"Heartland should do for the PSP what Halo did for the Xbox"

[wraggster]

via pspfanboy

In a revealing chat with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, opinionated God of War and Calling All Cars developer David Jaffe spoke about his ambitious (but canceled) PSP game, Heartland. He revealed the political motivations behind the title, and why the game might have been too ambitious for its own good:

"The game was very much a liberal person's response to the Bush administration and the war in Iraq ... [have players] feel what it must be like to have their own homeland occupied by another country. SCEA and I went back and forth over if we would ever say it was CHINA vs. AMERICA as they were a bit worried about being so literal ... As for Phil, his biggest issue was thinking a game so epic should be on PS3. But I was always pushing for PSP, saying that Heartland should do for the PSP what Halo did for the Xbox."

Ultimately, Sony didn't provide the support that Jaffe needed to complete the game. Instead, Sony pulled resources from the title to place into the PS3 title, WarHawk: "If the team would have been the right size, we would still be in production with Heartland today. That was the main reason we killed it, not enough folks to make the game ... the main issue that made it clear that we could not continue was that WarHawk kept taking our team members as they were further along in production and were the top priority."

Sony's admitted to focusing too much on PS3 at the cost of PSP development, and they've promised to change. With WarHawk nearing completion, could Heartland make a comeback?

[Shiesty]

no shooting game could do what halo did for the psp for one simple reason-no ****ing 2nd analog nub/stick

[b8a]

It's just a ill-concieved idea for a game period. Personally, I thank Sony for failing to support it. If this Jaffe guy wanted to make a movie, then there might be something compelling to it, but it's deffinitely far too preachy to make for an entertaining game.

I really do wish game makers would quite trying to pawn cinematic movie concepts off as games. Game makers have proven themselves to be poor movie makers, and their poor movies make for simply awful games.

[Cokemusic]

It's incredibly stupid to set Halo as the standard especialy since it's the first "heartland" game for the psp.

if they don't reach Halo's standard and make even a decent game it'll reflect badly on them.

[Buddy4point0]

yea if it doesnt have a second analog stick it might be hard. though u can map the x,o,tri,squre pad and the analog stick.
then use the d pad for thinggs like reload, melee etc, sholder buttons for shoot and jump

[Basil Zero]

I think he meant by how hyped up Halo is , and how popular it is, not by comparing the two games exactly.

[Broadus]

That game would've been so awesome, but it's hard to comprehend how the PSP could handle such a super-kickass game.
If illegal downloading of PSP games wasn't such a huge problem, PSP games would be a lot better and would have a lot more work on them.
It's a wonder they don't just think of clever ways to make specific PSP games download-proof, like have them crash if they try to load faster than usual (since ISOs load faster than UMDs).

[Cokemusic]

That game would've been so awesome, but it's hard to comprehend how the PSP could handle such a super-kickass game.
If illegal downloading of PSP games wasn't such a huge problem, PSP games would be a lot better and would have a lot more work on them.
It's a wonder they don't just think of clever ways to make specific PSP games download-proof, like have them crash if they try to load faster than usual (since ISOs load faster than UMDs).

Limiting games loading ability, on purpose ??

lmao

[BladeofTheImmortal]

I hope it comes back, almost anything Jaffe has been a part of is good, although he is supposedly a $#@! during the creative process.

[cloud_952]

To be honest, that game sounds really, really lame. If the guy wants to get on a soap box and complain about politics, go ahead. But to waste all that money and dev a game that's gonna suck just to make a game about your political views.. seriously, that's just a waste of time. ^_^;

It really doesn't sound like anything fun, but I guess that could just be me.