Non-Americans Can Like Homefront, Too

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I understood your analogy perfectly, I just think you're wrong as hell.

Why do you have to be in a country that's been invaded to understand the idea of "my family and places I love are in danger, I want to protect them"? You're being wholly unreasonable in expecting a group of Americans to just say "hey, let's make a game about Afghans/some other people who we're not," and you're being idealistic if you don't think that advocacy groups would fuck them over for MISREPRESENTING (group X)

I'm not assuming they wouldn't get in trouble for that. I'm not saying it's insensitive to produce a game which explores these themes, but that it's laughable on their part to declare that the game can give a sensitive treatment of this issue when so much of it is based around an insensitive portrayal of international politics. Anyway, the real reason Kaos' claim doesn't hold water with me is that the American media was quick to throw a huge shit fit over the very IDEA of a sympathetic portrait of people defending THEIR homeland in Medal of Honor (which wasn't even what the game was about!), so for Kaos to claim theirs is more sensitive is nothing but hypocrisy, because the only difference is that it's from the perspective of Americans. It's that kind of double standard which makes people consider these assertions of having universal themes to be insensitive.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

I understood your analogy perfectly, I just think you're wrong as hell.

Why do you have to be in a country that's been invaded to understand the idea of "my family and places I love are in danger, I want to protect them"? You're being wholly unreasonable in expecting a group of Americans to just say "hey, let's make a game about Afghans/some other people who we're not," and you're being idealistic if you don't think that advocacy groups would fuck them over for MISREPRESENTING (group X)

I'm not assuming they wouldn't get in trouble for that. I'm not saying it's insensitive to produce a game which explores these themes, but that it's laughable on their part to declare that the game can give a sensitive treatment of this issue when so much of it is based around an insensitive portrayal of international politics. Anyway, the real reason Kaos' claim doesn't hold water with me is that the American media was quick to throw a huge shit fit over the very IDEA of a sympathetic portrait of people defending THEIR homeland in Medal of Honor (which wasn't even what the game was about!), so for Kaos to claim theirs is more sensitive is nothing but hypocrisy, because the only difference is that it's from the perspective of Americans. It's that kind of double standard which makes people consider these assertions of having universal themes to be insensitive.

Sorry, not following you. It's speculative fiction, and I for one am glad that they're not going with tired old Russians or whatever. It's saying "North Korea is a warlike, aggressive state with illusions of grandeur" (which is true, don't say it isn't) "what happens if it somehow had the capacity to act on that"? In fact, the fact that it's such an unrealistic scenario (we all know NK is only really dangerous for its missiles) is arguably MORE sensitive.

And what are you talking about with MOH? The big controversy was allowing people to play as Taliban. There was nothing about them being portrayed sympathetically; it was the same durka durka muhammad jihad we see in every middle eastern portrayal, the shit fit was about just calling them Taliban as opposed to Opposing Force.

Not to mention that "hypocrisy" has nothing to do with it. Kaos would be hypocritical if they were INSULTING EA, but they had no voice in the argument there. They're only saying here (if I'm reading the interview right) that they don't think people will be as upset or that it will be as controversial as MOH, because it isn't a real world conflict where you or I might have a brother fighting there.

I see nothing hypocritical in it. What they're saying in the interview is that the themes would be the same whether they were making a game about AFghans defending Afghanistan (let's set it in the 70s/80s and say it's against the Soviets to get over that hump), Aussies defending Australia, French resistance fighting in France in WW2, whatever. It's about trying to defend and protect a place you love and hold dear, and of seeing familiar places made alien.

But, because they're an American company, they're choosing to set it in... the place they know, THEIR home.

There is nothing wrong with this.

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

If the game is good, people will play it, regardless of where they live.

 

[WanderingFool]

If the game is good, people will play it, regardless of where they live.

Agreed, and from what ive heard and seen, it hopefully will be.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

It's funny how the USA drags us the sentiment of constant, neverending warfare into our societal way of life, there's just so many US companymade War related games, that it would be futile to enumerate them.

just think about it.

 

[teknoarcanist]

Yeah why do I feel like like this is going to amount to a bunch of cutscenes where the main character whines about his wife . . .

OH WAIT.

Seriously, the only way to do this right would be if the first two hours of the game put you on the oppressed/invaded end of things, where you wake up, hang out with your family, drive your truck to work, the office gets invaded by Koreans, you're shepherded into an internment line...and you don't get a gun or any kind of proactive powers for a very, very long time.

Which I think we can agree is not what this game is going to entail.

 

[gl1koz3]

Universal one place.

North Korea is barely perceived as anything other than a bit dug in and reluctant to try new things (people that I know of don't even care about bringing it up). Talking about how they try conquering the world is just waaay too much of a long shot and is plainly a paranoia of misinformation.

 

[Blind Sight]

If I may ask, what video games do you play and what tv shows or movies do you watch? I guarantee you I can easily dig political and social commentary out of them (especially Bioware, Bioware loves Thomas Hobbes so much it's insane).

Now hold it, what are we talking about here?
It's obvious that you can't get not influenced by the media you consume.
After all, every single person in a creative line of work will always write about what he thinks is right, about the ideologies and morals he identifies with and so on.
It's a given that you might pick up some of it, especially if it's well presented.

But that's not the issue here.
We're talking about a developer that's taking an actual political stance here.
I'm mostly referring to all that talk along the lines of "If NK could they would totally act like we show in this game!"

That's not presenting your own morals and ideals. That's not even political commentary.
It's just plain, old propaganda.

I suggest you take a look at VBS TV's travel guide of North Korea online. It's a very interesting look at North Korea from a 'tourist' perspective, and what they experience throughout their trip is constant propaganda about the evils of American and Western imperialism, the North's position as 'the last anti-imperialist force on the planet' and their absolute devotion to both communism and Kim Jong-Il. Hell, there's even a song about 'freeing the world from American capitalist oppression'. If anything, Homefront is borrowing directly from North Korea's propaganda claims as much as the United States'.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

You know I was reading through all these posts and felt like responding to some (whether about the plot or the theme of the game), but then I stoped and realized: "Wait, this is all just speculation. The game isn't out now and yet people are already making serious judgements about it. I'm just gonna wait until it comes out and I can judge it by itself, not its trailers and my experiences with games in general."

So yeah, can't wait for it to come out to see if its good. Hopefully it will be a fun game and will pull of the themes they're saying it will, but I'll have to wait and see. I can entirely see this as just being another mediocre game where everyone had too high expectations for it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

"Wait, this is all just speculation. The game isn't out now and yet people are already making serious judgements about it. I'm just gonna wait until it comes out and I can judge it by itself, not its trailers and my experiences with games in general."

That's a reasonable viewpoint. But...media frenzy is fun.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Of course non-Americans will like Homefront. The big bully United States taken down by North Korea? They'll be laughing at us all the way to the end credits.

Well let's just take a wild guess who the hero/winner will be at the end?
You can be assured it will be the typically Hollywood spin on it as an extremely pro-American game, because all non americans are clearly evil, and a big bad american hero will come to save the day, and freedom and democracy and McDonalds and baby seals and Justin Bever... maybe not him, but you get the idea.

 

[Kimarous]

I look at a game like this and all I can think is "Could they for ONCE take a gander at how turmoil in the US will affect international politics? Aren't European powers affected at all? What about China, who is heavily reliant on the country economically? What about their beloved "hat", friggin' Canada? Aren't they affected AT ALL?"

If they don't even show a glimpse of such, then fuck this game and fuck the developers!

 

[nuba km]

I always thought with the plot of America getting conquered that Americans wouldn't like not Europeans(me included) and other places.

 

[HK_01]

I look at a game like this and all I can think is "Could they for ONCE take a gander at how turmoil in the US will affect international politics? Aren't European powers affected at all? What about China, who is heavily reliant on the country economically? What about their beloved "hat", friggin' Canada? Aren't they affected AT ALL?"

If they don't even show a glimpse of such, then fuck this game and fuck the developers!

No they won't do that, because if the other powers would be mentioned, that would create even more problems for the story, because they'd have to explain why the European powers, Canada, Australia, etc don't help the US and why Russia and China don't take out NK. There's no reasonable explanation for this, apart from some paranoid bullshit like "everybody turned EVIL and now HATES the US and China and Russia were EVIL from the start and support NK going batshit insane. The whole stationing more troops on the North Korean border thing Russia did when tensions rose between North Korea and South Korea was really just a joke, they're secretly the best of friends and Russia and China don't care about losing their dominant status in the area to NK." So they'd have to admit that the US is not the last bastion of hope for the whole world, which is of course unthinkable.

 

[Lord Kloo]

I do! I'm probably gunna get this game anyway. But the premise IS pretty retarded.

The Half-Life series is about a mute, bespectacled genius with a legendary crowbar that's more epic than... Anything ever, and it follows his time travelin' adventures and alien slaying, and yet it's one of the best FPS series around.

Bad/"retarded" plots do not make a bad game.

Exactly my point^
But the plot for Half Life is still WAY more plausible than Homefront >)
No problem with the game itself, just the writing.

Alien invasion is more plausible than, what is technically, an Asian invasion of the West coast.. I can see what you're getting at but the overall scenario is quite realistic, sure in real life America and its invincible marines will always win but hey, it makes for an original game.. partially original..

 

[Danny Ocean]

Learn to read, dude. He's not saying that people in Chechnya or Afghanistan will sympathize with the poor americans. He's saying that the idea of wanting to defend your family and the place you sleep at night is pretty universal, no matter if you're American, Mexican, Afghan, or whatever.

You just contradicted yourself.

WHAT IS HARD ABOUT THIS?

THERE IS NOTHING HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT YOUR EXCUSE.

We get it. It's made in the USA, so it's bound to be pro-US. That's a very simple excuse.

The problem is that it is just that: an excuse. This kind of story is exactly the kind of biased, 'safe', Americanised stuff the rest of the world has come to expect. Honestly, this kind of far-fetched framing is starting to read more and more like propaganda. There are books and films and more showing the West and the USA in a negative light. Why no games? It's not like there's not enough material of that vein to make one.

Artists push the boundaries and try to reflect the world through various auspices. This doesn't do that. It doesn't challenge anything. This is just a self-affirming 'feel good' story designed to please US audiences, and maybe Western ones as a whole at most. That's fine. It's okay to make some stuff like this sometimes- to indulge in some patriotic fervour. It just grates when they try to paint it as something it isn't.

I would love a game that portrayed the Western influence on the world in a negative, but not unreasonable light, and I'm from the UK. I'm so sick of this self-affirming bullshit that permeates Western, especially US, media. It's something I think a US citizen will find very hard to really understand unless they go native abroad for a while.

Care to explain how you're seeing propaganda in this and not, say, in Modern Warfare, Halo or pretty much any other game ever released?

That doesn't remove the fact that this game is loaded with it.

 

[Nikolaz72]

but the creative director of the game thinks that its themes and values are universal.

It really would have helped if you'd picked a slightly less controversial and slightly more believable scenario. Like Episode 3 coming out on time.

After playing the game, I actually really don't have a problem with the scenario. They present it well, and as he says in the piece, it's completely speculative fiction.

And I'm becoming increasingly convinced that people don't actually read our news posts beyond the headline and the teaser.

What about marking the whole thing a headline then .

 

[The Cheezy One]

I'm liking the idea of a homefront London, which THQ and Kaos are already looking at [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/252765/news/homefront-london-planned-by-thq/]!
That is more universal than a game about occupied America. Although, I have to admit, Freedom Fighters was the best game ever in this regard. One thing it got right was that
Guerilla combat should be low-key.
HomeFront seems to kick that in the nuts straight off, with the equivelant of dog from HL2 with a missile launcher on its back.
Although the premise makes more sense than FF, which fell into "Because Russia didn't like the US", and far more sense than Turning Points story, which was "Because Britain fell, Germany turned into a massive steam punk entity".
Another thing - in BLOPs, Steiner says that Nova 6 (spoiler) was first going to be used on Washington DC, then Moscow. Really? Because at that point, Russia was basically at Berlin, and Britain was a far bigger threat to Germany than America, who were mostly concerned with the Pacific front, which at this point they were holding almost single handed. I think the actual order would be Moscow, London, Washington DC. (Prepares for flaming)
*Sigh* Anyway, this is all speculation about something that never really happened
Will get HF, and hopefully it will be good

Spoiler: snip

Learn to read, dude. He's not saying that people in Chechnya or Afghanistan will sympathize with the poor americans. He's saying that the idea of wanting to defend your family and the place you sleep at night is pretty universal, no matter if you're American, Mexican, Afghan, or whatever.

You just contradicted yourself.

WHAT IS HARD ABOUT THIS?

THERE IS NOTHING HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT YOUR EXCUSE.

We get it. It's made in the USA, so it's bound to be pro-US. That's a very simple excuse.

The problem is that it is just that: an excuse. This kind of story is exactly the kind of biased, 'safe', Americanised stuff the rest of the world has come to expect. Honestly, this kind of far-fetched framing is starting to read more and more like propaganda. There are books and films and more showing the West and the USA in a negative light. Why no games? It's not like there's not enough material of that vein to make one.

Artists push the boundaries and try to reflect the world through various auspices. This doesn't do that. It doesn't challenge anything. This is just a self-affirming 'feel good' story designed to please US audiences, and maybe Western ones as a whole at most. That's fine. It's okay to make some stuff like this sometimes- to indulge in some patriotic fervour. It just grates when they try to paint it as something it isn't.

I would love a game that portrayed the Western influence on the world in a negative, but not unreasonable light, and I'm from the UK. I'm so sick of this self-affirming bullshit that permeates Western, especially US, media. It's something I think a US citizen will find very hard to really understand unless they go native abroad for a while.

Care to explain how you're seeing propaganda in this and not, say, in Modern Warfare, Halo or pretty much any other game ever released?

That doesn't remove the fact that this game is loaded with it.

This is the reason I mostly go for Eastern European/Russian games, although they don't portray the West in a negetive light (making the whole "West hates East" seem more like bullying than rivalry), they have far more interesting gameplay themes and styles (STALKER, Cryostasis, etc.), and very rarely build the west into it. It makes what Yahtz said about fan-fiction in his BlOPs review seem even more true.
Also - UK high five!

 

[Kenko]

Why are occupations only bad when they happen to us? I wonder if the Iraqis and Afghanis feel the way this game is supposed to make us feel.

Ah, but they were liberated, not conquered big difference. If they had been conquered, the wouldn't have put Taliban supporters back in charge in Afghanistan, and not passed laws so that men can starve their wives to death if they resist being raped.

The US isnt "Liberating" them. Its occupying them. Big difference.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Oh I would be able to enjoy a game about guerilla warfare against an occupier, that's not my problem with this one. It's the mind-numbingly idiotic premise. North Korea conquering Asia and the United States? Why not make it about Hawaii taking over the world? Or Rhode Island? Or Bornholm?

Furthermore, picking the superpower that has been invading, nuking and carpetbombing the rest of the world for 70 years now is also a bad idea. There hasn't been many of those, so the analogy is extreme here, but imagine a simelar setting in defeated Nazi Germany where you lead a heroic resistance fight against the foreign occupiers.

I know the US has nothing on the Nazis but the "POOR HELPLESS GOLIATH HAS BEEN BEATEN, FEEL SORRY FOR HIM" image is the bit I'm focused on.

Finally the premise isn't original, we already saw this exact same thing in CoDMW2 with the Russians invading (despite just having gone through 30 years of economic crisis and then a massive civil war), pitting a shattered, impoverished nation of 100 million versus a well armed, wealthy one of 300 million, and trying to paint the latter as the underdog. For anyone who knows anything about the world, the image is just a crass and idiotic attempt at more innocent nationalism than what the US has displayed lately.

If you wanted a realistic setting you could just have set it so that North Korea invaded South Korea, and you follow a protagonist in the resistance in the South. You could even have a realistic plot point about the North getting on China's tits afterwards, the Chinese withdrawing support and the ensueing famine and massive civil unrest allowing for a satisfying conclusion.

But nope, "We saw the invasion bit of MW2 and thought we should keep going on about that"