Homefront Has a 5-Hour Campaign. Sort of.

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

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.

10 hours is pretty crap for a single player. Mass Effect, while not an FPS, can be done in about 30 (doing all the side stuff). Dunno where they get comparing this game to Mass Effect in terms of length.

I guess it rests on Duke Nukem's shoulders to show what a single player FPS is all about.

 

[Wintermoot]

Aand that,s another dissapointing game. COME ON! its the MP is going to be ANOTHER MP that,s a clone of COD!

 

[Sporky111]

Well this is disappointing, but not inhibitive. I think if the quality is really high up there it could still pass on a relatively-short campaign. I mean, Portal was less than 7 hours long on my first playthrough. Now I can go online at any given time and watch someone beat it in half an hour. But the story was still amazing.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Oh, no... It's short. Not interested.

I mean, if I can't get my fix of boring, repetitive FPS bullshit instead of a fun, engaging, fast-paced campaign in this game, I might have to look elsewhere.

Hey, Bad Company 2, you're just the game I need.

EDIT: So, Escapist, is WoW the best game ever, then? It's pretty lengthy, y'know?

 

[poiuppx]

Well, with an average-length for a modern warfare FPS- ie, done in an afternoon -and a focus on multiplayer, that would make this... actually, not very appealing. C'mon, guys, you've been marketing this thing up and down the road, getting fined over the dumber marketing bits no less, and THIS is what you have to show for it? Really?

Look, maybe I'll be wrong. But honestly, that's not a lot of gameplay. Matt Hazard took about that long, and Matt Hazard was a joke game with a minimalistic plot strung together with video game references. FEAR 2 took about that long, and its story barely got off the ground before the ending. You can't go shouting from the rooftops that your new innovative game has an epic story when other game companies have barely fit the GAME part into that timeframe.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Such a shame, but since i have disgust for most shooters these days it almost seems like companies are having a competition of the most shortest storylines ever for an fps how silly.

 

[Haydyn]

The science teacher I killed, who's ghost lives in my head is calling bullshit.

Controlled Variable:
Video game testers whose skill level exceeds that of a regular audience.

Altered Variable:
Game in which testers are testing

Results:
Reports from testers after playing Homefront show that the campaign only takes about 5 hours long. Other generic boring shooters tested nearly twice as long.

Chance of Air:
The testers are not necassarily the same testers for every shooter. Homefront could have just gotten testers who are better at games.

Conclusion:
It is unlikely that Homefront was tested by hardcore designers that could roughly complete the game in half the time as testers could complete other games. Testers' skills do not vary as much as the results would acuire, and even if they did, the chances that Homefront received all the toughest testers out there is mathmatically a chance of less than .001%.

They know there game is short, and rather than go for the quality vs quantity argument, they make excuses as to why the are incorrect. The game is indeed too short.

Now, to continue another one of my needlessly long posts, length =/= quality. The only shooter I play is Halo Reach, as the campaign of all other shooters bores the ghosts out of my head. Halo Reach I make an exception for as I do enjoy it far more than other shooters (Saint's Row 2 not considered a shooter by my definition in this case, despite being a TPS.)

Homefront only has one thing that stands out about it. It's set in America, defending America, rather than America fighting over seas, and even off planet. This is the equivilent of picking out a dog I want to bite my nads, with Homefront being the bulldog with a bow on it's head.

 

[FiresideBoomer]

Game in Australia = $100 (sometimes more, MW2 is still going for $110 new)
5 hour game / $100
That means roughly I'm paying about $20/hour for this game
I can think of alot better things to do with $20/hour.
This is though the primary reason why I rent most games.

 

[Nedoras]

I'm not really sure if the game is literally going to be that short. Those few testers may have gotten through it in 5 hours or so, but it didn't say how they did that. They could've been rushing through it, not taking their time at all. Everyone I know told me Killzone 3 had a 5 to 6 hour campaign, and it took me way longer than that to get through it. Not because I'm a bad player, but because I took my time and admired the scenery every now and then. Any game can be a lot shorter if you rush through it. Even if it is short, it could still be a great experience, if a bit tad expensive. After all 60 dollars is quite a bit of money for a short game, even if it does end up being awesome. There's always the multiplayer as well, and who knows? That can possibly be great as well and add to the experience.

 

[seditary]

I will never, ever understand the complaining when a game is "short." Have you ever read a book and gone, "Wow, I hate the characters and the writing sucks but hell yeah, I've got 200 more pages to go!" Or "Wow, that was a great read, but it could have used an extra 150 pages of filler at the end."

I would rather a great 5-8 hour game over a mediocre 15-20+ hour one. Hell, in general I'd take a shorter game over a longer game any day - I want to finish the story, and I don't have the time to waste on long games. This is exactly why I'm giving Dragon Age 2 a pass.

Christ on a cracker, people are spoiled.

Because short games don't live in a vacuum and quality is measured by more than length. You automatically contrast a good 5 hour game to a 15-20 hour mediocre game when instead you should be contrasting a good 5 hour game to a good 15-20 hour game, because there are actually plenty of those around. If something is good, people want more of it, and we don't even know if Homefront is good, so its lose-lose, either we plonk down $60 (or more depending on where you live) on a shit game or we won't get enough if it is good. Even if Homefront is fucking awesome I'd still go for something else because I'm not made of money, the value for money is simply not high enough.

And the developer's defense is totally pitiful, you might as well say your game is 50 hours long if you leave the console on during the night, its as relevant.

 

[IamGamer41]

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.

It also game with 3 other games iirc.

 

[tkioz]

The damn thing is I was really looking forward to this game... but even if it's 10 hours long that for me is too short to pay "just out retail", so I'll be waiting until it drops to $20 on steam.

Damn I hate the recent trend of "multiplayer will make it sell"...

 

[Woem]

I personally hate short campaigns and I would not accept this. Seeing however how many people accept Portal's really short duration, and love the game despite of it, I'm pretty sure most people will be just fine with this.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

So they are from the school of thought that if you have 6 levels and it takes you about 10 times to get through each as you die that many times it is really like having 60 levels. I want a bit more longevity in my games than about 3-5 hours. That is what it took me to beat games like BC2 and CoD:BO on the hardest setting and I wouldn't call myself an expert. Also I did spend a lot of time in BC finding Mcom stations and weapons.

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

A short-ish campaign that doesn't look to be that amazing anyway? [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/22/hands-on-preview-homefront/]
Yeah, looks like me not playing the CoDs and the Battlefields of the day will continue for a while yet. Last CoD I played was the second one. Had fun with Bad Company though.

 

[V TheSystem V]

Considering how Duke Nukem Forever is supposed to be 15-20 hours long, that argument doesn't really hold water.

And Duke Nukem also has multiplayer (didn't know about it until recently, getting it for my birthday FOR THE SINGLE PLAYER). It's getting kinda sad that developers aren't putting enough thought into how long the single player will last. Homefront's story sounded awesome and actually pretty different from anything we've seen in FPSes as of late. However, 5 hours isn't enough to get you engrossed in the world of the game. If they're going for depth they need to make the single player at least 8 hours (like Metro 2033). I doubt highly that it's going to be like Portal where every room shows you what happened to previous test subjects. It was subtle and full of genius. I was tempted to get this because of the single player; it actually sounded pretty awesome seeing America being enslaved. However, having played many FPSes in the past, I could easily be one of those who breezes through it in 5 hours. Going to wait for the verdict and see if friends get it, then will wait until it's cheaper. It's published by THQ, it's going to go down in price pretty quickly.

 

[Adzma]

Why is everyone so surprised? It's practically part of the genre description that modern FPS games have to be roughly 5 hours in length.

I however await the arrival of Duke Nukem to save us from this rubbish.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Wait, I thought this game was all about the controversial story/events and what not, and they just churned out another modern shooter instead?

Well this is a strange turn of events... I guess it will be one of them "CoD killer for sure this time" things again.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

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.

Seconded.

People should have an open mind.

 

[Wicky_42]

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.

Small point, but did you read the article? They said first that it could be completed in 5hrs by 'expert' players (people who've played FPS games before? when do you become 'expert' as opposed to what, 'beginner'?), then that it was of comparable length to 'competing shooters' - and didn't CoD have a pretty short campaign? Finally he says that "we've seen player take 8-10hrs". That's not that it takes that long for most people, but that presumably the LONGEST play-testers had taken was 10 hrs. Presumably they were people who knew their way around a gamepad and all, but still I'd expect most gamers who've been playing CoD or whatever for the last couple of years will have no difficulty being much closer to the 5hr mark, rather than 10.

Hopefully those hours will be great, the game and story both masterfully crafted to make the experience something unforgettable, something worthy of the big sell the devs have been pushing.

Thing is, this is a disappointment coming from a game that's been going on so much about its single player - their multiplayer looks like the horrible spawn-child of BC2 and MW2, and that looks like what they're banking on - heck, they even reference it as providing additional play-time! There was a time when single-player campaigns weren't excused by their multiplayer components but rather were supplemented by them :/