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Homefront: The Revolution review thread
- Thread starter Get_craycray
- Start date
Collaborators with invaders have always been targeted by resistance groups. I'm a little lost as to what is different about this situation.
Same thing with the nickname for the North Koreans. That often happens in war, like "Jerrys" for Germans.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Well, there's zero chance that Dead Island 2 will be out this year. Although they have the Dead Island Collection coming in its stead.
Garrett Hawke
Member
I haven't played this game either so I was not commenting specifically on this game in that write up, so apologies if that wasn't clear. I was more referring to the issue of sensitive topics in general.
Burgess_101
Member
I guess it is down to an individuals disposition, I for one appreciate difficult subjects being tackled in games, even if clumsily done.
This. It seems odd that Eurogamer and posters in this thread actually expect the invaded country to respect the invaders. Do people really expect political correctness during times of war? I'm not sure how people think this game is raciest given the context
Context is key here. In every war and and every war account, there have been names/slurs/shorthand that has come about either officially or through soldiers themselves. "Charlies", "skinnies", I'm sure soldiers had/have all kinds of wonderful names for Iraq and Afghan enemy combatants. Calling it a racial slur totally ignores the conceit of the narrative: it's one country invading another.
If you witnessed a report from Iraq in which the locals used some made up shorthand for Americans (that, on its face, invaded and killed thousands of their brethren), would you call those Iraqi people a bunch of racists?
If Homefront's conceit was that Canada (lol) invaded the US and all of the rebellion called the Canadian soldiers "Cads" (OH LORD THE DOUBLE MEANING), would you say it wasn't bigotry because Canada is a country, not an ethnicity?
I haven't played the new Homefront, but it baffles me a bit that people would look at the characters using soldier-like language in a soldier-like situation and calling it racism. If the game was set in GTA6 and they were just walking down the street calling Asian people "norks", hell yes that would be racist, but in this context....ehhhhh. I also find it weird that people who would champion the rage of the oppressed wouldn't see the same thing happening here. Since everyone is shitty, the whole idea of war turning people ugly clearly seems to be a theme. Eurogamer finds them irredeemable; that's kind of what happens.
Of course you could argue that it's a created work of fiction, so the writers and designers could have chosen to just use different words (the "it has dragons, therefore anything goes" argument), which is fine. But if they are going for this "ugliness of war" aesthetic, what with the killing sympathizers, no-hope gloominess, surrounded by dreary muzzers, it's seems they were really trying to drive home some sort of point here.
SJRB
Gold Member
From the video.
Ironically the street textures in that part looked freaking amazing.
Do you think the game was made by a bunch of racists?
Yeah, seems like a pretty realistic behavior. The invaded country would hardly be super understanding of the situation and try to be respectful to the invaders...
No, and I didn't say that.
I don't think Micheal Bay is an overt racist but he still made a movie with Skids and Mudflap.
Were British soldiers in WWII racists for calling Germans Jerrys?
Hey, it's the return of the "no, I didn't say that" response.
Because I didn't. Not sure why disagreeing that the game is going for deep themes means I think everyone's a bunch of racists.
Do you think that members of a country using a brand new made up word to refer to the people from the country that has invaded, subjugated, and oppressed them make them a bunch of racists?
So, what are you saying?
That if you look at some gameplay elements being somewhat tonally different from a bunch of storyline elements making those themes null? Does making an oppressive atmosphere nullify fun gameplay the same way fun gameplay nullifies an oppressive atmosphere?
And fuck pre-order bonuses; just because some suit in a boardroom scrambles to create promotional items to push point of sale marketing doesn't break the conceit of the people actually making the game.
it doesn't read like it comes across as thinking that far ahead. but i kinda don't want to bother playing the game to find out.
Ok, that's fine. I don't mean to put words in your mouth.
But if you don't see a problem with my example, what's wrong with what Homefront does? If you think there is anything wrong.
Kresnik258
Member
Ehh. I'm still sort of interested in this just because it's developed by the remains of Free Radical, plus open-world FPS is something I'm always interested in. Shame about the performance on PS4.
Maybe for a bargain bin price down the line.
Maybe for a bargain bin price down the line.
ãInaba Residentã
Banned
Can't say I'm surprised. The original did terrible so I'm not sure how this sequel even started development. Don't know who saw any kind of value in this IP
Reckless Onion
Member
These guys cant catch a break, i feel sorry for them. Such a great studio once
Hmm doesn't that make sense? They invaded their country, obviously they're gonna be racists, this is a dumb thing to complain about.
feint_ruled
Member
I think where this game goes so tonally wrong in its "norks" pejorative is that the chances of North Korea actually invading the US are less than that of space aliens doing it. So it feels like they have invented this scenario simply to justify the hate.
Any situation involving the modern US being invaded is crazy, so I don't really think that's the problem.
I haven't played the game so I could be missing something, but I can't think of how having a shorthand term for the troops of another nation in such a situation is racist.
The concept likely went like this;
1) We want to make a shooter about USA being invaded by another country
2) Can't do Russia/USSR anymore because they buy games
3) Middle East countries are too sensitive of material right now
3) North Korea hate USA right now and don't buy American video games
4) North Korea it is
It's so frustrating to see the self-castration that these studios all self inflict; Making samey games because only the tried and true seem to get a fair chance, whereas the tried and true isa fucking oversaturated red ocean of 'been there done that'.
Dark Souls proved without reasonable doubt that creativity and AAA gaming can exsist, but it will take nurturing and a keen eye for your community; Demon souls found a niche group of players that created a strong community. By creating FOR this community ( and not your average focus group persona's ) the games could play off its strengths, while the community kept growing on sheer word-of-mouth. Fast forward 6 years and we have FROM having its most successful AAA franchise in its history, carefully groomed to the size we see in this month's NPD.
Yet here we are, watching all these publishers / developers tripping over one another to make the exact same shit we've been playing all year. This game will be a financial disaster and possibly the end of this studio and honestly, and i don't give a flying fuck. Cull the meek, i say. The talented people will land on their feet, and the assholes who conceptualise and green-light games like this will have another flop on their resume. To these people i say:
Stop making fucking games for the masses. Make games for the hardcore. We appreciate creativity, we recognise brilliance, and we will give you the best marketing you can possibly hope for!
Dark Souls proved without reasonable doubt that creativity and AAA gaming can exsist, but it will take nurturing and a keen eye for your community; Demon souls found a niche group of players that created a strong community. By creating FOR this community ( and not your average focus group persona's ) the games could play off its strengths, while the community kept growing on sheer word-of-mouth. Fast forward 6 years and we have FROM having its most successful AAA franchise in its history, carefully groomed to the size we see in this month's NPD.
Yet here we are, watching all these publishers / developers tripping over one another to make the exact same shit we've been playing all year. This game will be a financial disaster and possibly the end of this studio and honestly, and i don't give a flying fuck. Cull the meek, i say. The talented people will land on their feet, and the assholes who conceptualise and green-light games like this will have another flop on their resume. To these people i say:
Stop making fucking games for the masses. Make games for the hardcore. We appreciate creativity, we recognise brilliance, and we will give you the best marketing you can possibly hope for!
sacrificengineer
Member
Well, there probably goes my hope for a proper Crysis spiritual successor. How unfortunate...
feint_ruled
Member
Yes, they aren't buying too many videogames in North Korea, that's for sure.
It's pretty obvious that they picked NK as a feeble proxy for China. I mean, the game has them selling the US loads of trojan horse electronics.
Great, I was worried that we are already three pages into this thread, and no one had yet mentioned how great Dark Souls is.
However, you can't establish a paradigm from one game/ example. Just because Dark Souls became a hit by focusing on a hardcore niche doesn't mean that it works for all games, especially in a genre like FPS that is dominated by huge production values.
You just described the death of the modern videogame industry.
Again, why wouldn't a resistance group beat up collaborators? It make sense that they wouldn't allow citizens to help the evil oppressor, those collaborators sold their country, the other citizens and probably are a threat to the resistance as well, all of that for their own good.
It's not pretty but it's pretty realistic and understandable, Eurogamer are very nit picky here, there are enough reasons to bash the game other than this nonsense.
Indeed, Freedom Fighters took that scenario regardless of how unlikely and ran with it - and it was a brilliant game. Atmospheric and believable.
I'm willing to give Homefront a shot if they fix the console performance which is apparently shocking right now. I doubt it will spin the theme as well as FF did though.
criticisms like these are one of the many things holding video games back from being as appreciated and subject to actual intensive theory/review like movies/art/books
maverick40
Junior Member
Shit game and the studio will most likely close too.
What an industry
What an industry
feint_ruled
Member
One of the other things being trashy videogames like Homefront!
tell me what's trashy about it.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
It's as bad as when some US soldiers would call Middle East terrorist "towelheads". It wasn't cool back then and it's not cool now.
