Homefront

Eh, if you want to spruce up shooter games, make the combat actually more fun or in depth. Gimmicks like making you angry at the enemy by showing you horrible things don't last very long.
 
The point is to tell a story and to get you invested in the plot. Its less about a gimmick but about creating a commentary that might give us a state of what our wars feel like to those people whose homes are the battlefield.

We have never fought a was on out own land since the Civil War (as far as I know). We as a people don't experience the devastation of war first hand. This game servers to, maybe, allow us to understand what it means to truly be fighting for you home and country.
 
Yeah that's fine and good for creating an engaging experience, but it doesn't offer that much replay value. I think creating good gameplay should be paramount to anything else like graphics, story, etc

I'd rather watch a movie to get the things you're describing.
 
Be nice if they tried to bring out an emotion besides anger and vengeance.
 
Vegeta897 said:
Yeah that's fine and good for creating an engaging experience, but it doesn't offer that much replay value. I think creating good gameplay should be paramount to anything else like graphics, story, etc

I'd rather watch a movie to get the things you're describing.
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Atmosphere and getting the player involved in the story are CRITICAL aspects of a game. This isn't just a gimmick but integral to the story itself. As a HL fan you should know this. I think that the article title may have thrown you off

here is some support that Frosted posted.

FrostedxB said:
http://www.gamefocus.ca/?nav=previewCard&fid=8933

A new singleplayer preview.
Click to expand...
 
Black and white morality, in a shooter? With demonised enemies? What a breakthrough!
 
On the other hand I'm not too fond of so called morality lessons, or social commentary in games.
 
Well frankly black-and-white is exactly what this game seeks to avoid, and demonized enemies that you want to kill and demonized enemies that you feel an obligation to kill are two very different experiences.
 
Maestro said:
Well frankly black-and-white is exactly what this game seeks to avoid, and demonized enemies that you want to kill and demonized enemies that you feel an obligation to kill are two very different experiences.
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It's what it seeks to avoid by showing them slaughtering civilians at every opportunity?
Oh yeah, shades of gray there man, shades of gray.
 
A Kotaku user summed it up quite well:

This game's goal seems to be 'lets make up a fantasy about hordes yellow people coming over and making our women cry' - how original!
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Buying into the hype much, hl2.net?
 
True enough. This game is basically a remake of Freedom Fighters, except instead of unambiguously evil Soviets, you've got unambiguously evil Koreans.
 
Another preview.

http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=12087

This paragraph captures my attention for some reason. It is sorta spoiler-ish, but not overly-detailed as to ruin the intro.

The single-player trailer begins with Hillary Clinton condemning North Korea for sinking a South Korean navy ship and killing 46 sailors. Even though politicians sometimes act robotic and completely fake, this isn't a made-up CG spoof of the Secretary of State; this is video from an actual press conference that occurred on May 21, 2010. Its inclusion strikes an important tone and uniquely sets up the narrative with a little non-fiction before delving into the greater speculative "What If" premise.

The most surreal aspect of Homefront, a game that has been in development for two years already, is that it forecasts the death of Kim Jong-il and the appointment of his son Kim Jong-un as the "Dear Leader's" successor. When we checked out the multiplayer at an earlier event in San Francisco, I turned on the TV in my hotel room and flipped to CNN to find Kim Jong-un was being named a Daejang, equivalent to an American Four-Star General. The younger Kim was appointed this rank even though he has no prior military experience, so this out-of-the-blue move is thought to be in preparation to take over for his ailing father. Needless to say, the developers were floored that part of their story was coming true on the same day that they were demoing the game to us. The team insists they aren't out to predict the future; just create an entertaining fictional story using real-life leaders and countries.
Click to expand...
 
Eejit said:
It's what it seeks to avoid by showing them slaughtering civilians at every opportunity?
Oh yeah, shades of gray there man, shades of gray.
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I guess I should have worded that differently. It doesn't seek to avoid black-and-white, but instead to make you really, really want to kill the enemy. Instead of just mowing them down because that's how you progress, there is a desire to make them pay. I think it's an interesting concept at least. Whether it comes through is another thing entirely, but the idea shows promise.
 
Interview with Sean Dunn

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6203/entering_the_battlefield_building_.php

Do you think that as a publisher that you do have to go for that? Or is that not your personal concern?

SD: It's not really my personal concern. I'm charged with making sure that the game is highly polished and very palatable and very accessible. But also it's not really THQ's concern; we're more towards the idea of making awesome games and awesome games will sell well. Really, trying to be representative of some portfolio is not kind of where we are at this point.

Kaos came from a military shooter background, so it's a natural progression for them. But we didn't really want to be kind of a "me too" in that area, so… It's more about taking the product ideas the studios come up with and just insuring that they had really high quality marks.
Click to expand...

There have been a lot of words between EA and Activision lately. They're each pointing to the other one and saying, "You squelch creativity!" "No, you squelch creativity!" And that's kind of the hot button issue, really -- enabling creativity in these kind of organizations.

SD: It's very difficult. I mean, in the past THQ has squelched creativity. It's difficult for a publisher not to impose some type of will upon development. At THQ, we're really trying our best not to do that. We're trying to bring in really high quality design talent.

You know, our creative directors are not owners of the product -- really they're there to collaborate with the teams. Again, it's difficult when you have sales and marketing entities and people, you know, there's millions and millions of dollars invested in these projects and sometimes there are pushes being made that can be seen as squelching creativity. But we really strive to make that as painless as possible and do that as little as possible.
Click to expand...
 
Looks good, potentially. Kind of seems like they're just trying to do Frontline again, but do it right. As long as the controls are tight and the gunplay is solid, they can't go too horribly wrong (maybe).
 
Vegeta897 said:
Eh, if you want to spruce up shooter games, make the combat actually more fun or in depth. Gimmicks like making you angry at the enemy by showing you horrible things don't last very long.
Click to expand...

I know in Half Life 2, when approaching the house near the train tracks, and you see the pile of crushed cars with some blood smear on the pavement underneath, I raged at the combine, and wiped out the entire group at the house just using physics objects...
 
Maestro said:
I guess I should have worded that differently. It doesn't seek to avoid black-and-white, but instead to make you really, really want to kill the enemy. Instead of just mowing them down because that's how you progress, there is a desire to make them pay. I think it's an interesting concept at least. Whether it comes through is another thing entirely, but the idea shows promise.
Click to expand...

Yeah, no other game has tried doing that before.

Oh wait. They did. Recall Operation Flashpoint: Resistance? Half-Life 2? Freedom Fighters?

Involving the player emotionally is a very, very basic storytelling element. It's the bare minimum a story must have, so trying to pass it off as some kind of revolution is stupid. But then again, most game "journalists" are stupid.

As for the part with the dead parents and child unsure why they aren't waking up?

mourning.jpg


Truly, a scene that hasn't been seen ever before.
 
Tagaziel said:
True enough. This game is basically a remake of Freedom Fighters, except instead of unambiguously evil Soviets, you've got unambiguously evil Koreans.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't compare them. Freedom Fighters was tongue-in-cheek, this seems to be serious about trying to be serious about it. Also, Freedom Fighters was really good.
 
ríomhaire said:
I wouldn't compare them. Freedom Fighters was tongue-in-cheek, this seems to be serious about trying to be serious about it. Also, Freedom Fighters was really good.
Click to expand...

Don't know what game you've played, but I certainly didn't feel that it was tongue-in-cheek. Graphics might've been a little on the comic book side of things, but the story was pretty damn serious.
 
Tagaziel said:
Don't know what game you've played, but I certainly didn't feel that it was tongue-in-cheek. Graphics might've been a little on the comic book side of things, but the story was pretty damn serious.
Click to expand...
Really? With the news reports and that I thought it was supposed to be (at the start at least) intentionally cheesy. It did get more serious further into the game but II always thought the silliness at the start was intentional, not just bad writing.
 
ríomhaire said:
Really? With the news reports and that I thought it was supposed to be (at the start at least) intentionally cheesy. It did get more serious further into the game but II always thought the silliness at the start was intentional, not just bad writing.
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I believe it was unintentional. I didn't find the beginning cheesy or silly - which parts are you referring to?
 
****ing hell, just thinking of freedom fighters makes me quiver with excitement. SO GOOD.

if it's 360 compatible, i'm buying it again this winter. **** yes best game.
 
Tagaziel said:
Yeah, no other game has tried doing that before.

Oh wait. They did. Recall Operation Flashpoint: Resistance? Half-Life 2? Freedom Fighters?

Involving the player emotionally is a very, very basic storytelling element. It's the bare minimum a story must have, so trying to pass it off as some kind of revolution is stupid. But then again, most game "journalists" are stupid.

As for the part with the dead parents and child unsure why they aren't waking up?

[snip]

Truly, a scene that hasn't been seen ever before.
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Because all games have basic storytelling? I'd say a majority of them struggle at anything above basic writing quality, and a vast (mind-bogglingly vast) majority fail at more than marginal emotional involvement. Why shouldn't this game strive for HL2 quality? I also think that their method of showing the impact of your fight (something which HL2 never did, mind you) would be cool if it works out, since there haven't really been many games that attempt to show that sort of in-the-moment impact of actions.

As to the parent+child, that was one example they gave. It's also a trope, something that can be found in almost any emotionally-involving fiction piece has included to some degree. You're trying to make it sound like I'm an optimistic idiot for thinking that this game would be novel for including these sorts of things. Yeah, some games have drawn that kind of emotional response, but very few do. That would mean that it's a pretty novel game if it manages that.

I do not know why everyone who argues against this game acts like they have already played it and think the entire game is a gimmicky piece of shit. Give it a chance, instead of just dismissing any developer who talks about having ambitions.
 
Maestro said:
Because all games have basic storytelling? I'd say a majority of them struggle at anything above basic writing quality, and a vast (mind-bogglingly vast) majority fail at more than marginal emotional involvement. Why shouldn't this game strive for HL2 quality? I also think that their method of showing the impact of your fight (something which HL2 never did, mind you) would be cool if it works out, since there haven't really been many games that attempt to show that sort of in-the-moment impact of actions.

As to the parent+child, that was one example they gave. It's also a trope, something that can be found in almost any emotionally-involving fiction piece has included to some degree. You're trying to make it sound like I'm an optimistic idiot for thinking that this game would be novel for including these sorts of things. Yeah, some games have drawn that kind of emotional response, but very few do. That would mean that it's a pretty novel game if it manages that.

I do not know why everyone who argues against this game acts like they have already played it and think the entire game is a gimmicky piece of shit. Give it a chance, instead of just dismissing any developer who talks about having ambitions.
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You should redo Reading Comprehension 101. I am not smashing the game (there's far too little information available on the gameplay at the moment), I am smashing attempts to pass off rudimentary storytelling as teh revolution. Every story-driven game relies on involving the player emotionally to motivate them to play it, whether it's capitalizing on the current prejudices (a'la Modern Warfare) or by weaving the story in such a way that the player sympathizes with the characters and the player character. This isn't rocket science - every good game needs to involve emotions and whether it's laughter, sorrow or anger, involving the player emotionally isn't new and Homefront certainly isn't revolutionizing anything. That's what I have a problem with - hyping any game's most rudimentary elements as a breakthrough. And people gobbling it up like famished turkeys.

Personally, when I play Homefront, I will thoroughly enjoy watching Koreans making American lives miserable. Which is an interesting reaction to a game tailored to make you feel angry at Koreans and sympathize with the poor, opressed Yankees. Even moreso considering that I genuinely cared for New Yorkers in Freedom Fighters and the Nogovans in OpFlashpoint: Resistance.

For the record, I've cried honest tears when the outro for Homeworld played and to this day I consider it the perfect emotional moment in gaming, where it's not the game that ham fistedly tells you to cry (like Metal Gear Solid's many forced BAWWW moments) or feel rage (like Homefront). It simply involves you entirely in the story of the Kushan, until you truly feel you're one of them.
 
Gameplay looks like MW2, slightly further in the future but with worse graphics and terrible animations.
 
looks ****ing woeful

what the **** was that
 
Sick and tired of these LAME ASS BORING MILITARY SHOOTERS. NOBODY CARES. IT'S ALL VANILLA NOW. ALL TEH WEAPONS ARE VANILLA AND NOT UNIQUE IN THE LEAST BIT. NOBODY GIVES A RATS ASS ABOUT "REALISIM" CREATE ANOTHER HL2 TYPE GAME WITH UNIQUE WEAPONS, ENEMIES AND ENVIRONMENTS.

/capslock rant.
 
A generic Call of Duty-like shooter #41223, that's what. Load of bull, if you ask me, they could've at least tried to rip off an intelligent game, like OpFor: Resistance.
 
AKIRA said:
Sick and tired of these LAME ASS BORING MILITARY SHOOTERS. NOBODY CARES. IT'S ALL VANILLA NOW. ALL TEH WEAPONS ARE VANILLA AND NOT UNIQUE IN THE LEAST BIT. NOBODY GIVES A RATS ASS ABOUT "REALISIM" CREATE ANOTHER HL2 TYPE GAME WITH UNIQUE WEAPONS, ENEMIES AND ENVIRONMENTS.

/capslock rant.
Click to expand...
Don't let shitty games ruin your view of military shooters. And lol at calling these 'realism' games. Play Arma 2 with us and you'll see what you've been missing.

If you think the cause of what makes these games shitty and boring is the weapon selection or environments, then you've clearly been brainwashed by mainstream games to the fact that gameplay is what really matters, and Arma 2 offers something unique.
 
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