THQ Blames Homefront Single Player for Lukewarm Reviews

[Logan Westbrook]

THQ Blames Homefront Single Player for Lukewarm Reviews

Four hour campaigns apparently don't make for happy reviewers.

When near-future, "what if?" shooter Homefront came out in March, the reviewer reaction to it was rather subdued, with all three versions of the game chalking up an aggregate score of 70 on Metacritic. Now, a few weeks on, Brian Farrell, the CEO of publisher THQ, thinks that the game's single player campaign might have been to blame for the rather cool reception.

During a conference call following the release of THQ's third quarter and end of year financial report, Farrell said that the length of the campaign - or lack thereof, as many have placed its length at around four to five hours - contributed to the game receiving rather mixed reviews. Considering how much emphasis the game's marketing efforts placed on Homefront's story, it's not hard to see why reviewers might react negatively when they learned that the game's campaign was so short. In his review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8718-Homefront-Review] of the Xbox 360 version, The Escapist's Editor-in-Chief, Russ Pitts, said, "there isn't enough game in Homefront The Game to contain Homefront The Multimedia Concept," which seems a neat summation of the feelings of many critics.

But despite these lackluster reviews, Homefront has proven to be a strong earner for THQ since its release. Farrell said that THQ had shipped 2.6 million copies of the game, although didn't say how many of those copies had been sold. He added that not only was it a great start for the franchise, it was also a great start for "the strongest pipeline of AAA core games in [THQ's] history."

Source: Industry Gamers [http://www.industrygamers.com/news/homefronts-single-player-a-stumbling-block-says-thq/]





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[The_root_of_all_evil]

"The Franchise"? We can expect more of these abominations?

 

[Zhukov]

Yup.

Short, utterly uninspired and desperately trying to be Call of Duty.

I would have been much kinder to it if they had just dropped the pretentions and said, "Yeah, we're making a multiplayer FPS themed around modern day warfare."

I think the fact that it still sold well says quite a bit about the industry.

 

[inglioti]

I'd like to support a game that really tries for a gritty and emotional story, but seriously, I'm not too into multiplayer. If the main demographic is people like me, they've failed.

$100 for a game (AUD) that will last me four hours is pretty uninviting.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

It doesn't take a genius to figure that out
http://seancercone.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/duh-duh1233387823.jpg

I second this. All along right up until people release people had been asking questions about the campaign length, and THQ only have now realised that four hours of gameplay is not a good trade off for a £40 game.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

"The Franchise"? We can expect more of these abominations?

Once they've made 4 or 5 of them you can combine them together into a decent length campaign.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

"The Franchise"? We can expect more of these abominations?

I heard the next one takes place in London apparently.

Oh god no...don't give us another Dick Van Dyke...please for all that's holy, stop them.

 

[Corporal Yakob]

If they can come up with a solution to why the EU has done nothing in response to NK in their universe, I'd play another.

 

[NathLines]

I think it's because the singleplayer wasn't SHORT ENOUGH. They shouldn't have bothered with the singleplayer in the first place. Just focus on the multilayer.

 

[Anjel]

Not a fan of games being released and expecting to do well just because it has multi-player re-playability. The single player campaign was too damn short regardless of how good the multi-player is.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed the story, graphics, gameplay style (albeit generic) of the single player.

 

[Megawat22]

Length doesn't mean anything. My Dragon Age 2 save has 17 hours playtime on it and that was 17 hours of "Bleeeeeaaaaargh..." for me. Portal is 4 (5 if you're thick like me) hours and is one big tutorial but it was great.
There's potential in Homefront. The back story was really well done but the way it was presented was silly. Rebels and Guerilla fighting should have been going on. Not mini wars and 2 armies meeting in the middle of a bridge.
There's potential, they just need to know what to do.

 

[Zenode]

See I wouldn't of had a problem with it if they had just set it in the NK vs USA universe and done a pure MP title like Battlefield 2

 

[Jazoni89]

"The Franchise"? We can expect more of these abominations?

I heard the next one takes place in London apparently.

Oh god no...don't give us another Dick Van Dyke...please for all that's holy, stop them.

I can just imagine it:

As Burt pulls the pin from his hand grenade and dives under the tank on London Bridge, he Yells out his last words of defiance,
"CHIM CHIM CHERROOOOO!" *BOOM*

I didn't even have to go on to your profile to tell if you were American.

"Oh, ho, ho, it's magic!"

OT: Homefront was a god awful COD clone, and i seriously don't want there to be another.

 

[Valdus]

Or, THQ, how about you just accept that your game was shit instead of comming up with excuses? Better game designers are willing to admit their mistakes so what makes you think you can get away with it?

If they actually put some thought into the game it might have actually been worth something.

 

[Astalano]

If you hadn't fucking hyped the campaign to hell and back it might have been a little better.

Half-Life 2 my ass.

 

[Jumplion]

Really, that's just pitiful, Kaos Studios. You said before that "Oh, we concentrated on multiplayer instead of singleplayer!" yet the marketing focus was entirely on single player ("From the writer of Red Dawn!.."...) and I had not seen one iota of advertising towards multiplayer. You go on to say "Oh, the singleplayer is only 5 hours if you're, like, really really good a FPSs" and it turns out it's 5 hours anyway. You go on and on how the story really hits close to home, with the writer of Red Dawn! writing the script, and it's just another stupid Call of Duty clone with a Wildcats fetish.

And now, THQ, not you guys, has to come out saying "Oh, the singleplayer kinda, sorta, was bad...". Friggin' stupid, if I do say so myself.