By Alec Meer on June 14th, 2010 at 12:51 pm.
Hup, hup, quickly now. Over on Eurogamer at the moment is a preview wot I dun wrote about THQ’s upcoming COD-like shooter Homefront. Looks promising, but the whole ‘North Korea invades America’ plot isn’t a particularly comfortable or believable concept. The game’s definitely THQ trying to hit it out the park rather than hang around in the cheap-seats, though.
For more on how the once-beleaguered publisher is trying to rejoin the big leagues, have a read of my interview with one of their biggest (and mouthiest) wigs, Danny Bilson. Yes, perv-o-gossips, he’s the father of the OC’s Rachel Bilson. Also includes him frothing about the Warhammer 40K MMO, and comfirming the inclusion of Titans. Titans!
14/06/2010 at 12:55 Alexander Norris says:
Oh, poo. I was hoping this’d be another Battlefield ersatz, like their last game (Frontlines: Fuels of Not Working Properly on a Lot of People’s Computers When Bought from Steam).
14/06/2010 at 21:12 jonfitt says:
COD-like
Haddock?
14/06/2010 at 13:01 Chaz says:
Yep the plot sounds utterly ridiculous, but then they also were for the two Modern Warfare games and it didn’t hurt their sales. Though I’m not sure too many of the people this is aimed at will really care about the plot once they start shooting.
14/06/2010 at 19:46 Arthur Barnhouse says:
Yes, but how many games with outsized plots and faux-realistic gameplay can the market handle?
14/06/2010 at 22:12 Chaz says:
Judging by the amount that keep getting shoveled out, I’d say quite a lot of them.
14/06/2010 at 13:09 Tei says:
You can always imagine is a North Korea from a alternate universe.
:-)
pew pew pew… this could be fun :-)
14/06/2010 at 13:22 Chaz says:
Who needs one from an alternate universe, we still might yet get to see some action between North and South Korea.
14/06/2010 at 14:00 Skurmedel says:
I though North Korea were from an alternate universe, or at least another planet.
14/06/2010 at 13:21 airtekh says:
I wonder if they really have come up with something original for the multiplayer.
14/06/2010 at 13:39 Mister Adequate says:
Well, of course the plot is implausible, that’s clearly part of the fun. I don’t get what’s uncomfortable about it though, except that obviously us Westerners would find it uncomfortable to live under the second-most deranged dictatorship in history.
14/06/2010 at 18:06 battles_atlas says:
Yeah we always want to be first at everything
14/06/2010 at 14:03 latterman says:
Red Dawn, anyone?
14/06/2010 at 14:16 Alexander Norris says:
One should never complain about more Red Dawn. “Communist invasion of Western country X” should be used as a game premise more often.
14/06/2010 at 14:39 Surgeon says:
Homefront… Meh!
But oh my God! Titans! TITANS!
Ever since playing Adeptus Titanicus when I was young, I have dreamed of this day…
Please be good!
14/06/2010 at 19:58 jonfitt says:
Titans? Woohoo!
But if 40K MMO = recurring fee, then boo because I won’t be playing it.
14/06/2010 at 14:44 Choca says:
Well I don’t know about the game but they definately won the E3 advertising award this year, Homefront posters are everywhere in the convention center.
14/06/2010 at 15:19 bildo says:
“the whole ‘North Korea invades America’ plot isn’t a particularly comfortable or believable concept”
Since when did believable concepts matter when it comes to awesome political intrigue war games? Did that change anything about World in Conflict ? Nah. All that matters is that the plot is executed well. True for the comfortable aspect. The trailer made my spine tingle at the thought, plus it was well done.
14/06/2010 at 15:38 Baboonanza says:
There’s unbelievable and there’s utterly ridiculous.
The United States – The Worlds Greatest Superpower – being invaded by what at this stage is little more than a third world hell hole that can’t even feed it’s own people without the constant support of China (who wouldn’t exactly be happy about them invading the US either). It’s just so absurd that concept of realism just can’t co-exist with it.
14/06/2010 at 15:39 Leelad says:
This is all super stuff and I appreciate the info but as an RPS subscriber I feel it’s perfectly acceptable to ask
WHERE THE FLUFF ARE VALVE?!!?!?!?!?!? IT’S THE 14TH WHERE AM THEY???
14/06/2010 at 15:49 Urthman says:
Some day Valve will release this in a bundle with Crisis and call it the “KILL SOME KOREANS PACK.”
14/06/2010 at 16:23 Pesforozo says:
Not sure why Valve would be involved. All questions could be silenced with wearable Gats though.
14/06/2010 at 20:35 PleasingFungus says:
His implication was that it’d be a Steam sale, I think.
15/06/2010 at 06:10 Grape Flavor says:
bahaha. i choked on my food at that.
Hey, maybe. Valve has a sense of humor.
14/06/2010 at 16:24 Soundofvictory says:
@latterman
I believe the game’s story is being penned (at least in part) by John Milius who wrote and directed Red Dawn.
15/06/2010 at 13:23 latterman says:
Everybody’s good at something I suppose?
14/06/2010 at 16:53 RubberJohnny says:
Like Crysis, it helps if you replace North Korea with !China. The vehicles they have, the weapons, the manpower all make more sense if it’s supposed to be !China, but was changed to avoid having the game banned there, or something.
14/06/2010 at 16:58 Heliocentric says:
China threw a tantrum about the hearts of iron world map. If the enemy are to commit atrocities then N. Korea are a good pick because hell, even S. Korea wouldn’t ban a game which depicts N. Korea being evil.
14/06/2010 at 17:15 godwin says:
That backstory is actually pretty similar to the one in Crysis. But, yeah, it’s actually rather predictable. How about a game where Canada invades the US? Oh, no, implausible, people of the West no longer use war for personal and political gain!
14/06/2010 at 19:37 CoyoteTheClever says:
That’s be an interesting plot actually. This unfortunately seems like more of an attempt to cash into contemporary Western fears and desires (Namely, killing fictional North Koreans, as opposed to Canadians, can be considered cathartic to some). I wouldn’t be surprised if the big reveal in the game is secretly, Iran engineered the whole takeover of America with the help of China =P
14/06/2010 at 17:27 enzoke says:
That guy looks like he jet-pack dodged the rocket and is striking a rude gesture back at the tank in mid-air infront of an EXPLOSION. SOLD.
14/06/2010 at 17:28 Adam says:
I read that book!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared
14/06/2010 at 18:15 madU says:
Another chauvinistic sausage fest………hooray!
14/06/2010 at 20:39 jonfitt says:
Are you trolling?
I’m not sure because, as for it being a boys toy for boys, I agree that’s what it looks like.
But it seems as if from what we know so far it’s not all blokes, and I saw no apparent chauvinism.
14/06/2010 at 22:14 Quine says:
*Titans*?!
SQUEE!!
I’ll happily shovels tones of cash into GW’s banking maw if it means I get the chance to stomp a plasma-toting Warhound around a small town. I’ll even let North Korea sponsor my paintjob…
15/06/2010 at 02:04 perilisk says:
I like how they got North Korea to help participate in the hype by sinking a South Korean vessel recently. That’s like Valve-level marketing genius, if Valve were irredeemably evil.
15/06/2010 at 06:13 Grape Flavor says:
NK needs the money. Game industry is big $$$. NK has no scruples.
It makes sense.
15/06/2010 at 03:31 Hypocee says:
Actually, the cheap seats are virtually the same as knocking it out of the park :)
15/06/2010 at 13:04 theleif says:
Cod-like? I smell something fishy going on.
15/06/2010 at 15:37 Mojo says:
Anyone ever played a little game called Command & Conquer: Red Alert?
I find it amusing how everyone’s up in arms about how “unrealistic” the setting is. Come on, that’s the point. I’m totally, unexplainably hyped about this game not despite but because it’s such a bold premise. North Koreans fighting in idyllic North American villages? Hell yea. There’s a lot of room for absurdo-sci fi between Halo and MW2.
In other words, do you really want another pseudo-hyper-realistic ‘Nam shooter?
PS: RPS, your captcha is making me question my ability to read.