THQ: Homefront Is Not a 71
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Exactly. But when industry vernacular is built around deceiving a public that you believe is stupid enough to not notice, we end up with 7 or 7.5 meaning mediocre. IT'S MEANINGLESS. It isn't meant to mean anything. It's only meant to APPEAR high so idiots will empty their wallets. Personally, I'd rather play Crysis or Battlefield 3 than this game any day, and I only own a Wii!pandasaw said:
I'd say the gameplay itself, raw and without context, is a solid and uninspired 70. The frankly ridiculous amount of worldbuilding they did to support such a mediocre platform is truly astonishing, and for that I give them another 5 to 10 points depending on how generous I'm feeling.
They sold very well, and to say, like some posters seem to intimate, that any modern shooter would sell a million copies is just not being honest. I'm pretty sure their prior effort, Frontlines, didn't do as well, while getting around the same metascore.
They sold very well, and to say, like some posters seem to intimate, that any modern shooter would sell a million copies is just not being honest. I'm pretty sure their prior effort, Frontlines, didn't do as well, while getting around the same metascore.
So wait, are we happy that a game with a 71 sold well or are we upset? I can never tell because it's like 'Stop buying bad games. You know, send the industry a message, bro.' but then it's like, 'Dude, only triple A's sell well enough now. It sucks now, man. How can the industry survive like that?'
Well, it could've... I mean it maybe have.... Ah screw it, the single player campaign makes Call Of Duty Black Ops make perfect sense! But hey, it's better than... uhh... I'll be get back to you on that!
It's hilarious, because you're dismissing his opinion of other peoples opinion, which by your own logic, makes you...BoredDragon said:
a tool[/quote]
Seriously, it does!
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Homefront apparently sucked and it seems like I wasn't mistaken :L Damage control? Most definitely.
This game didn't even deserve a 71.
My thoughts exactly. We must have telepathy...rolandoftheeld said:
"You can't apply math to art."
So...there's something wrong with gathering a consensus? That's all that's been done. Sure, the 71 should be taken with a grain of salt, it's not and end-all be-all. However, it has its value.
So...there's something wrong with gathering a consensus? That's all that's been done. Sure, the 71 should be taken with a grain of salt, it's not and end-all be-all. However, it has its value.
Pretty much everything I have heard about Homefront since the game was first announced has convinced me that THQ and this VP in particular are a bunch of arrogant, pretentious hacks, and this pretty much confirms it. If it wasn't enough for them to repeatedly yell at us that Homefront was serious and moving, while at the same time touting the fact that they had the writer of Red Dawn involved, then there was their awful marketing campaign which officially puts them up there with Zygna in the list of 'Games companies who have been fined by San Francisco for an advertising campaign'. Then there was the way how when word leaked that the single player was five hours long, they claimed they were never interested in singleplayer anyway and the game was supposed to go head to head with Call of Duty. Finally, we see in action the biggest cop-out statement of all time, the 'you can't criticise my work because it's ART' line; also recently dropped by Baz Luhrmann in relation to Australia: "You can't criticise it because it's an epic in the same league as Gone With the Wind."
And yet, at the end of the year, this guy will probably be taking home a bonus. We live in the age where marketing is more valued than true quality, as EA are regularly quick to demonstrate...
And yet, at the end of the year, this guy will probably be taking home a bonus. We live in the age where marketing is more valued than true quality, as EA are regularly quick to demonstrate...
When I heard the premise of this game while it was still in development I was curious whether they were going to have the story be reflected in the gameplay: ie setting up explosives and largely work with guerrilla tactics like an actual conquered people would be doing -- when some actual gameplay was put up, it took all of two seconds to see it was a Call of Duty game with different cutscenes. You know, the model where there is a long obstacle course that you have to go along killing everyone in sight till you get to the other side? That makes sense at least for some games; it makes sense it Halo where you are an unstoppable high-tech warrior or in Splinter Cell Conviction when you are the best of the best. But it doesn't even fit well with Modern Warfare 2 -- it's incredibly difficult to consider the Russians a serious threat when you've single-handedly killed about 300 of them by the end of the first mission. It's even more incongruous when you're supposed to be an outmatched rebel...
Because reviews are top heavy. By the numbers an average game would be scored at a 50 and most games would be in that range. Right now a score in the 70s is where a 50 would be.Onyx Oblivion said:
As much as people want to claim that a numerical scoring system doesn't work for games, I think it works fine honestly. The problem I think is that game companies that are concerned about advertising want something they can easily control. Reviews, and the scoring system, especially those from users like the non-professional section of Metacritic are something that they can't control.
In short, a company that invests 20 million dollars in a product they know is a turd, still wants to make a profit on that, or at least recoup as much of that investment back as possible. Honesty isn't a factor, it's about the money, they want their turd to be known as the best thing since sliced bread at least on paper. As the gaming industry becomes increasingly corperate and growth obsessed, where simply making a profit isn't enough (they need *monster* profits) and even the occasional failure isn't an option, any variable that can't fully be controlled is seen as a problem.
Honestly, I think a "71" is bloody generous, even under the current top heavy rating system. I say this because Homefront isn't really anything special when you look at it. In general it has some really, really horrible "possible future" writing that is designed to be contreversial more than anything, and very typical shooter mechanics which have been done better by numerous other games. It is by definition a very average product compared to what is out there, and probably fairly below average due to ridiculous writing.
There aren't many objective standards by which one can claim that this product is anything special or exceptional.
However, also understand that despite being "only" 35 years old I've been around games long enough where to be entirely objective I think there are games produced now that are lightyears behind the gameplay and innovation of things that were created decades ago. On a lot of levels the only thing that has substantially progressed is the quality of graphics and sound, gameplay wise we have people trying to claim that interactive movies like "Heavy Rain" are somehow new and revolutionary, when we were there in the 1990s when CD roms were brandy new for example.
I'm not a big shooter fanboy, but let's say that something like "Call Of Duty: Black Ops" and "Halo: Reach" set the current standards in terms of mechanics and writing. Irregardless of what any specific person might think of these games, they are among the best selling games of all times and have tons of adherants. The writing for Halo, love it or hate it, has spawned novels, comics, and all kinds of tie in products that have been going on for a long time now.
Take "Homefront" and plop it down next to those titans, is it on the same level? Well I'm sure THQ wants you to think so, but really it falls far short. The writing for Homefront for example tends to elicit more "WTF" responses, and discussions about how it's a ridiculous situation, or inflammatory, or anti-American or whatever, than "wow, what an amazing and thought provoking piece of fiction" with people's minds wandering there for escapism at odd moments and just dying to have all the little details rounded out.
In fact I believe there are enough steps between the current "champs" and Homefront, that as I said, it really deserves a very mediocre rating. No offense to people that love it.
I wonder how much of Homefront's remarkable sales were based on morbid curiosity. I know that's half of what's making me consider getting it shortly (the other half is that the multiplayer apparently does indeed live up to its Battlefield inspiration).
I give reviews credence, I just don't have a high opinion of a number being slapped at the end of it.Thunderhorse31 said:So wait, you don't give Metacritic (a collection of reviews) consideration, but you do give it to a few random reviews? Reviews that are most likely also on Metacritic?
HA! Good catch.Thunderhorse31 said: