Destructoid: In Which I Break Down Why Homefront's Plot Is Impossible

The plot is based around a unified Korea rapidly rising to become a new superpower in the Far East and invading the United States, and is written by the guy behind Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now -- John Millus.

[thorstein]

Me: In which I break down why no one should speak in absolutes.

[NewMonday]

The N.Korea thing alone turned me off this game, it's not sci-fi or fantasy, it's supposed to be close to reality fiction. Why didn’t they just make it China, who will be a big force worldwide after 20 years, even if the US doesn't decline?

[Tikicobra]

I watched an interview in which one of the developers said that the invading country didn't matter, and that it was more of "this could happen" situation, although not necessarily with Korea.

[zootang]

North Korea, lol. Iran or Israel would have been a lot more exciting and risky.

[ddurand1]

thats why video games arent real life.

i can tell youre serious though, which is unfortunate.

[yog-sothot]

"China, who will be a big force worldwide after 20 years"

Do you live in 1991 ? ^_^

China is already a "big force"

[NewMonday]

@yog-sothot
I mean big like the Soviet Union was and America is today, they are not big yet, and their army maybe big, but military industry and tech hasn’t caught up to Russia or even Brittan and Franc yet.

[TBM]

who cares from what ive played so far im enjoying it more than black ops story wise.

[KROBOS9393939]

how did you play it ?

[TBM]

at a friends house who has a modded system. he asked if i wanted to try it and i said sure i only played like the first hr or 2.

[Jack-Pyro]

Please tell your friend Pirates are scum of the earth, kthnksbye.

[TBM]

@jack

my friend doesn't care what others think so there's no point in telling him anything.

[M-Easy]

I'm pretty sure 99.5% of all video games plots are impossible.

[siyrobbo]

im pretty sure earthworm jim is based on true events

[M-Easy]

Well duh that's based on a true story, that's where the .5% comes in. I personally liked the book better, that autobiography really hit close to home

[Kon]

Resistance is a possibility.

[Jack-Pyro]

Uhhhhh, no, no it's not....

[thorstein]

What!?!! Noooooo!!!! Dead Space?! Mass Effect!?!! You take that back! Take it back!

(sobs uncontrollably) Take it back!

[Johandevries]

In which I break down how it is highly recommended to include Destructoid when taking out the trash

[joeorc]

I mean not all writer of review are aligned an they have their own opinion, but come on Nitpicking the story?

do people not play games to just to enjoy the game anymore, we see this enough in the movie critic's now we have gamer reviewer's doing the same thing..lol

example:

"I understand that I'm nit-picking at a plot for a first-person shooter, but if we're to argue that videogames are art, then that means the story needs to be held to higher standards than we previously had. If you're going to write a story with alternate history, make sure you do your research. You pick a divergence point from the world's timeline, and go from there in a relatively plausible manner."

that's the thing about alternate time line's they can be anything you want them to be!

ever watch slider's or DR. who?

anything can an indeed does happen!

[Biggest]

I agree with you, joeorc. But I will point out one thing that was said in the article. He made it a point to question his questioning of a FPS game's plot. I think this was more of a Killzone 3 defense (they gave it a high score) than anything. I agree that FPS plots are damn near retarded and should be taken with a grain of cocaine. I also agree that alternate time lines are meant to be whatever the hell you dream them to be. No one was crying about Resistance's alternate time line.

[joeorc]

100% agreement

No one was crying about Resistance's alternate time line.

exactly!

why would it matter if it does not adhere to what someone thinks it should be but what ,the creator made it that way, it was his choice, you may not like it but saying why you disagree with his take , when he created the plot is kinda pointless, it's his plot!

that's why i really just play the game to play it for the enjoyment. of playing it for the experience.

trying to draw out a logical expansion of a real life plot can slow the story down, maybe that's one of the reason's he did his story the way he did. I really don't question it because he's the story writer.

it's his story. now i may enjoy other's or i may enjoy his story more than other's that does not mean i did not enjoy his or their work.

it seem's too many want to be overy critical instead of just enjoying the game an play it. I know it's his job to be critical, but I think there need's no entertainment critic's at all anyway..lol I think everyone can make up their own mind what's fun an entertaining for themselves.

that's the way i feel about movie critic's also, i can decide for myself what i like i do not need a critic to tell me what "they" think is good or not.

[madjedi]

@biggest Here is the problem rfom history split takes place yrs 60 before the game begins, an "alien"virus mutates humans in to chimera.

The chimera are faster than humans can recover from mortal to human wounds, show very good adaptation to using new military techniques and manufactured technology that is far more advanced than what humans have created.

This why i and others have no problem with rfom timeline shift, nk taking out the us is beyond retarded, if the game has a basis in reality at least come up with reasonable story.

At least when red dawn was released the soviet union was still a potential threat to the usa, if they had picked a reasonable enemy like china 90% of the people wouldn't be complaining.

If you can get beyond the retarded plot, knock yourself out people, it's just to stupid to me.

A unified korea, yeah the north will have to do total regime change first.

[zoks310]

Who cares, it's a video game, there is all ready fictional warning that we are all aware of, we don't need any more explanations. I hate it when people just don't get the reason behind a sifi or fictional plot, be a book, movies, or game, we know it's impossible to have this happen.

[BlueRevolvuR]

Yea honestly. That's like saying one day, Locusts will pop up from the ground and enslave the human race.

[zoks310]

Omg! Really?

[BlueRevolvuR]

hmm... o.O

[RankFTW]

This story sound very unrealistic and over the top. Already paid for mine and can't wait to pick it up woot :).

[Tikicobra]

Remember when games' stories were along the lines of "you're over here, but you need to be over here" and no one complained? People used to enjoy games because they were fun. Now it's all about storyline and production values. That's necessary in some games, but it's not necessary to go nitpicking about how a game's plot is "impossible". It's a game, it is what it is.

[KROBOS9393939]

i disliked his nitpicking but i agreed with him on one thing story lines are essential in games they have to be good or people won't care about your game or bother finishing it

[Xander-RKoS]

Plausibility is something that helps the suspension of disbelief. When dealing with games set in high fantasy or so far into the future that we don't know what is what, we are less familiar with the rules of the universe but it still follows rules, otherwise those are called plot holes. The whole "North Korea unifies the Koreas" thing was already enough to make me go "and they let this happen?"

Sure, this game is fiction, and to most of us, it wouldn't mean anything, but to history, military, political buffs, this stuff would be irritating and make absolutely no sense, which would, infact, hurt the overall story.

It's also nice to learn something every now and then.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Nice to learn something? Well if you mean learn this authors opinion of how the future "should" pan out then sure...we just learned how this Destructoid Author thinks the world will be and act in the future.

But lets not forget... after World War 1 I am sure to a person nobody thought there would be a 2nd World War...and certainly not driven by the then defeated Germany. History is easy to look back upon, but it is much more difficult to predict the future regardless of history.

Hell, the author makes point of saying "But the American military withdrawing from the Korean peninsula? Nope! China is still a looming threat, not to mention that because of the increased instability of the Korean Peninsula, the US forces are going to stay there, guaranteed. I cannot think of a plausible reason why they'd leave." ....Try this for plausible, History...

"In December 1991, the US and Philipines were again in talks to extend the withdrawal of American forces for three years but this broke down as the United States refused to detail their withdrawal plans or to answer if nuclear weapons were kept on base. Finally on December 27, President Corazon Aquino, who had previously fought to delay the U.S. pullout to cushion the country's battered economy, issued a formal notice for the U.S. to leave by the end of 1992. Naval Station Subic Bay was the U.S.'s largest overseas defense facility after Clark Air Base was closed."

Why would the US possibly want to close its largest defense facility? Because we were told to.

Destructoid...sorry but I think its you that fails

[Biggest]

That didn't happen overnight, Dlacy13g. It took decades to close that base. And even with it closed, we're over there 100% of the time. I can promise you that there is not a moment where thousands of US Sailors and Marines are not in the Philipines. My point is that the situations are completely different from what you're trying to link. You are correct though. Anything can happen and it always does.

[Ducky]

Reality is often stranger than fiction.

If you were to make a story about terrorists somehow attacking the U.S. under their very nose, master-minded by someone dwelling in caves, and the US declaring war on the premise of WMDs that turn out to be fake while fighting another war and simulatenously trying to find a bearded waldo in another country... that'd be considered a far-fetched tale at the start of the millenium.

Ofcourse, the past decade is a bit more complex than what I just described, and I'm hoping the game fleshes out the background story further as there isn't too much detail on what exactly happens.

(Dlacy seems to be a much faster writer than me... looks like he got the point before me)

[Shinkus]

Just to throw this out there, if the plot of the story was completely plausible then wouldn't we be in a bit of a serious position in real life? If video game/movie writers were able to accurately depict how to takeover the United States (or at least make a good attempt at doing so) then wouldn't the ACTUAL leaders of foreign armies have figured these things out on their own, years ago?

[Xander-RKoS]

For realistic fiction, there needs to be some kind of stretch, that is the suspension of disbelief. However, in a case like this the author is arguing that a lot of the backstory just doesn't make any sense which hampers the storytelling experience, mainly in how things should have gone in reaction to something else.

[The Hillman]

Well from reading the article there's only one point which sounds infeasible and that's Texas breaking away from the US into a splinter state.

I doubt it the main storyline would ever occur as events would need to happen in a very particular way but the article just seemed to be penis waving to me.

Plus when the crux of your argument is based upon wikipedia articles I'd say you don't have much validity for your own stance.

Lets hope politicians don't create their foreign policy based off wikipedia articles eh!

[Grimhammer00]

I seem to recall...was it 2000? That the north & south almost unified?
Then they remembered they hate each other.

Look what's happening right now! China a year or so ago had an earthquake, and Japan....their hated rival (ww2...Japan invaded...)......now china is stepping up and helping Japan.
You'd never see this happen in the middle east where they live on their hatred of their neighbors.
(no...not all of them)

I was thinking how scary the world would get in 30yrs with a unified orient! Korea north and south would see the benefits of it.

History is full of moments that a direction of our timeline could have changed radically.

-if it wasn't foggy that fateful night the British would've caught George Washington and ended the US before it even got started!

[nnotdead]

2011: agree
2012: agree again
2013: Jong-un getting a Nobel wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
2014: the bankruptcy of GM means the US is in a double dip recession, and the economy is failing. currently there are talks of cutting military budget while a recovery is happening.
2015: the China bubble is a deep issue that i don't have time to get into. the US may not help the Saudis because 2014 seems to show the US is going through bad economic times, already having to cut military, and may not have the will to get involved in another war in the Middle East. Russia stops supplying Europe because of peak oil. they would want to use what they have for themselves.
2016: fully pulling out of Japan is a stretch, but if things became really bad in the US, and a libertarian mind set took root in washinton, a pull of all US militarily from foreign soil could be a possibility. Texas seceding is a little crazy. there are many groups that do support Texas seceding, and even some politicians who use that to get votes.
2017: US infrastructure is already pretty bad. if all this bad stuff does happen, the further collapse of US infrastructure would only seem logical. seems like the writer isn't too up on current events, and isn't looking at all that's going on with the US at this point in the time line. why attack a close ally in such bad times?
2018: US seems to be dealing with a lot issues at home, and is already resorting to some isolation by pulling troops from around the world.
2019: agree
2020: mostly agree.
2021: agree again. it would seem that Korea at this point would need some serious support from other country's to make this happen, and its unclear if this the case.
2022: agree
2023: with Japn and other country's taken over i would think 20 million able people would be at Korea's disposal to use if they are really pushing for military might.
2024: i can only guess America is still going through a very tough time, and may not want to start a war at this time. they already have shown the US wants to use isolation policy's.
2025: a lot of good points, but the reason the US may not retaliate with an ass load of nukes would be because whoever is in charge may not want to be responsible for ending all life as we know it. if we start launching nukes others will too. not an easy decision to make.
2026: already made the oil point, but we have to deal with the fact that they do have the oil otherwise he should have stopped writing after he first made this point.
2027: by this time we have to believe that with the flu, destroyed economy, civil unrest, and so on, that trying to implement a draft may just be a lost caused.

not saying any of this is remotely likely, but the writer for Destructoid also seems to be lacking in a lot of thought that he is using to bash this what if story. its not too hard to look at Bioshock's story, which in many people's mind has brought the best and most original story to gaming this gen, and use the same microscope to tear apart the story. instead most let it slide so they can enjoy the story being told, and the gameplay that was implemented.