North Korea? Don't make me laugh.

[MetroidNut]

Snip.

It actually falls at a much earlier hurdle even than this, when a new leader comes into office in North Korea about, oh, two years from now... and months later, reunites the Korean peninsula under his leadership without firing a shot. I don't know, maybe he uses a Hypno-Ray or there's a mass outbreak of amnesia in South Korea or something.

Heh, indeed. Seems a bit insulting to Japan and South Korea, really. Although, who knows? Maybe he used some sort of secret mind contrALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD.

 

[HotFezz8]

Am I the only one who finds the very idea of North Korea successfully invading the States laughable?

no finally someone who also gets pissed off by stupidly ridiculous stories

 

[Busdriver580]

North Korea has a huge and disciplined army, but they're essentially equipped with Vietnam War tech, and nukes that don't work

 

[HentMas]

I always thought Mexico would invade Usa

oh yes we are! but we are not doing it "up in arms" we are systematically introducing people trough the borders, soon all of you will be mexicans, or have mexican relatives MUAHAHAHAHAHA

seriously though, i dont really think "Nort Korea" is a threat to the US, hell i think the most close to a threat you have is china, but not military wise, but economically wise

i believe the wars of the future will be fought on the stock market, not the streets of our countries...

 

[Booze Zombie]

I really must link this, as it haunts me every time I see this type of thread.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Even if one overlooks the (absolutely retarded) timeline which supposedly explains how North Korea rose to a position of dominance in Asia, the invasion still makes no fucking sense. Considering the koreans were somehow able to cross the pacific and invade the continental US, you have to assume that the koreans are militarily comparable to if not superior to the US, which in turn means that the threat of invasion from the US is very low. That said, what sort of strategic target is the US? Apparently not oil, as that ran dry. Other materials? No, you could get those in Asia without having to support invasion troops halfway across the world. It doesn't even make sense in-game. The story is absolutely retarded, and so are any attempts to justify it.

 

[conflictofinterests]

At least the people there can't get offended. I mean, info-blocks can be useful sometimes, right?

 

[DefunctTheory]

I really must link this, as it haunts me every time I see this type of thread.

[/spoiler]

NerfNow?

Awesome.

 

[Xaio30]

Make a game where every country start at war, but end in peace?

Could give the FPS genre some pacifistic touches.

 

[Wicky_42]

Is North Korean really a viable threat to the Yankees, even in fiction?

fiction

Key word. It's a story. You might as well call bullshit on Rapunzel's hair being long enough to reach the base of a multi-storey tower, or her neck being able to take the weight of a full-grown man hanging on it. Or a gene-tweaked guy in power armour being able to punch through a tank's armour. Or alien ships that can shoot blobs of glowy stuff that's barely even explained.

Why are people so obsessed with bashing this storey? Is it some sort of miss-placed patriotism, some sort of 'support the troops' mentality? To nit-pick and bicker over what they "think" is possible and what they "know" would happen in certain scenarios - it's so pointless.

I've not seen hate for a storey-line ever before. I don't really get why so many people have to go on about it.

 

[Dogstile]

Oh christ, this again...

Yeah, time for the parade of fanboys who apparently have never been told there's such a thing as bad speculative fiction and have no standards for what they'll accept as a "realistic" story. Tiresome, isn't it?

Fanboys or people fed up with the "AMERIKA CAN'T B INVADEDED, WE IZ DA BEST!!!!"£""£"!

I personally think its the latter. People are getting tired of "DA STOREH IZ IMPLOZIBLE" considering its a game based on an alternate timeline, that puts north korea in power.

But its fine, don't worry people, ignore that its people having fun with alternate timelines. We'll just be over here, enjoying our speculative fiction, bad or not, its still speculative.

Warning, the spoiler below contains *gasp* naughty words!

Spoiler

Edit:

If it seems like i'm being sarcastic, its because I am. People screaming at this game is getting tiring, just don't buy the bloody game. We've heard every single variation of the argument against the story, just, please, move on.

 

[JochemDude]

Oke, a few things. One don't underestimate North Korea, they have the fourth largest fighting force in the world, every north-korean man spends at least 10 years in the army (and can be deployed when not in the army anymore) and are way harder and better trained. They have 2 to 9 nuclear weapons, the largest chemical weapons stockpile, the largest special forces brand (believe me, those guys spend every second they live training and are probably better than most green beret/SAS units). Their only disadvantage is their slightly aging equipment. Two, even though the US will probably not be invaded nor attacked by anything, but terrorists. You aren't superior.
And... It's a alternative timeline is probably has been pointed out already.

 

[Wicky_42]

I really must link this, as it haunts me every time I see this type of thread.

Spoiler

Lol, so true ^_^ I think most people are getting hung up on the whole 'Korea' thing - they forget that it's the whole of fucking Asia, backed up by EMP weapons, against a US military that can't afford to maintain the GPS system.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Am I the only one who finds the very idea of North Korea successfully invading the States laughable?

No, the fifty other people that made this same exact thread before you thought the same thing. Really, this is getting old.

 

[Jubbert]

Crysis had Koreans as the enemies, but they didn't fucking sell it out like a cheap whore that it was Koreans you're killing. That's why Crysis didn't fall flat like a pancake.

 

[Thespian]

No. Stop.

"Speculative fiction" is not an excuse for "bad fiction." "Oh it's just speculative fiction" is not an answer to a criticism of the quality of a story. If you're selling it as realistic, the chain of events leading to your near-future scenario still has to be believable.

"Speculative" also doesn't mean it has to be realistic. Because then it's not fiction, it's just a prediction of what might happen over the next few years based on geopolitics.

I know what you are going to say, the HF is marketed towards being a realistic idea but I'll get to that in a sec. First of all, the chain of events leading up to the near-future scenario are NOT totally out there. For a game that must tell most of it's narrative through the experience of the story and not an audient, non-participant cinematic or piece of text, it's quite good. You could take each link in the chain out, examine it, and it wouldn't be completely outrageous. Then you can put it back together and it works.

Now, with regards to HF being marketed as an eerily realistic oppressed America, I think quite a lot of people got a misinterpretation there. The fault only of the marketing of course, but still.

I don't think Homefront was supposed to make people think how likely it was that one day NK would invade - what's the point of that. And most sci-fi games or stories are plonked so far in the future so as to be far away enough from modern times to shirk any responsibility for realism; HF was quite bold in this regard. That is besides the point - The timeline was so close to present day so that it would resemble the America we know. The realism was in the atmosphere of the Occupied America, not in how it came to be.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

I think the basic premise is that in the future, with dwindling resources, economic collapse, and internal strife, the power base the US is built on will have eroded away to the point where we're little better than bickering nation-states loosely affiliated with some quasi-interim-governmental authority that really doesn't have the strength to enforce itself, leaving the majority of the "United States" to mostly fend for itself.

Given said economic collapse would naturally result in skyrocketing food prices, medical shortages, and total infrastructure collapse (see current events), which would put the majority of heavily populated states urban areas somewhere between the living conditions of Mogadishu and Detroit. This would naturally schism social and philosophical groups along their respective lines (such as Shiite vs Sunni Muslims / Catholics vs Protestants / Protestants vs Protestants / Evangelical Protestants vs EVERYONE).

This scenario is not that far fetched. It hearkens back to the very fall of the Roman Empire and even not so recently in post-war Germany (World War 1) and the collapse of the Soviet Union. If anything the decay of a once indomitable super power is a very real and potential threat. Especially when a government sells off its military assets to make some cash (Russian submarine anyone?) which would increase the potential ease for foreign powers to invade.

Would it be the North Koreans? Not likely. Trans-oceanic invasions are risky affairs (read up on the Normandy Invasion and the African Theater). It takes a lot of good planning and execution, as well as resources to pull it off. You also need forward positions to embark from. Given North Korea's physical position in the world, their current lack of significant industrialization, manpower, and resources (they're hemmed in on all sides by more powerful nations) it makes them a highly unlikely candidate for superpower.

A more likely situation would be a pan-Asia coalition (similar to the EU) that would pool its resources to form an expeditionary force. Since the US economy would have collapsed, most of the rest of the world markets would follow suit and the rest of the world would be recovering from severe economic depression, inflation, and civil unrest.

This of course would assume the North American countries didn't follow suit to stave off economic ruin.

While it might seem implausible, all one has to do is tweak the plot a little, at it becomes a much more likely scenario. I would say if anything, this game is less of a Red Dawn style nationalism promoting shoot em up, as it is a cautionary tale about bad banking and globalization.

You're right, except that in this game N.Korea has become "The Greater Korean Republic" and has annexed South East Asia as more and more countries turn to it as a source of military and economic security (even as the Republic is run by Kim Jong Il's son (Kim Jong Un) and turns all the conquered territories into vassal states).

The backstory was supposedly researched and received guidance from an Ex-CIA operative (he's Korean ironically enough). It was also cowritten by the same guy who did "Red Dawn".I think it's a plausible concept if you ignore the part about it being an invasion by the Korean People's Army.



I wish someone would have the balls to make a game about internal strife and seeing the US deteriorate into something you'd see in third world nation. You could even tweak the "Homefront" story as you said.

-US Government collapses, resorts to martial law to maintain order (just like in the game)

-paranoia, fear and anger grips US society.

-internal strife breaks out, anti-government militias/state police/military-government groups rebel, and seize the opportunity by break away from the union. Begin to enforce "constitutional" law as they interpret it in the areas under their control, may start fighting other militias for control.

-religious terrorism and zealotry by Evangelicals/protestants starts, claiming that the "end times are upon us". Political and ethnic tensions between communities throws what's left of stability and normalcy into further chaos.

- The weak, federal government begins to abuse its power as the situation gets worse and conducts a desperate (albeit "dirty") war against domestic para-military forces to regain control and citizens rights are curtailed in a feeble attempt to provide security.


Just my two cents of course, not that anyone would have the courage to produce such a game: after all we are stupid, mindless consumers who can't handle controversial material.


EDIT: Throw in foreign powers trying to bring aid, "cookie cut" segments of the US for their own benefit and interfere in the internal conflicts much as world powers have in formerly third world nation states.