Metacritic

[Mar451]

Recently, after much publicity, Homefront was released. The general consensus is that it is an uninspired shooter that is obviously trying to cash in on the success of Call of Duty, as well as the fact that it was written by the same person who wrote Red Dawn.

THQ was heavily effected by this, due to the 70% rating on Metacritic, but I saw several posts on about how people were baffled that 70% is considered bad.

Its best to think of sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic as getting grades in school. Getting a 70% on a test is passing, but only barely. Likewise, if a game only got 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, that means only half the people who played the game actually liked that. Not good statistics to run a supposed franchise on.

So Homefront has a C- thats not good, especially how much it was marketed to be a story driven FPS and said story was only about 4-5 hours long. So in a way, yes, Homefront is indeed mediocre, if a game gets excellant reviews and gets an 80 or 90 it is most certainly a good game. Some exceptions exist though, and I am a firm believer that Homefront would have faired much better if Homefront had been the subtitle to another overblown franchise. Gosh can't think of which though!

 

[Verlander]

Not sure as for the conversation value of this thread, but I'd like to point out how much I hate rotten tomatoes, and how people take it seriously. The ranking system is so flawed it's unreal

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I am a firm believer that Homefront would have faired much better if Homefront had been the subtitle to another overblown franchise. Gosh can't think of which though!

You've almost broken the Escapist law of always mentioning CoD in a negative light in a thread about any other FPS game.

I'll let it slide for now just because you clearly implied it.

Also, no. No, it wouldn't. Were it a CoD game, it would've also inherited the controls and there goes the score rising. That's not just because it's CoD. That's because it plays like CoD.

Homefront, it is evident, doesn't play like CoD. I'm not going to say it's mediocre, good, bad. It has different mechanics.

The reviewers clearly like those less.

Also, 70 is shabby for a major title. Were it an indie game with that score, that would be alright. Which is good enough.

 

[Zhukov]

Homefront, it is evident, doesn't play like CoD. I'm not going to say it's mediocre, good, bad. It has different mechanics.

Have you played the game?

I can tell you now, the single player plays exactly like CoD. And not just the shooty parts. The helicopter mission a la Black Ops. The scripted "stealth" mission. The designate-targets-for-circling-aeroplane-in-grey-o-vision mission.

Gameplay wise, this thing is trying to be CoD so hard it's not funny.

Although, granted, it's still significantly worse.

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

Its best to think of sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic as getting grades in school. Getting a 70% on a test is passing, but only barely.

Incorrect. In school (at least where I go), a 60% (a D-) is considered barely passing. 70% (c-) is considered average, but not bad at all, whereas 80% (B-) is good and 90% (A-) is excellent. Thus, even going by school grading systems, Homefront getting a 73% on Metacritic isn't a bad score.

Still doesn't justify the incredibly flawed usage of 3-point/30-percent rating systems, though. Just "because schools do it" (which isn't entirely true, as I mentioned above) is a terrible reason for it's defense, as well.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Homefront, it is evident, doesn't play like CoD. I'm not going to say it's mediocre, good, bad. It has different mechanics.

Have you played the game?

I can tell you now, the single player plays exactly like CoD. And not just the shooty parts. The helicopter mission a la Black Ops. The scripted "stealth" mission. The designate-targets-for-circling-aeroplane-in-grey-o-vision mission.

Gameplay wise, this thing is trying to be CoD so hard it's not funny.

Although, granted, it's still significantly worse.

I meant, multiplayer-wise, since that's all that people seem to really care about.

I can't actually say anything about the singleplayer or the quality of the game's controls.