Non-Americans Can Like Homefront, Too

[Kimarous]

I look at a game like this and all I can think is "Could they for ONCE take a gander at how turmoil in the US will affect international politics? Aren't European powers affected at all? What about China, who is heavily reliant on the country economically? What about their beloved "hat", friggin' Canada? Aren't they affected AT ALL?"

If they don't even show a glimpse of such, then fuck this game and fuck the developers!

 

[nuba km]

I always thought with the plot of America getting conquered that Americans wouldn't like not Europeans(me included) and other places.

 

[HK_01]

I look at a game like this and all I can think is "Could they for ONCE take a gander at how turmoil in the US will affect international politics? Aren't European powers affected at all? What about China, who is heavily reliant on the country economically? What about their beloved "hat", friggin' Canada? Aren't they affected AT ALL?"

If they don't even show a glimpse of such, then fuck this game and fuck the developers!

No they won't do that, because if the other powers would be mentioned, that would create even more problems for the story, because they'd have to explain why the European powers, Canada, Australia, etc don't help the US and why Russia and China don't take out NK. There's no reasonable explanation for this, apart from some paranoid bullshit like "everybody turned EVIL and now HATES the US and China and Russia were EVIL from the start and support NK going batshit insane. The whole stationing more troops on the North Korean border thing Russia did when tensions rose between North Korea and South Korea was really just a joke, they're secretly the best of friends and Russia and China don't care about losing their dominant status in the area to NK." So they'd have to admit that the US is not the last bastion of hope for the whole world, which is of course unthinkable.

 

[Lord Kloo]

I do! I'm probably gunna get this game anyway. But the premise IS pretty retarded.

The Half-Life series is about a mute, bespectacled genius with a legendary crowbar that's more epic than... Anything ever, and it follows his time travelin' adventures and alien slaying, and yet it's one of the best FPS series around.

Bad/"retarded" plots do not make a bad game.

Exactly my point^
But the plot for Half Life is still WAY more plausible than Homefront >)
No problem with the game itself, just the writing.

Alien invasion is more plausible than, what is technically, an Asian invasion of the West coast.. I can see what you're getting at but the overall scenario is quite realistic, sure in real life America and its invincible marines will always win but hey, it makes for an original game.. partially original..

 

[Danny Ocean]

Learn to read, dude. He's not saying that people in Chechnya or Afghanistan will sympathize with the poor americans. He's saying that the idea of wanting to defend your family and the place you sleep at night is pretty universal, no matter if you're American, Mexican, Afghan, or whatever.

You just contradicted yourself.

WHAT IS HARD ABOUT THIS?

THERE IS NOTHING HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT YOUR EXCUSE.

We get it. It's made in the USA, so it's bound to be pro-US. That's a very simple excuse.

The problem is that it is just that: an excuse. This kind of story is exactly the kind of biased, 'safe', Americanised stuff the rest of the world has come to expect. Honestly, this kind of far-fetched framing is starting to read more and more like propaganda. There are books and films and more showing the West and the USA in a negative light. Why no games? It's not like there's not enough material of that vein to make one.

Artists push the boundaries and try to reflect the world through various auspices. This doesn't do that. It doesn't challenge anything. This is just a self-affirming 'feel good' story designed to please US audiences, and maybe Western ones as a whole at most. That's fine. It's okay to make some stuff like this sometimes- to indulge in some patriotic fervour. It just grates when they try to paint it as something it isn't.

I would love a game that portrayed the Western influence on the world in a negative, but not unreasonable light, and I'm from the UK. I'm so sick of this self-affirming bullshit that permeates Western, especially US, media. It's something I think a US citizen will find very hard to really understand unless they go native abroad for a while.

Care to explain how you're seeing propaganda in this and not, say, in Modern Warfare, Halo or pretty much any other game ever released?

That doesn't remove the fact that this game is loaded with it.

 

[Nikolaz72]

but the creative director of the game thinks that its themes and values are universal.

It really would have helped if you'd picked a slightly less controversial and slightly more believable scenario. Like Episode 3 coming out on time.

After playing the game, I actually really don't have a problem with the scenario. They present it well, and as he says in the piece, it's completely speculative fiction.

And I'm becoming increasingly convinced that people don't actually read our news posts beyond the headline and the teaser.

What about marking the whole thing a headline then .

 

[The Cheezy One]

I'm liking the idea of a homefront London, which THQ and Kaos are already looking at [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/252765/news/homefront-london-planned-by-thq/]!
That is more universal than a game about occupied America. Although, I have to admit, Freedom Fighters was the best game ever in this regard. One thing it got right was that
Guerilla combat should be low-key.
HomeFront seems to kick that in the nuts straight off, with the equivelant of dog from HL2 with a missile launcher on its back.
Although the premise makes more sense than FF, which fell into "Because Russia didn't like the US", and far more sense than Turning Points story, which was "Because Britain fell, Germany turned into a massive steam punk entity".
Another thing - in BLOPs, Steiner says that Nova 6 (spoiler) was first going to be used on Washington DC, then Moscow. Really? Because at that point, Russia was basically at Berlin, and Britain was a far bigger threat to Germany than America, who were mostly concerned with the Pacific front, which at this point they were holding almost single handed. I think the actual order would be Moscow, London, Washington DC. (Prepares for flaming)
*Sigh* Anyway, this is all speculation about something that never really happened
Will get HF, and hopefully it will be good

Spoiler: snip

Learn to read, dude. He's not saying that people in Chechnya or Afghanistan will sympathize with the poor americans. He's saying that the idea of wanting to defend your family and the place you sleep at night is pretty universal, no matter if you're American, Mexican, Afghan, or whatever.

You just contradicted yourself.

WHAT IS HARD ABOUT THIS?

THERE IS NOTHING HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT YOUR EXCUSE.

We get it. It's made in the USA, so it's bound to be pro-US. That's a very simple excuse.

The problem is that it is just that: an excuse. This kind of story is exactly the kind of biased, 'safe', Americanised stuff the rest of the world has come to expect. Honestly, this kind of far-fetched framing is starting to read more and more like propaganda. There are books and films and more showing the West and the USA in a negative light. Why no games? It's not like there's not enough material of that vein to make one.

Artists push the boundaries and try to reflect the world through various auspices. This doesn't do that. It doesn't challenge anything. This is just a self-affirming 'feel good' story designed to please US audiences, and maybe Western ones as a whole at most. That's fine. It's okay to make some stuff like this sometimes- to indulge in some patriotic fervour. It just grates when they try to paint it as something it isn't.

I would love a game that portrayed the Western influence on the world in a negative, but not unreasonable light, and I'm from the UK. I'm so sick of this self-affirming bullshit that permeates Western, especially US, media. It's something I think a US citizen will find very hard to really understand unless they go native abroad for a while.

Care to explain how you're seeing propaganda in this and not, say, in Modern Warfare, Halo or pretty much any other game ever released?

That doesn't remove the fact that this game is loaded with it.

This is the reason I mostly go for Eastern European/Russian games, although they don't portray the West in a negetive light (making the whole "West hates East" seem more like bullying than rivalry), they have far more interesting gameplay themes and styles (STALKER, Cryostasis, etc.), and very rarely build the west into it. It makes what Yahtz said about fan-fiction in his BlOPs review seem even more true.
Also - UK high five!

 

[Kenko]

Why are occupations only bad when they happen to us? I wonder if the Iraqis and Afghanis feel the way this game is supposed to make us feel.

Ah, but they were liberated, not conquered big difference. If they had been conquered, the wouldn't have put Taliban supporters back in charge in Afghanistan, and not passed laws so that men can starve their wives to death if they resist being raped.

The US isnt "Liberating" them. Its occupying them. Big difference.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Oh I would be able to enjoy a game about guerilla warfare against an occupier, that's not my problem with this one. It's the mind-numbingly idiotic premise. North Korea conquering Asia and the United States? Why not make it about Hawaii taking over the world? Or Rhode Island? Or Bornholm?

Furthermore, picking the superpower that has been invading, nuking and carpetbombing the rest of the world for 70 years now is also a bad idea. There hasn't been many of those, so the analogy is extreme here, but imagine a simelar setting in defeated Nazi Germany where you lead a heroic resistance fight against the foreign occupiers.

I know the US has nothing on the Nazis but the "POOR HELPLESS GOLIATH HAS BEEN BEATEN, FEEL SORRY FOR HIM" image is the bit I'm focused on.

Finally the premise isn't original, we already saw this exact same thing in CoDMW2 with the Russians invading (despite just having gone through 30 years of economic crisis and then a massive civil war), pitting a shattered, impoverished nation of 100 million versus a well armed, wealthy one of 300 million, and trying to paint the latter as the underdog. For anyone who knows anything about the world, the image is just a crass and idiotic attempt at more innocent nationalism than what the US has displayed lately.

If you wanted a realistic setting you could just have set it so that North Korea invaded South Korea, and you follow a protagonist in the resistance in the South. You could even have a realistic plot point about the North getting on China's tits afterwards, the Chinese withdrawing support and the ensueing famine and massive civil unrest allowing for a satisfying conclusion.

But nope, "We saw the invasion bit of MW2 and thought we should keep going on about that"

 

[Cousin_IT]

power fantasies about the small man exercising his 2nd amendment right to rise up & fight the evil occupiers is a rather American thing

Considering that's how the US was founded...Yeah, it is a very American thing.

Better than most modern FPSs that just have the US flexing their e-peens by invading small countries and whatnot.

Yes, instead they're flexing their muscles when invaded by a small country & what not. Much more macho.

 

[Dectilon]

"Homefront is really less about America per se, and it's more about defending your homeland, your living room, the place you sleep, your family, things that are dear to you. And that's what the sort of Homefront name really applies to, that it could happen in France - in Paris, London, Beijing or whatever. Any country is applicable, it's about defending something that you care about and that's dear to you."

Yes, I'm sure these themes will be thoroughly explored in this shooter video game.

 

[Blaster395]

I want an option to play as north Korea. Otherwise this game is your standard US is good someone else is evil E-peen contest.
Either that, or make both sides morally grey.

 

[Andronicus]

It's not so much defending values and such that annoys me, but the general feeling that it's just another one of those "some ambiguous evil is spreading across the globe, and it's up to AMERICA to save the day as usual!!" sorts of media. I know it makes sense that, seeing as most of this stuff actually comes out of America, that it be America that's the focus of the plot. It's just that I always wonder why the rest of the world always seems content to sit with their thumbs up their arses and let America deal with everything.

 

[Blaster395]

It's not so much defending values and such that annoys me, but the general feeling that it's just another one of those "some ambiguous evil is spreading across the globe, and it's up to AMERICA to save the day as usual!!" sorts of media. I know it makes sense that, seeing as most of this stuff actually comes out of America, that it be America that's the focus of the plot. It's just that I always wonder why the rest of the world always seems content to sit with their thumbs up their arses and let America deal with everything.

Can we not have a game where north korea SAVES the world, that would be an excellent change of pace.

 

[Zeetchmen]

Of course non-Americans will like Homefront. The big bully United States taken down by North Korea? They'll be laughing at us all the way to the end credits.

I was thinking the same! N. Korea of all countries? Really?

I know they have big scary half functional nukes, and are beset by famine but come on now.

Captcha- For Ratelet

 

[Ophiuchus]

It's not so much defending values and such that annoys me, but the general feeling that it's just another one of those "some ambiguous evil is spreading across the globe, and it's up to AMERICA to save the day as usual!!" sorts of media. I know it makes sense that, seeing as most of this stuff actually comes out of America, that it be America that's the focus of the plot. It's just that I always wonder why the rest of the world always seems content to sit with their thumbs up their arses and let America deal with everything.

Yeah, pretty much this.

They can say it's universal all they like, but here's the thing: if the game were made by a developer from, say, Switzerland, and had the exact same premise but featured, for example, two countries in Africa or mid-Europe, it wouldn't even get released in America because they'd claim nobody could to relate to it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Why are occupations only bad when they happen to us? I wonder if the Iraqis and Afghanis feel the way this game is supposed to make us feel.

Ah, but they were liberated, not conquered big difference. If they had been conquered, the wouldn't have put Taliban supporters back in charge in Afghanistan, and not passed laws so that men can starve their wives to death if they resist being raped.

The US isnt "Liberating" them. Its occupying them. Big difference.

Spoiler: Well...

 

[UnravThreads]

How is that a bad plot? There's far more to it than you're giving out here, unlike Homefront to which there only seems to be one real sinker. "America gets invaded, hurr" It's like the setting of another Tom Clancy game. We don't need another Tom Clancy game.

Never said it was bad, but it's hardly a 'sensible' plot.

Point is, never judge a book by its cover. Homefront's story could be pretty damn good, but it could also be bad.