Homefront

[Yu Ominae]

Official Site

So the world's getting it including Japan and Asia. Only except the former's having it censored to follow CERO rules while South Korea doesn't want the game in its soil.

I kind of remembered that someone posted an article about this with other games that were also censored like Mafia II, although this was done to follow their pornography laws.

[TJR]

The Japanese version is being censored for political reasons. They're afraid of referencing real names and countries while located so close to the entities in question (could rile up a neighbor especially when the relationship between them is tense).

[Yu Ominae]

Aye. Read up a lot of stuff on that. The only one who can be familiar are either Japanese gamers or those who are familiar with Japanese/Korean politics/national security.

[-Sho-]

NK turn.
So when a FPS game with US as bad guys ?

[Yu Ominae]

Doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

[synaesthetic]

I was hoping this was more of a US Government turned 1984-style Orwellian dystopia, and the game was about taking the country back from the totalitarian US government.

I am disappointed to hear it's just North Korea...

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by TJR

The Japanese version is being censored for political reasons. They're afraid of referencing real names and countries while located so close to the entities in question (could rile up a neighbor especially when the relationship between them is tense).

Which is pretty much an exercise in fig-leafery; I can see Japanese gamers making much fun of the censorship.

That aside, I've got to give Kaos kudos for putting some work into the backstory (if I recall correctly, the writer is the same chap responsible for Red Dawn). The competitive multiplayer looks like a fusion of Battlefront and their previous work (Frontlines: Fuel of War), with a couple of interesting quirks. The biggest of these quirks is that there is actually an in-game 'economy' - as you rack up XP in the course of a match, you earn an equal number of 'battle points', which can be invested in a variety of perks (for instance, you might unlock the ability to use a recon drone at level 2, but to actually summon it in a match, you'll have to invest 100BP). The other is the 'battle commander': each team has an AI 'observer' of sorts which effectively puts bounties on well-performing opposing players... note that this does not permanently designate the target (contrast: lead player in CoD's Sticks and Stones mode), but marks an area where the target was last seen.

One potential shortcoming is the apparent lack of cooperative modes; Horde/Firefight and BC2's Onslaught would translate well here.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Yu Ominae

Doubt it'll happen anytime soon.
<snip>

If anyone played this game called "Command and Conquer Renegade", it is probably the first and one of the best large scale warfare games. Heck it even incorporated the tank-sniper class for mere infantry to take on massed tank rushes.

Homefront just copied every single aspect from it with better graphics.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I was hoping this was more of a US Government turned 1984-style Orwellian dystopia, and the game was about taking the country back from the totalitarian US government.

I am disappointed to hear it's just North Korea...

They probably didn't want a conflict of interest where Americans would be fighting amongst themselves.

Oh wait, they have already been doing so. Even more when Palin popped out of nowhere. *sarcastic*

[MakubeX2]

Somewhere in time, somehow, North Korea just took over the Soviet Union's place as the generic bad guy.

But, deep down, we all know what all of us really want is to take jabs at China, but doesn't really have the balls to.

So, will somebody be the sacrificial lamb and take the politically correct first step ?

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

If anyone played this game called "Command and Conquer Renegade", it is probably the first and one of the best large scale warfare games. Heck it even incorporated the tank-sniper class for mere infantry to take on massed tank rushes.

Battlezone's 1998 reimagining - which in my opinion has been criminally neglected by Activision - would like to dispute the claim of 'first'.

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Somewhere in time, somehow, North Korea just took over the Soviet Union's place as the generic bad guy.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction might be a good reference, along with Crysis... Seriously, it's understandable that folks are a bit leery of the eccentric and not-readily-comprehensible - something the DPRK manages to be.

But, deep down, we all know what all of us really want is to take jabs at China, but doesn't really have the balls to.

So, will somebody be the sacrificial lamb and take the politically correct first step ?

The upcoming iteration of the Operation Flashpoint franchise would also like to say hi.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Somewhere in time, somehow, North Korea just took over the Soviet Union's place as the generic bad guy.

But, deep down, we all know what all of us really want is to take jabs at China, but doesn't really have the balls to.

So, will somebody be the sacrificial lamb and take the politically correct first step ?

Ooo someone's a little anti-China but they already are.

These days even in movies Chinese are being placed as the "bad guys" where usually it'd be "Russians"

In the Dark Knight the bad accountant guy was Chinese and we have another movie coming out where instead of North Korea it's China that has occupied the US.

While we're on that matter
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...Duty-Black-Ops
What all of us really want deep down inside.
Best quote from the video,
What about you China you got loads of people to spare you selfish bastards...to invade the United States

[Firefly00]

This was buried in the official forums (thread), but there is a soundtrack scheduled for release next week.

[MrTerrorist]

How about the remake of Red Dawn which features China as the bad guy which ironically is being funded by Chinese companies.

[SOGESNAKE]

Ya'll should pre-order this game for PC~

Spoiler for TF2 Item:

Though, it's old news~

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

How about the remake of Red Dawn which features China as the bad guy which ironically is being funded by Chinese companies.

Spoiler:

China will be Generous

However, looking over the notes, part of the reason why they picked North Korea was because of how China and the US are dependant upon each other in Economic terms so they'd figured aside from backlash it wouldn't be scary enough.

[Yu Ominae]

Spikie justified the censors as CERO ruled out the need to removed North Korean references to avoid offending them based on the tense situation between them.

Then again...

Spoiler for Stuff:

According to the Homefront wiki, there will be a Korean-American guerrilla fighter who experienced anti-GKR discrimination due to his heritage.

[Yu Ominae]

Here's the canon timeline used in Homefront.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Heh nice story but this only works so long as China is out of the picture and in this case China's not even mentioned anywhere.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Heh nice story but this only works so long as China is out of the picture and in this case China's not even mentioned anywhere.

Funny you should mention that... I ran across this IGN article which amplifies bits of the backstory (including 'why', which had for me been a persistent concern).

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Very interesting article but I doubt it's actually plausible.

First off, North Korea has nothing to offer to South Korea. If the two were to unite South Korea would be footing the entire bill for the two countries all the way and I'm pretty sure the South Koreas aren't that stupid. They know what happened with Germany's unification and there are still problems in that area up to now. Unless of course North Korea runs through some renovations to bring them up to speed beforehand.

Then you got China, they talk about North Korea annexing other neighbouring countries due to economic hardships and so forth. China is more than capable of doing that and is already expanding its sphere of influence to secure vital resources stretching all the way to Africa. This is one of the main reasons why China is focusing on bringing it's navy up to speed as well as adding Carriers.

I mean China would be the biggest obstacle to North Korea and would be seen as a threat firsthand and would have everything in place to do what North Korea would be "doing" in its rise to power.

But meh, it's a "What if" scenario and it could be plausable.