Preview: Homefront

[Earthmonger]

Also, is there a reason to protect the mother and child in that house? Without a family connection I doubt I'd feel anything for them. Hope the game doesn't force you to save them.

I'm making the assumption that most players are decent enough to save babies who don't happen to be related to them. I realizethat may not be the case.

It's not a scripted objective necessarily. If the Koreans get close enough to kill the baby, it's a sure bet you've already been killed anyway.

That isn't a bet I would take. Reality may be different, but in a game; nah. Wanna test the morality of the player? Place a bomb in a house. Set a timer for 30 seconds. In one room, you've got a mother and child. In another, you've got a shiny new sniper rifle. 30 seconds. Send the player in and see what they choose; the burden of two defenseless followers; or a tool that enhances their own survivability.

Unless they meant something to me, I know what I'd choose. Except in the event that the developers installed some cheesy Achievement for shackling that extra meat to my back.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Actually, never mind. Just checked on wikipedia, North Korea has an army of about 9.5 million (mostly reserves) while America has about 2.5 million (mostly active). Assuming nukes are somehow out of the picture, and that China and/or Russia are funding or arming the North Koreans they'd probably be an even match. The NK would need support from other nations though, otherwise the American air superiority would just end it all in a few weeks.

Those numbers mean about spit. The USA has 300 million people living within its border--NK a tenth of that, at most. If it ever came down to war, two million highly-trained (compared to the Koreans), extremely technologically advanced (compared to Chinese and Russian military equipment) American soldiers could hold off one million Korean regulars and eight million reservists doing the human wave until enough reinforcements could be trained to stomp North Korea into the dirt five times and still have leftovers. This is also true for China, Russia, and India. Unless America somehow lost its entire air force and NK still had its air force, in which case the Koreans would really need to learn how to fly their planes so they could win.

Anyway, yes the premise is silly. It's honestly about as silly as the premise for Red Dawn. Two huge, heavily-populated, nuclear-armed nations aren't going to go fisticuffs, that's amazingly stupid. Russia could never have beaten the USA conventionally, just like United States tanks could have never rolled into Moscow--they couldn't have even gained much strategically from fighting, because at the end of the day the other side would still have nukes, and that's all that was needed for negotiation. NK's got nothing to break that stalemate, certainly, but neither did the two superpowers, so I say: let it play out. Freedom Fighters was fun enough, hopefully this will be two.

America has 200.000 Up to date and highly trained troops.. The rest has pretty much just gotten through bootcamp and earned a little clap on the behind. I know that might be undercutting it a bit but with the way that SOME private companies earn a lot on weapons and therefor ínvest a lot of money in private research probably results in more effective weapons pretty fast. Keeping millions of soldiers equiped with that is pretty expensive. Also when you take into consideration that the US is in a /pretty big/ debt to China and probably also owes a bit to others. They just cant afford the advanced equipment you speak. Which is why they limitt the troops with that kind og gear to a couple of hundred thousand while giving the rest your standard weaponry that other country's even the quite poor ones could easily attain. I mean in Iraq you have heard of US Soldiers dropping their own gun for the Insurgent weapons (And thats ment as, theirs are sometimes even better) Which means that Standard Issue equipment in US is pretty much the standard issue equipment of everyone else. And the training of standard US troops, while high. Does still not make them into supersoldeiers.

Then again. Why even argue this kind of thing? THQ looks like they themself think the game as a bit of a joke so why dont we laugh with them instead of debate at them.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Patriotic Americans defending their homeland from an evil communist/socialist nation. Why does this sound familiar, and I'm not talking about a game.

 

[Namewithheld]

The problem I always have with these games is that I have almost no attachment to America and even if I did, patriotism is somewhat of an American concept, even on forums I've found American people are always more likely to justify something on the basis of it's relation to America whereas the Brits tend to be a little more cynical and the Canadians always make "do you know we exist?" jokes

...huh?

Patriotism is not an American concept. Rather, it is a concept inextricably tied to the concept of nationalism itself, which arose in the 19th and 20th centuries, with some prime examples being the build up of national pride that preceded WWI in French, British, and German countries.

America has a few fairly strong patriotism memes going through it - ranging from the "fighting for freedom" thing that neocons toss around to the "real patriotism is critique and social change" that liberals toss around - but to call it a purely American concept is...kinda silly.

Specially when we're talking about a video game that includes North Korea: The only country in the world that is a necrotocracy, where the living are ruled by the dead.

If North Korea could export patriotism and nationalism, they'd be an economic superpower to rival China and America and Russia...and most of Europe...COMBINED.

As for Homefront...eh.

I still want my alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War, and for the next century, the USA and CSA bashed into one another, resulting in an alternate WWII that has Utah being a police state with Mormon suicide bombers, Canada is occupied by the USA (and Quebec is its own nation), France and Britain are fascist dictatorships fighting the Germans (who are still controlled by the Kaiser) and the USA has been socialist since the 1920s.

Pittsburgh is the stand in for Stalingrad! There are concentration camps for black people in Texas! Confederate tanks roll up the great plains! Bombs fall! People die! Stuff explodes!

Come on people, it's WWII, but it all takes place on America! The bad guys are Americans, the good guys are Americans, and so on.


I'm not the only Harry Turtledove fan am I?

 

[Deimateos]

Plus there's the fact that Chine would probably stop them, since we are their best customer biggest debtor after all.

Fixed.

 

[Nexus4]

awww... i wanna play as the Koreans, seriously i wanna see the USA as bad guys for once!

 

[InsanityRequiem]

For the lots that says this premise sucks? First off, why are you playing video games at all then. Every video game has premises that, in the world of today, wouldn't happen at all. It's something called the Suspension of Belief, people. Second, read the information on this game!

A) It's not North Korea. It's North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and many former asian countries. Which is most likely Vietnam, Indonesia, and many of the island nations and other asian countries around China.

B) The US is doing horrible. It's fractured and on collapse because of the economy going worse than The Great Depression. What other country experienced that? The USSR. What happened to their military supplies? The former USSR has (*Supposedly*) been selling off their military hardware. Which would also include this Greater Republic of Korea having bought most of that military hardware the US has been selling.

C) In the guise of peace, Korea sent a communication satellite into space. But non-surprisingly for me, but would most likely shock the average joe/jane, that satellite was a hidden weapon. Which EMP'd the destabilizing US, causing more damage.

D) This isn't even IN our timeline. This is 25 years in the future, which can be a plausible situation with how current events are happening.

Those reasons themselves ARE WHY I'm playing the game. Because it's an interesting ALTERNATIVE REALITY version of current events.

 

[HentMas]

why are people arguing over the veracity of the videogame??

its kind of a moot point, i mean, whatever the story is, if its backed up by and interesting game mechanic and an amazing missions i would play it

who cares if they can or can not invade the US??

i mean, we Méxicans are already invading and you haven´t done anything to prevent it (hurr durr. J.K.)

 

[8-Bit Grin]

I still want my alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War, and for the next century, the USA and CSA bashed into one another, resulting in an alternate WWII that has Utah being a police state with Mormon suicide bombers, Canada is occupied by the USA (and Quebec is its own nation), France and Britain are fascist dictatorships fighting the Germans (who are still controlled by the Kaiser) and the USA has been socialist since the 1920s.

Pittsburgh is the stand in for Stalingrad! There are concentration camps for black people in Texas! Confederate tanks roll up the great plains! Bombs fall! People die! Stuff explodes!

Come on people, it's WWII, but it all takes place on America! The bad guys are Americans, the good guys are Americans, and so on.


I'm not the only Harry Turtledove fan am I?

This needs to become a book. Right freaking now.

I'd read the shit out of it.

 

[Namewithheld]

I still want my alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War, and for the next century, the USA and CSA bashed into one another, resulting in an alternate WWII that has Utah being a police state with Mormon suicide bombers, Canada is occupied by the USA (and Quebec is its own nation), France and Britain are fascist dictatorships fighting the Germans (who are still controlled by the Kaiser) and the USA has been socialist since the 1920s.

Pittsburgh is the stand in for Stalingrad! There are concentration camps for black people in Texas! Confederate tanks roll up the great plains! Bombs fall! People die! Stuff explodes!

Come on people, it's WWII, but it all takes place on America! The bad guys are Americans, the good guys are Americans, and so on.


I'm not the only Harry Turtledove fan am I?

This needs to become a book. Right freaking now.

I'd read the shit out of it.

Thine wish is granted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove#The_Southern_Victory_or_Timeline-191_Series

Here, you have 12 books to read, each about 400-500 pages long.

 

[Lord Kloo]

For the lots that says this premise sucks? First off, why are you playing video games at all then. Every video game has premises that, in the world of today, wouldn't happen at all. It's something called the Suspension of Belief, people. Second, read the information on this game!

A) It's not North Korea. It's North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and many former asian countries. Which is most likely Vietnam, Indonesia, and many of the island nations and other asian countries around China.

B) The US is doing horrible. It's fractured and on collapse because of the economy going worse than The Great Depression. What other country experienced that? The USSR. What happened to their military supplies? The former USSR has (*Supposedly*) been selling off their military hardware. Which would also include this Greater Republic of Korea having bought most of that military hardware the US has been selling.

C) In the guise of peace, Korea sent a communication satellite into space. But non-surprisingly for me, but would most likely shock the average joe/jane, that satellite was a hidden weapon. Which EMP'd the destabilizing US, causing more damage.

D) This isn't even IN our timeline. This is 25 years in the future, which can be a plausible situation with how current events are happening.

Those reasons themselves ARE WHY I'm playing the game. Because it's an interesting ALTERNATIVE REALITY version of current events.

I think it's safe to say that you just won this arguement..

Personally, this game sounds awesome, only I really wanted a game where the whole world finally gangs up on America for being such a twat in global/foreign policy, this is a game I would buy.. down with the capitalist pigs..

 

[Jaegerwolf]

...

Yeah, I was just about to reply to that post. Basically, North Korea gets that "nine million" figure because it has mandatory conscription at the age of seventeen. That nine million strong army includes about 40% of their total population. They're poorly trained, if they've received any formal instruction at all, and dismally equipped. North Korea's actual standing army is about one million troops. Even if you assume that NK could get them all rallied up to fight, there's still the matter of GETTING them to the US without the American Navy playing target practice with 'em all the way across the Pacific. It just ain't happening.

Um, has anyone actually taken the time to hop over to their website and actually SEE their the back story to this game?

1)Its not really just North Korea, but a United Korea that's taken over Japan and most of South East Asia. Figure they get enough of a tech upgrade from South Korea and Japan to pull at least close to US on the hardware front considering the amount of stuff we've shared with them.

2) America seems to have gone to hell in a hand basket, having to withdraw military forces from our allies, hence Japan surrendering to Korea (anyone who knows WWII history must know how much a kick in the balls THAT must be). A lengthy financial collapse would certainly weaken US military readiness. Just look at how much the Russian army fell apart after the Soviet Union fell, eventually soldiers would like to get paid.

3) Mr. Nation Wide EMP makes another appearance in a near future war story, and while the feasibility of it is still up in the air, you know its something that's been considered by nations the world over.

Is this scenario all likely? Odds are low, but who knows how the world might end up in the year 2027 where this takes place. At one time some of the strongest navies in the world were owned by the Dutch and Spain, and we can talk at length of the fall of the British Empire. Could the US be weakened by its own hubris to become vulnerable to invasion? It's certainly something to write about.

 

[beema]

"'There's no room for average games in the world,' the developers told us,"
I like these guys.

Will be interested to see more on this game as it comes out

 

[Jaegerwolf]

Um, has anyone actually taken the time to hop over to their website and actually SEE their the back story to this game?

Notice how I said "North Korea conquering most of Asia and then attacking the US in the space of fifteen years isn't plausible"? How would I have known any of those details if I hadn't read the backstory? For God's sake use your noggin, man.

Sorry, you must have posted while I was typing that first post, never saw yours.

Re South Korea and Japan: There's been a movement in South Korea for unification with the North for some time now, just lacked a leader on either side capable of getting it done. If Kimmy's son was able to pull this off so he still maintains control then that large, well equipped force goes from a problem to an asset. As for Japan, you've now got a large, well armed army with nuclear weapons pointed at your very crowded population centers and apparently no outside aid close by to do any good. No matter how good their navy is, they just might not have much of a choice in the matter. Considering they're economy has slowly been circling the drain for decades in real life already with no sign its going to recover anytime soon, they might not be in a position to fight anyway.

As for the Russian comparison, there wasn't any real need or desire by any nation to invade. Anything worth taking from them by force could much more easily be purchased from Russia at fire sale prices. Also you need to take into account that Russia remained relevant on the world stage because of its vast fossil fuel reserves and whatever heavy industry left over from the old Soviet days. These brought in whole heaps of cash that propped up the country until they could get their act together (at least somewhat). Considering we're talking about $20/gal gas and the manufacturing exodus that's already been happening in this country, I think the situation in the Homefront scenario is a bit different.

I'm not saying the story here isn't pretty low on the plausability scale, but hell if you told someone in 1995 that in 15 years the US would be going into year 9 of a war in Afghanistan that didn't involve Russia or Iran (officially) and victory was still not assured, they'd probably think you were nuts too...

 

[HK_01]

You know, this story work really well as a parody of all these modern, "realistic" shooters (looking at you, MW2), but they seem to be serious about it. I mean, North Korea invading the US? And if the trailers are anything to go by a large chunk of Asia first? How? China, Russia and Japan are in the neighbours of North Korea and each one of them would stop them with ease if they did something like that.
How did they come up with this crap?

In fact, here's a story for their next game: You're an ordinary Swiss citizen who has to fight the cruel occupying forces of Liechtenstein! Or better yet, Liechtenstein conquered Germany!

Or maybe you're a Russian guerilla fighting the invasion forces of Usbekistan, which has conquered most of Russia.

Or maybe you're Chinese and have to fend off the Taiwanese.

 

[BrunDeign]

From the looks of a lot of the comments so far it would seem that not very many people know the actual back story to this game, because everyone keeps going on about how implausible it is for this to happen.

How far into the future is this? A couple decades right? North Korea (in the game) takes over a great deal of Asia (whether that includes China I am unsure of but I think so) and then takes on an economically-broken U.S. If the game's North Korea can take over that much of Asia by themselves there is no reason they couldn't take on a United States that's really hurting economically. Think of all the soldiers the U.S. would lose because they couldn't pay them.