Homefront Has a 5-Hour Campaign. Sort of.

[Squilookle]

the game is about the same length as other, competing, FPS titles.

Not good enough, Kaos!

This bare-minimum effort according-to-what-everyone-else-is-doing will win you no favours in my book. How hard is it to put a few more missions in? Especially in a large mapped game? all that terrain going to waste.

Oh what do I care. Game looks generic as hell anyway. This time next year it'll be that 'repel a full scale invasion in five hours' game.

 

[MrGalactus]

When did we start measuring the quality of a game by the length of its campaign anyway? Portal proved a long time ago that the time it takes to beat it is irrelevant to the value.

Yes but portal wasn't asking $60.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

Hahahaha, and for a second I thought this game was going to be different. Silly me.

 

[The Floating Nose]

That's pathetic ! It's a game that the gamers are really waiting for and they don't do a lot of effort for the single player. Well, you guys better expect Homefront 2 and 3...

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

Well as long as the 5 hours are incredibly fun. As well as the multiplayer is too. Also Im not picking this up until they give me a demo, since I have no clu how is plays. Just give us a multiplayer demo. Thats all I want to test out the controls and online.

 

[HuCast]

i love that they are defending themselves by saying "no it can be 10 hours" thats shorter than a large amount of ps2 games, you have better hardware now use it god dam it.

the irony here is quite sweet.


You do realise the reason its shorter is due to the higher level of graphical quality= larger amounts of work. hang on shamus young has a good description of it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6069-Death-to-Good-Graphics

Seriously READ that article. Aside from it being well written it's also VERY right.

Might be true-but on the other hand they have the time and money to waste millions on trailers, cutscenes, voice acting, advertisement to "tell" us a story instead of letting us play it. There are some workarounds and if they cant afford to produce a game with a decent amount of gameplay value they could always outsource parts of development or stick to download only arcade titles.

In the end its way more expensive and complicated to make a good music album or movie than it was back in the 80´s-but that doesnt mean that albums contain only 5 songs and movies last 1 hour

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Unfortunately this may well be another game I was mildly interested in crossed off the list.

If developers can't be bothered to put the time into a decent length campaign, I'm not buying the damn game. I don't multiplayer at all, because I hate online random game joining, don't have any friends to meet up with online, and even if games have a local multiplayer option anymore (which is increasingly infrequent) then I live all the way across the country from anyone I know.

Bottom line, without single player, I don't buy it anymore.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Um.. Five hours without dying once? How do they measure these things?

 

[DTWolfwood]

unfortunate the games ships the same day as Total War: Shogun 2. REAL unfortunate, at least in my case. I value a game I can play all year, by myself no less, over a game i'll be done with in a day and be tired of in a month.

for crying out loud i've already logged 8 hours over the DEMO, the freaking DEMO! XD

GL Homefront, hope you do well and i'll pick you up when steams slashes your price by 75%

 

[Delusibeta]

When did we start measuring the quality of a game by the length of its campaign anyway? Portal proved a long time ago that the time it takes to beat it is irrelevant to the value.

No, but Portal wasn't $60. Mirror's Edge proved that the time it takes to beat it is relevant to the value. And frankly, anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

 

[NickCaligo42]

When did we start measuring the quality of a game by the length of its campaign anyway? Portal proved a long time ago that the time it takes to beat it is irrelevant to the value.

Not that I disagree with you, but... Portal was short, but also tightly written, comparatively simple mechanics-wise, and a third of the price they're trying to charge for Homefront at the time of its release. Unless you bought it with the Orange Box, in which case it came bundled with a more interesting shooter that had a more respectable campaign (Half-Life 2), its expansion (Episode 1), along with a better multiplayer shooter than this could hope to be (Team Fortress 2). All this came at the same price they're charging for this game at the time of release.

In any case, I think you are positively insane to try and compare the value of this game with Portal in any context.

 

[Spawny0908]

For everybody else, the game is about the same length as other, competing, FPS titles.

So... About five hours then.

thats what i was thinking too...

 

[GeorgW]

Isn't Homefront trying to set itself apart from Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, etc. by making their campaign different? What does making it only five hours do to help it?

This. For once I was actually excited about an FPS's campaign! Sure, quality>quantity and I've alway disliked when people say otherwise, but still. I thought it was story based and you can't fit much story in 5h. I guess I'll save my money for DNF, but I'm holding my expectations until the reviews.

 

[Kukakkau]

Did people even read the news article?

It said it took most players 8-10 hours to complete it and that only expert players got through it in less then 5.

It took me lots of time to beat the original Doom for the first time, now I can beat the game in like 3-4 hours.

Its not fair to judge so early.

While that's true "expert gamer" probably just means people experienced with the FPS genre

I was kinda wavering about this game over the last few days since I couldn't find anything substantial on single or multi player. Most I found was two demonstration gameplay videos for MP and that there is not going to be a demo... because demos can cause you to lose sales...?

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

I feel like I'm reacting to this game the same way most other people are. At first, it looked like a really solid FPS with a few new components and an exciting story. Now, having seen much more of it, it looks like a decent FPS with no new components and a blah story.

Unless it turns out to be god's gift to gaming, I probably wouldn't buy it. Especially not with Brink coming out, which at least seems like its trying to innovate.

EDIT: Anyone else predicting a "shocking cliffhanger ending" to ensure a sequel? I know I am.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

what the fuck is wrong with u people, if u race through it, dont expect it to be long, geez

if u want the campaign to be long then take ur time, and use every core mechanic the game has to offer. play the game how it was meant to be played, it will take u 10+ hours i reckon, which still isnt a terribly long time, but hey, its an FPS.

im buying this game because i actually like kaos studios. and the multiplayer does seem pretty good.

 

[VanBasten]

Frankly, I liked Metro 2033's much longer campaign.

How is 6 hours much longer than 5?

Anyway, while I do agree that singleplayer portions of FPS games these days are getting ridiculously short(MoH's 3 hour campaign stands out as the most prominent example) I really wasn't expecting much more. This is the standard these days.