwise.
Gears of War 3's beta is pretty nice. King of the Hill and the revamped deathmatch are well designed and the four maps given are pretty good. Even the maligned Capture the Leader is a major improvement from its Gears 2 progenitor. I also enjoy the idea of using medals and rank to earn executions and weapon skins that, while gimcrack, are still worth unlocking for the sheer flare. It's got some really bad spawn issues and the dedicated servers are sporadic at best, but Epic does seem to have learned from their mistakes. Then again, I wasn't buying Gears 3 for its multiplayer (as it will probably be a boost fest for Gears 3's inevitable grinding achievements), but it's nice to see that it'll at least be playable. I'm a little surprised at how few people are playing the Gears 3 beta for as big of a game as this is. I've played it across 3 accounts so far in two weeks and I have yet to see it break 100,000 players. It's very curious given that Reach's beta had over 1 million players on its first day and over 250,000 players at one time.
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