f13.net

The game seems to basically be a playable Red Dawn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn). Writer/Director of Red Dawn John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Conan the Barbarian, bunch of other stuff), is doing the writing for the game.

The basic premise is near future occupied US where you play as a freedom fighter. Red Dawn took place primarily in rural/suburban areas and it looks like the game follows pretty closely to that. Imagine high school football fields being converted into makeshift prisons, etc. and acting as a freedom fighter. Not much about the gameplay itself seems to have made it out yet, but it seems like a big part of the draw will be the story.


Homepage - http://www.homefront-game.com
Theatrical Trailer (No Gameplay) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6NiAGu4_8s
Dev Blog #1 - Backstory Development - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yATBDGzGGr8

So far it looks good. Hoping it delivers.

Yep. Do want if this is done right.

I also liked that high school sports field shot where it said, "Go Wolverines" on the side of the field house.

Haha yeah I noticed that too. I hate to say it but i have high hopes for the story at least.

Yeah but... Korea?

Midwestern fever dream made real through the magic of John Milius.

I liked how they justified choosing Korea as the big bad guy. "The only thing that Americans know about NK is KJI, so they make a great boogeyman."

Fiction.

Split and denned the politics crap. If you posted it in politics, keep it in politics.

Release is tomorrow so it's time to dust off this thread.

Early reports are the multiplayer is a combo of CODish shooting with BFish vehicles. The latter has me interested. A bonus is you spawn your own vehicle based on points you accumulate in a match so you skip vehicle campers. You can also spawn in the secondary seat of another player's vehicle.

The single player campaign is 5ish hours or 8ish hours depending on who is talking, and the developer claims inspiration from Half-Life with player story impressions ranging from engaging to cheesy.

PC preorders  from OnLive (http://www.onlive.com/go/homefront) get Metro 2033 and the OnLive console, PS3 players get game freezes, no idea about Xbox.

Multiplayer clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEBt6NfZbT4)
Campaign clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5lwznXdVu0)

This actually doesnt look half bad so far...

Decent video review (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4d0r1S8h3M) to get an idea of the game but the 9/10 score should be taken along with knowledge the reviewer was given an exclusive series of promo clips in the days preceding release. Maybe he's on the 8-10 scale.

SO tempted to pull the trigger on this.

I was going to impulse buy, but then they pulled the preorder bonuses. Waiting for reviews.

Console underlings get $15 towards future video games at Amazon if it makes buying more palatable. And thus concludes my Homefront spam until my joyous or raged PS3 impressions.

This video contains content from IMG Media UK, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
Sorry about that

Interesting.. for a review.

I'm torn. The SP looks ... average or below (the fact they're filming from a console doesn't help), the guns sound satisfyingly meaty, and MP might not be too bad.

If the LAN party I frequent decide to use this instead of CSS(eww)/MW1/BC2 in their tournaments, then I suppose I'll buy it for the MP part, but apart from that I think I'll give this a pass.

Rage! I forgot to setup STEAM to download this before heading to work. Le sigh.

I'll give some impressions later of the SP and MP.

I forgot this was coming out so soon.

I still like the Kaos guys. I'll pick it up tonight, assuming I leave work before nine.

God what terrible marketing.

"Evil empire of China takes over America! Murder the yellow savages in our hot new game! Wait, the Chinese market is HOW big? Uh, like we said, the evil empire of... shit who doesn't buy any games? North Korea? Haha but yeah, come on. Really? If you say so. Ahem, North Korea... um... takes over America with it's starving soldiers and fifty year old tanks. Somehow. Anyway buy our game please."

Seriously this is like a game about the United States being conquered by Cuba or some shit.

We already had that conversation in this thread WUA, but it got split and denned because its "politics".   :awesome_for_real:

From what I can see, the last level consists of a battle on the Golden Gate bridge, not San Fransisco itself.  So boo to this game.

Hey, at least they're going down a different path instead of just being all "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh USA FUCK YEAH *stomp some random little country in the middle east*".

It makes little sense, but you gotta give them + for trying. :P

Ugh, seriously? Makes little sense? It's fiction. You mean the MW2 plot was believable, but not this? Especially when they've explained the situation in much more detail than "North Korea floats across Pacific and conquers all of America! GREAT SUCCESS!"

Hey, that would be cool. If NK somehow attached rockets underneath and was able to lift off and be a giant flying island of world terror, with the mad Kim Jong Il from Team America.

If I were to ever comment on MW2's plotline, then I would have to say that yes, it was more believable than korea invading and actually threatening USA.

It was an off-the-cuffs remark on the plotline. I don't see what the big deal is.

What the HELL do you people have against Patrick swayze?


 :mob:

He sold out after The Outsiders.  :why_so_serious:

I'd play that game!

This one? No, probably not.

I like Kaos. Well, it'd be more correct to say that I kind of like Kaos. Well, I loved Desert Combat, though Frontline was a total unpatched abortion that lacked a PC demo for an obvious reason. Honestly though, with Bad Company 2 now and BF3 coming out later this year, I can't see any excitement in the MP aspects. If the SP is supposed to be good, I'll pick it up and play through it once it hits Bargain Bin status...

Who said anything about a game?

 :cthulu:

From what I've seen, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Reportedly it is pretty average, and something like 5 - 8 hours long.

Mngh. Do you know if there's an option to play the multiplayer maps with bots, like Ye Olde BF 1942? I don't enjoy being the slab of beef at everyone else's buffet, so I've learned to enjoy playing amongst bots.

Down to $40 on console 1 day after release... Not good.

The reviews and bits of trailer make me not want to buy it.

This game just looks like a generic military FPS smothered in a setting that's depressing and disturbing.  I'm not really in the market for that right now in my leisure time.  Gamespot review showed parts of the initial Half Life style drive intro.  There's a scene where a mother and father get executed in front of their 4-5 year old son.  That made me a little too uncomfortable. 

Still same price every where I look.

It's down $20 at on Amazon.

I do believe that was even the point of the read dawn movie, to tickle that place Americans have that "It can't happen here".

<heresay> I read on the SA thread that bots aren't a part of the game.

The Eurogamer review says there's too much waiting on scripted NPCs & hand-holding in the campaign. I prefer to run free and loose but may pick this up for the MP. Just lots of mediocrity in FPS-land lately. I haven't purchased an FPS since BC2. I'm jonesing for something new and might even pick up Medal of Honor (based on DICE's involvement) since the Killzone 3 demo didn't impress me too much. Bulletstorm looks pretty but didn't have the ::umpf:: to push me over the edge. What's next to release? Crysis 2?

edit: How do those pricing drops work? When THQ's stock dropped 20%, did they give permission to Amazon to drop & publish the new price?

double edit sheeeeeit: Hell, if you can pick this up for $42 today, play it for a few weeks and get a trade-in above $10, that's not a bad deal.

The price drop on Amazon is because Amazon is price matching Walmart's sale price.

Crysis 2 is up next and I tried the PS3 multiplayer demo.  I had no sound, low FPS, and my PS3 locked up after a minute. So I'll be passing on that.

If (when?) Homefront locks up on me I'm going stabby. I fled to consoles to avoid this sort of thing.

I bought both Homefront and Crysis 2 for 20% off at Direct2Drive, does that mean they are both bombs?

It means that the rest of us want some first-person accounts of them from you!

Only managed to play one single player mission and one round of multiplayer last night.

The single player is your typical CoD, MoH fare but in a more unique setting. It is what it is which means it is neither terrible nor amazing.

The multi-player I definitely have to dig deeper into and maybe even read more about as there seems like there is a lot to it in terms of the battle point system and leveling. Gameplay is very fast with re-spawns being about 2-3 seconds and the weapons felt pretty weighty. I am coming off of playing alot of BC2 so it is a significant change of pace that will take some time getting used.

I will play some more tonight and post more impressions.

Most of the reviews I've seen berate the game for having a crappy campaign. While there's no excuse for it, these same reviewers give the CoD games high scores, yet it has the same exact shitty campaign archetype.  :uhrr:

John Milius was behind "Red Dawn" and also served as a story consultant on Homefront (and despite what the promos say, he didn't write the script, just consulted on it). Milius was also a writer on "Apocalypse Now" and was writer / director on "Conan the Barbarian".

Milius works well as a war nut and high concept guy, but dialogue-wise he's pretty ordinary.

And, for the record, "Red Dawn" was hilarious.

It might also depend on the actual "shooter" execution. I played through COD:WAW recently, and while it was unremarkable as a game, I then followed up with Haze. Playing Haze right after CoD:WAW made WAW's shooter mechanics stand out as simply fucktons better than the crappy mechanics on Haze. This is all aside from weak FPS plots and settings.

Played 4 hours of the campaign which is 3.5 more than I lasted in BC2's campaign. The colorful domestic suburban environments and pseudo-apocalyptic/invasion setting is more interesting than desert snow jungles. And no freezes so far on my PS3.

It's as linear as any other recent shooter, no annoying characters, good voices and standout moments including seeing how Batman is made in the opening sequence and later controlling the Tumbler.  :why_so_serious: There are no subtle themes here.

There are quirks like bits of story in newspapers strewn about which could have taken a cue from Dead Space on how to present text without breaking immersion, walking super slowly through non-combat areas, seemingly open areas to explore blocked off by a sleeping bag which cannot be jumped, etc.

I'll finish the campaign which I thought would be a throwaway so that's a plus. If you don't expect Homefront to shatter the linear FPS corridor then you'll enjoy the campaign. Hopefully another game will set us free from that particular invasion.

Does the level design factor into your impressions of shooter mechanics? Because WaW left me with a strong distaste over its level design and rampant "oh hai thar invisible wall". The AI was pretty in-your-face, though, but the level design pissed me off.

And now for something completely different, sales figures:
I've tried to see how many people they've got employed and working on this game, but either my internet detective skills suck (they do), or they've got 100+ working on it. I don't know how many years the game took to produce, but I assume 2-3 years.

As to the SP length:

Personally I would've assumed that if they've got the MP part down as solid, then they could just do a few tweaks there, add a few levels, and just focus more on the SP part.

At the very least they seem to want to improve their product, unlike IW with MW2 where they basically just gave us the finger and laughed all the way to the bank

That's more than Bulletstorm.

Bulletstorm, for fuck's sake.

 :facepalm:

Roadhouse, Next of Kin?

I'd like to see more top tier FPS's ditch single player campaigns altogether. One of my favorite things about arcade style 1 v 1 games was the feeling that there's was some larger storyline going on in the background and you were just dropping in for the action scenes. If you wanted to pursue it further, you could buy a comic or anime or whatever.

With MP FPS, you can do the same thing. Just look at vanilla TF2. Pure MP and it's great.

Agreed, if other FPS's ditch the multiplayer part and concentrate on larger single player campaigns. So us antisocial assholes are happy as well.  :awesome_for_real:

I've played about an hour. A little bit into the second chapter. The setting and narrative of the game is what piqued my interest awhile back and made me decide to get it when it came out. Now, I haven't played a "modern" shooter in awhile. The last single player one I really got into was HL: Ep 2 so maybe my impressions are a little off.

All I've done is follow groups of guys who tell me exactly what to do, while they do a shitty job of covering me and joining in the firefight. The areas are very restrictive corridors, I found a few places where I couldn't even wander freely around a room so that I was forced to stand nearby while some dudes had a conversation. The controls feel thick and heavy, but I play TF2 almost daily, so...  I guess this is just what Gears of War, Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor have done to the FPS genre these days? I still enjoy it because the setting is pretty interesting. The loading screen scenes are really nice additions to the mood, showing scenes of people getting rounded up from their suburban homes, etc.

I'm also on board with splitting most fps into pure SP or MP. Most I've played it was for one or the other and I never ventured into the half-ass implementations of its opposite.

Yeah, but this is on the level of an evil cigar-chomping Castro looking over the ruins of St. Paul while his Cuban Army legions run rampant across Minnesota. You can't just throw a dart at a map of the world, hit some country where dirt is considered a staple food, and be like "Okay America gets occupied by... Angola!" I mean you can, but it's laughable.

I'm talking literally of player control - movement, shooting, button mapping, responsiveness.




That's an odd thing to do.

Then I'm going to take a wild guess and say you haven't bothered to read the backstory.

Yeah....I read the back story, and its laughably bad as well.  I mean, I understand the angle they are trying to come from.  I read how they justified coming to use this scenario, but that was based on one random poll about popularity of leaders back in 2000.  In 2011, in lieu of incidents over the last decade, thoughts of anything other than NK surrendering to the south to save themselves from the economic collapse is just crazy.  North Korea is the worst possible country in the entire region to portray as starting a New Order in East Asia. 

Japan turning fascist and going ape shit imperialist during a world economic downturn, recreating the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.  Indonesia becoming a fundamentalist Islamic nation, using its large population and army to invade and annex Australia, then using their vast mineral resources, expand north to take most of East Asia.  Communist revolutions sweep the Philippines, they unit with Vietnam/Laos, who then expand and annex much of east Asia.  SOUTH Korea annexing the north, then going crazy fascist and annexing East Asia.  All of these crazy crazy scenarios are still waaaaaay more believable than the "North Korea units east Asia into a single block during world economic downturn" scenario they laid out.  Hell, Singapore would be more believable.  And again, this is ignoring the more obviously believable scenario of China annexing everybody.

I'm all for crazy alternate history scenarios where once friendly countries invade each other to found some sort of new empire.  I love that stuff.  I just can't suspend my belief THAT far.  You have to give me something to work with.

I wouldn't have minded if they'd redone it so it was china, not korea. But oh well.

I enjoyed the campaign corridors because it's a different FPS setting defending a modern domestic suburban environment from an invader, North Korean or otherwise. With that said, I gave up near the end despite thinking I would finish. There's no story arc , just "go kill", which was fine at first but the enemies with x-ray vision and homing bullets wore me out; novel environments can only go so far to make up for tedium.

I also spent time with Homefront's multiplayer. It's not for me since I'm in the BC2 = :drill: camp and Homefront falls short on every level.

Things I enjoy in BC2:

• Small squads with an emphasis on teamwork (squad spawning, squad chatting, bonuses for helping squad, etc.)
• Destructible environments
• Rush mode
• Integral vehicles which are fun and unique to drive
• Ways to contribute besides shooting things (spotting, medic, repairs, vehicles, etc.)
• Bullet distance drop

Homefront's bleak void:

• No squads
• No destruction
• Only frequent game mode on PS3 involves team deathmatch
• Vehicles aren't integrated well, and driving them feels like regular infantry movement
• Few ways to contribute besides shooting things (no medic, no repairs, spotting only available on a drone, etc.)
• No bullet distance drop

A touted Homefront feature is the "battle commander" which flags good players with stars like in GTA and reveal the good player's general map location. Other players receive bonus points for killing the good player while the good player gets bonuses for staying alive. I would have liked this in Homefront's rush/conquest combo equivalent, but I never found that mode available, just team deathmatch and "skirmish" which alternates between the two game modes. Team deathmatch = hide on a rooftop, and skirmish is 16 players with peer networking resulting in atrocious lag instead of the (nonexistent PS3) 32 player dedicated server rush/conquest combo games.

All in all, SP was temporarily interesting and Homefront's MP is not as close to BC2 as I would like.

You kids are over-analysing it.

We're making Red Dawn: The Game. However, we want to sell it all around the world and not piss off anyone who might be a customer.
Who does nobody particularly like?
Who is used as a bogeyman?
Who won't be yet another Muslim bad guy?

I'm pretty sure the original bad guy was China, but then for some reason they felt compelled to find&replace it with North Korea. Which makes for a laughable premiss.

edit: also, RPS really hates the game. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/19/wot-i-think-homefront-single-player/

I kind of wish someone would step up and actually make a game where you actually played as a muslim. It'll never happen, of course, and I wonder if someone wouldn't actually try to arrest the developer of said game for "training terrorists" or some such, but it would be funny just to watch people gnash their teeth.

Who'd play a game where you worked all day in a mobile phone repair shop and then came home to your wife, three sons and sole daughter?

I'm sure they could think of something a bit more exciting than that. :why_so_serious:

I'm sure the alternate history where China is conquered by North Korea will sell well in China.

Probably more akin to wanting to avoid "fuck you, THQ". I assume the same reason is pretty much why Russia is the bad guy again in Bad Company 1/2.

Apparently the new Red Dawn remake that finished filming two years ago is being digitally re-edited to have North Korea as the villain state instead of China.  :why_so_serious:

THq has a lower budget for hookers and blow, and "review events" under constant PR supervision.

The Chinese release has China taking over Korea, then invading the US, as the good guys.

Also see: Halfway up the page.

Now that's a proper roasting.  Reading that then going to Metacritic and seeing PC Gamer UK gave it a decent score makes me a sad bunny.  Back in prehistoric times I used to base my purchases on their reviews.

Oh yeah, since there's no movie thread for it yet I'll just post this (http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/mgms-red-dawn-remake-will-have-north-korea-as-revised-villain/) here.


 :awesome_for_real:

Homefront has launched, it's a new financial period, let's fire some people. (http://au.gamespot.com/news/6306729.html?tag=latestheadlines%3Btitle%3B5)

Video game developers appear to really need to have a journeyman ethic to keep working in the industry, as well as a high tolerance for being fired at the end of every project they complete.

EDIT: fixing the tags. God knows how I screwed that up.

Thats not limited to Games development. Its an increasing practice in any production, contract, or corporate setting.

Likely best for a different thread, but I've always wondered why single-player games and MMO creation aren't handled by contract employment, anyways.  I realize the norm is to keep folks on after a game ships for the next game design, but unless you're one of the big ones (EA/Activision) there's a 50% chance your studio is going to crumble afterwards anyways. 

I've said it before, but I can't understand why otherwise-reasonably intelligent adults go into games development, especially planning to do it as a career. Which is a shame.