Hands-On: Homefront Multiplayer

[duchaked]

Homefront's campaign had me interested from the beginning (so many interesting games in 2011!), but the multiplayer has caught my attention more so than BFBC2 and CODBO did in previews

Battle Commander seems like a good way to get the team to actually work together to kill the better/best player on the other team (same focus)...or it'll just mean funneling everyone to that player like hamsters into a shredder

 

[mxfox408]

I must say im looking forward to this game hope it sells well.

 

[mikespoff]

The more I hear about this game, the better it sounds.

Colour me intrigued.

 

[Bagle]

I can not wait for this but, I think that similar ideas have been instituted better in other games.
My main worry is that you will reach a wall. You will play, play, play and then you gain the final, fatal star. If you are good enough to get to 5 stars, you are good. When you get 5 stars, the whole team will come after you. This reminds me of an event in Tabula Rasa where you could kill General British. It was well enough intentioned but, what happened was awful. Everyone came. It became impossible to differentiate anything the screen was so filled with avatars, all hoping to get the killing blow. Due to the relatively small player count but, it could be a major pain to be a 5 star. All of the sense of being good would be replaced with a feeling of "Gee, I should be adequate so I do not get the whole team on my ass" This may come to be untrue, I may be just not getting something but this has me worried. Also, I think that Section 8 handled this very well. They had both teams going after missions. If team A was being trounced, the game would try to even the odds by having team A spawn a Commando and ask the rest of Team A help him. Team B would get a message saying that a Commando had spawned and to go and kill it. This would create points of contention and dynamically change the power, allowing the skill of one player to significantly help one player. Also, you would earn money but, everything that you purchased needed to be dropped in but none of your team mates could use them. This meant that you could not get a battle suite in the middle of a battle. You needed to get to safety so your cargo would not be destroyed before you could use it. I am worrying that someone will purchase a jet and blam, everyone is dead. I worry that someone would be able to dominate the other team. It might be that all this comes to nil and it might be that my two concerns cancel themselves out. Over all, I am stocked for this game.

 

[Zyxzy]

I'm sorry, they lost me with their premise. They wouldn't have been able to set up their GKR in their first place.

 

[red_one]

The BP systems sounds similar to Medal of Honor to me where you get in-game points that can be redeemed as offensive or defensive team actions (drones, flak vests, better ammunition, airstrikes, etc).
I really like the team aspect of Battlfield Bad Company MP, as well as the large scale. So Homefront definitely looks interesting suddenly.

 

[ArMartinez02]

MP sounds..... interesting.
fuck it, Im SOLD!

 

[ezeroast]

I'm pre ordering today and cant wait. Always waiting to get my hands on a new fresh FPS and battle commander sounds good.

 

[ezeroast]

I'm mildly confused. A tank, humvee, or Apache spawns right when you select it? What if you use it while under fire? Do you just.. teleport or disappear? Does the tank fall right on top of you like a poorly made air drop? Does your body stay in it's place while the tank does it's work with your controls?

I'm fairly sure that you get your reward on respawn but not 100% so dont quote me on that

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

While I'm more excited about the single player, this BP and BC system sounds really interesting. I might just have to spend more time on multiplayer than I thought.

 

[Baresark]

Even if this game turns out to technically be the best shooter ever, I think I would still be unable to play it without constantly facepalming at the very idea of North Korea invading the United States. That or I just giggle all the time while playing it.

To its credit, the game sets it up plausibly. It isn't just the single country of North Korea that's invading, it's the entire "Greater Korean Republic," i.e. North Korea which has conquered much of eastern Asia, like Japan circa World War II. And the America of 2026 has been badly crippled economically and resource-wise. So while the idea itself is laughable, they sell it well, if that makes sense.

not to mention that the country got hit with an EMP blast, making the "crippled" part even worse.

Haha, I very much looking forward to this title. But I need to disagree on the "plausible" setup. It begins very implausibly with South Korea joining North Korea, it would never happen that way. If anything, North Korea would allow itself to be annexed by South Korea, a much more free and economically sound society.

The game looks to be awesome though.

 

[Terminate421]

Even if this game turns out to technically be the best shooter ever, I think I would still be unable to play it without constantly facepalming at the very idea of North Korea invading the United States. That or I just giggle all the time while playing it.

To its credit, the game sets it up plausibly. It isn't just the single country of North Korea that's invading, it's the entire "Greater Korean Republic," i.e. North Korea which has conquered much of eastern Asia, like Japan circa World War II. And the America of 2026 has been badly crippled economically and resource-wise. So while the idea itself is laughable, they sell it well, if that makes sense.

At least they aren't picking on the russians this time.


From what I can tell, they took Battlefields game play, mixed it with Black ops's CoD points, Counterstrikes Spending system, and Assassin's Creed's wanted mode. This might just be ingenious.

 

[Mysnomer]

My biggest problem with the SP storyline is not that it's goofy and unrealistic. It's that they're trying so damn hard to sell it as being realistic.

Oh, so that's why the developers have said time and time again that "hey guys, it's fiction, you know, speculation and fiction, chill!" Because they're trying to be realistic, yeah, that makes sense.

Well, then either the advertising people didn't get the memo, or they're backpedaling in response to disapproval of their marketing strategy.

Modern Warfare 2 was parody, so it gets a pass.

lolwat?

I've been over this extensively in other threads, but basically, if you take Modern Warfare 2 seriously, you've been trolled. The references to Red Dawn, the utter implausibility of the game, and the stuff going on behind the scenes leads me to believe that they were basically trying to make one big joke. I like to think they facepalmed epically when it was revealed to be the best selling game to date.

Red Dawn cared more about the people than global explanations.

I'm amazed at your skills of deducing what Homefront is concentrating on based on, oh, you know, the two trailers that have been released. As opposed to the trailers for Red Dawn which concentrated solely on "Americans fighting back Russians! Fuck yeah!"

I'm sorry, did you watch the trailer for Red Dawn [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu-nJ1zpwPQ]? I fail to see the BS military strategies ham-fistedly delivered as real news, the political underpinnings, etc. etc. I see them focusing on people and their struggle. What you get from the Homefront trailers are all the former, and none of the latter. I have to depend on dramatized Escapist articles for that. If you watch the Homefront trailer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5yyWZ2Z6Ps], they simultaneously make huge leaps, such as the uniting of North and South Korea, or rising oil prices and the demise of the US economy, but then they try to present it as real and visceral. It's just poorly done.

Now, to your point that I know what the game is about. True, I don't know the exact contents of the game, and I'm sure the single player campaign will have its share of emotion and depth, but they're not selling it very well, or even moderately well. The selling point of this game should be "A Red Dawn you can play and experience, rather than just watch" but from the trailer, their trying to sell it as "This could happen, really happen! Don't you see how real this is?! Doesn't that intrigue you?"

 

[Zhukov]

God help me.

That actually sounds pretty good.

Possibly even good enough for me to get over the whole, "No really, the Americans are the tenacious underdogs" theme.

 

[archvile93]

I'm not sold on this point system. I really hate the thought of having to earn and purchase all my equipment mid round every single match. The tanks I can kind of understand though this may cause the problem of all enemies in vehicles and your team has none, but really? Even something as basic as body armor? I hope I don't also have to pay for better guns and start with a pistol, otherwise every match will probably be won by whoever kills the most in the frst ten seconds, because then you'll have a pistol and he has a tank, and you won't be able to get tank level points because you'll be too busy being run over every time you spawn to get any.

 

[xDarc]

32 players is NOT large scale.

I am so tired of this shit. PlanetSide had MASSIVE battles in which dozens of people could be on your SCREEN at one time; and hundreds in the battle. THAT WAS IN 2004! PROGRESS WTF?

You asked for a miracle, Theo, I give you the xbawks 360... holding back progress since 2005.

 

[xDarc]

I really am disgusted.

We used to run 32 player custom servers in FEAR Team Death Match in 2006... on cramped indoor maps.

It blows my mind that in twenty-freakin-eleven... we're still in the same place we were because the single biggest piece of gaming technology in an American household is a relative dinosaur turning six years old this year.

2006 really was the end of progress in MP shooters and it just makes me upset to be so disinterested in something "new," because we've been there and done that YEARS ago.

 

[Tharwen]

it strikes a nice balance between the customizable loadouts of Call of Duty and the buy-your-weapons-every-round of CounterStrike.

...and the exactly-the-same-system of Crysis Wars.

 

[badmunky64]

As a "I only care about the co-op or multi-player in FPS" this new system looks awesome.