Homefront is art, shouldn’t have a 71 Metacritic

THQ’s purposefully shocking Homefront got a pretty mixed reception; some gamers loved it’s harrowing – but short -  single player experience, other derided it for its unnecessary shock tactics. Many loved the multiplayer, others lambasted it for being a buggy, broken mess. Critically, it garnered a 71 average – which by my apparently flawed reckoning isn’t terrible.

THQ’s Danny Bilson isn’t happy with that score though. Why? Because Homefront is art, numbers are math – and “you can’t apply math to art”

“If it was universally panned, I would say ‘Yeah I guess it didn’t work’,” he said to IGN. “I think the idea of 50 reviews that are so radically spread says that we made a game that has a point of view and that you might even argue is controversial. When we set out, and I was sitting with Kaos in New York, I was saying ‘Guys, if we’re going to make a modern shooter of any kind, we have to compete with the best of the world.’ I remember in those meetings, the summary was: ‘We don’t expect to beat those guys; our mission is to be in the conversation.’

“And on being in the conversation: mission accomplished. Everybody’s talking about Homefront”.

“Do I prefer that it’s controversial? No, I’d prefer if everybody in the world loved it. But there are 20-plus reviews that are over 80, there are some haters, and there are some mid-range ones. Do I read them all to see what we can do better next time and have every review be 100? Of course, our goal is always that. What I will say pretty clearly is the game is not a ’71′. You can’t apply math to art.”

He obviously doesn’t know or understand the long relationship mathematics and art have, like the fabled golden ratio that’s been implemented in the design of the Pyramids, and the renaissance artists who incorporated mathematics in their paintings and sculptures; or how music – one of the fundamental art forms – basically is mathematics. But no. You can’t apply math to art. You also can’t just accept that your slightly above average game is just that – slightly above average.

Source : IGN

Last Updated: April 13, 2011