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No excuse not to buy at $5.98

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: February 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After watching Patrick Swayze and his bad-80s-movie crew in "Red Dawn", I was inspired and launched on an all-night rondo of commie-killing mayhem.

The squad-based commend system is innovative, easy to use, and really makes a difference. The only thing is, it seems a bit inconsistent. There are times when your squad will take out every last bleeping red-hatted invader in sight, leaving you with a cake-walk. Other times, he's toast with a big red cross saying "Help Me! I'm gunned down and I can't get up!" But that's neither here nor there.

There's not a great deal of replayability, since your enemies always appear at the same place, with the same armaments, and spawning points are limited. Though since there are usually four or five ways to tackle a given tactical situation, that does help.

Hours of fun, but not days, weeks or months. Still, a good game.

Overall, 9 out of 10

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Very good gameplay, realistic recovery time for powers etc., good balance between various types of attacks.
(I have only played campaign mode.)
Several possible improvements:
1. Let us finish the game! There is no final score scene and no opportunity to train those who levelled up during the final adventure. Even if there is no further adventure considered at this time, there is satisfaction in completing a character's abilities.
2. Allow deletion of weaknesses or gains in stats, but particularly the former. It makes sense over time in training that a weakness might be minimized or eliminated, and that can be as good as gaining a new power.
3. The option to start with custom characters with a certain prestige limit rather than Minute Man. This would make replay much more fun, even though some levels still require some characters (i.e. Alchemis to close any portals).

I look forward to an expansion pack or a second edition that will give greater game time and user-created campaign or scenarios.

Flashy, stylish (and campy) fun!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I must hand it to them. The folks at Irrational Games designed one hell of a game.

The setting, the story, the comic-book style graphics, the retro-music... all components were matched perfectly into a game that would make Batman (of the 60's) proud.

In a few sentences, the game involves you commanding a squad of superheroes through missions that involve any sinister and evil plot that would/could/should have been drawn in the comics of the 60's.

The emphasis is not on the usual gimmick of breathtaking graphics (although Irrational Games sure did a good job at it) but on the style of the whole thing. Everything in this game proves to me, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the designers were indeed hardcore comic freaks! During fights, the ubiquitous BOOM, POW, BLAM, ... often appear at the point of impact. Cutscenes are drawn with simplistic, stylish and thick-lined designs. Voice-overs range from the intentionally overly acted heroic tenor Minute Man to the overdone dramatic narrator to the mysterious platonic voice of Mentor. The music is reminiscent of the 60's science-fiction themes, with a dash of modern melodies. Even the text throughout the game interface and menus are in typical hand drawn comic fonts.

Fortunately, the game itself lives up to the style. The interface is quite simple, with a handy tutorial to help you out throughout the game. Just point and click to order your heroes to move or attack, and right-click to get more actions or increase/decrease the strength of your special powers. Simple enough. You can say that this is a game where you can immediately jump-in without reading the manual. Commanding squads of superheroes would be hectic if it were not for the pause button. When paused, you can still issue order. This makes managing several guys/gals around the map much more easier... well... almost. Unfortunately, there are not enough visual/audio cues to warn you that an off-screen hero is being attacked. You must therefore monitor all your heroes closely, especially when they must be spread out across the map. The missions themselves have primary and secondary objectives. But unless you are in a big rush, you would usually try and retry a mission to accomplish all of the objectives.

A big bonus is the Character Generator engine, which allows you to customize a hero, complete with strength and weaknesses, great power(s) and Achilles' heal(s). Although you initially cannot draw your heroes as you would like them to be, a short surf on the web should yield to you all the tools you need to create your heroes as cool, flashy (or scantily-clad) as you wish them to be. You may spend as much time creating the heroes as you would play the game. Careful not to make your heroes TOO powerful, as their resulting fees may be too high for you to actually hire them on missions.

A small note about the save games. Yes, they are unfortunately sorted in alphabetical order! Which means you may lose track of which save file was before/after another save file. I strongly recommend you INDEX them, starting the name with a "01 - title 1"; "02 - title 2". Increment the index as you play along, and you should be fine.

So what are you waiting for? The forces of evil lurk in all shadows of the great Patriot City. What fiendish plot is hatched by the mysterious beings behind the powerful Energy X canisters? Is Mentor all what he appears to be? Can the Freedom Force stop their Machiavellian plan to rule the universe? Only now can these nail-biting questions be answered, fellow viewers! Only by successfully completing the missions of Freedom Force can you unlock the mystery...

NOTE: I personally believe that the "TEEN" rating is somewhat exaggerated, as you NEVER kill anybody in this game. You just knock them out cold. It's just as violent as the original Batman of the 60's. If THAT was too violent for you, well ...

Fooooorr Freedddddooooom!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

at first you might think this game is nerdy or stupid but after a few hours of gameplay you'll realize this is a great game if you're just getting into the vibe of rpgs. Its totally interactive and all the characters have they're own unique storyline and history ( you can make your own heroes but they always [stink]) there are a ton of original vilains, but they all remoind you of one of the old marvel villains. the game took me a day to beat but it is great for people who think baldurs gate and diablo is too hard. yay. go buy it.

POW! ZAP! KABOOM! Super Hero's!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Great game, and very reasonable. Be warned though, the campaign is very short. Afterwards I got online and tried to play some multiplayer games. Everyone had at least 30,000 prestige hero's and the online matches only last about 5 minutes. Can't wait for the sequels.

Solid action. Nice graphics. Lacking mission variety.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've played IO's other fare - Hitman and its sequel - and anticipated this game to be up to par. The graphics and action certainly are, and are a nice departure from the "sneak" action of Hitman; the story is very similiar to the 80's movie "Red Dawn," and given a 21st century facelift.

The action is solid; there are never any shortage of enemies to shoot at... despite a visible lack of variety among enemy types. The lack of blood put this game in the ERSB's "T for Teen" rating catagory....

The only large drawback to the game is the real lack of mission variety; the missions mostly follow a similar pattern, and have a similar sequence of goals, throughout the chapters of the game.

This game can be completed within a day, if you catch on to which objectives you have to do, in which order, in order to make your progress easier. The storyline and in-game cutscenes are quite nicely done, though.... and do make for an interesting story.

Overall, I gave it a four out of five.

Worth Fighting For. . .

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

"Freedom Fighters" is easily one of the best 3rd person action games to come around in a long time, and though it has a few flaws that keep it from achieving a classic status, it's innovative and visceral, and well worth purchasing.

The game plays upon old Cold War fears by creating a scenario in which the Soviet Union successfully invades the United States. You, the player, are a plumber turned resistance fighter who gradually becomes one of the rebellion's leaders as the game progresses. It's worth noting that the events in the game span a period of several months, and the game's main character gradually becomes more and more grizzled even as the seasons change from late summer into deep winter. The feeling of fighting a long, hard fight is well conveyed. Even so, the game's storyline is pretty weak. The game's few twists are easily predicted, and the transition from plumber to freedom fighter is more than a little implausible. Still, it all does the trick of setting up the action quite efficiently.

If you've played the developers' previous title, "Hitman 2" (a likewise splendid game), then you have some idea how the game plays, minus that game's element of stealth. "Freedom Fighters" uses the same engine, point of fact, and the same physics apply, but the missions are less diverse and more action-oriented. The biggest change, though, is the lead character's ability to lead other freedom fighters into battle. What bullet time was to "Max Payne," this element is to "Freedom Fighters." It's every bit as innovative and cool as the aforementioned, and as the game progresses you will genuinely feel like a squad leader moving your troops into battle.

Gameplay in "Freedom Fighters" is so wonderfully addictive that it certainly contributes to the game's greatest flaw - and that flaw is its length. Just when you're having the most fun, the game is over. Still, winning the game enables you to go back through all of its previous levels as you choose, which is quite useful. Even so, that doesn't make up for the brevity of the finished product.

Ultimately, though, "Freedom Fighters" is hugely entertaining, and so good that you won't be able to make yourself stop playing it. What more can I say?

Final Score: A-

This game ROCKS!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Sure, it could be longer, but this game doesn't herd you along like many a first-person shooter out there. The dearth of in-game saves actually makes for a better playing experience because it makes you more cautious, more like you would be in real life. You'll notice that the lead character's aim gets better as he becomes more entrenched in his freedom fighter role. Great graphics, great gameplay, great fun. Highly recommended. Right up there with Call of Duty.

One Excellent Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am a new and learning gamer and I bought this game cause I have heard great things about it but I had no idea that it would be this great I often times loose tract of time because of the excellent grafics and ability to recruit other people into your battle and another great thing about this game is that you can play it with other people via internet on gamespy.com I have a friend who is overseas fighting the good fight and we play this game together all of the time just so that he can get his mind off of what is really happening there cause it is a complete different world over their and he thinks that no one should have to live like that and this game brings him back in to the USA which makes him feel closer to home. So if I could say anything about this game is that it is well worth the 20bucks that you spend on it because you will have hours and hours of fun playing it and sniping people off with miscellaneous high powered weaponry.

Most underrated game I ever played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game truely surprised me. I played the demo of the xBox version, and did not like it all that much. Then I got this game as a present and ended up playing it, figuring I'd remove it an hour later. Boy was I in for a surprise! I pretty much played the whole game to the end in one weekend and just could not stop!

But first things first: This is a 3rd person shooter ('over the shoulder view'), which is a somewhat odd genre in a way. However, I found that this works very well in this game. You are the leader of a small group of fighters. (You gain the ability to lead more of them as your experience - called 'charisma' here - raises). What really surprised me is that this is the first game where the whole team-based concept really works, because the AI controlled team members are actually helpful, yet still leave the player with enough to do. There is some truely great AI work here.

Another aspect that is really well done is the play-balance. I felt challenged throughout the whole game, yet I did not die very often. This provided a great experience for me. I managed to live through the story as the hero, and was able to do some awesome things. Sometimes I could barely make it out alive (especially since I paid close attention to getting all my people out as well), yet I pulled it off and felt a great sense of accomplishment without the usual video game feeling of trying again and again. This is also the first game I ever played where I didn't encounter a single frustrating spot, and I also never felt that I died because the game was unfair. Yet the game was still not easy at all. (Note: I played on the second-highest difficulty setting.)

On the downside, the game is not very long. For an experience based game like this, I do not mind that (I wouldn't want a movie to last 2 months either), but some people may not be fond of that. It took me a weekend to play through this. In fact, I could have probably done it in a long day of playing. Of course, the same is true for many action games these days.

The only real criticism is the save-game system. One can only safe at certain points in the level. One can go back and save more up to date scenarios (so it is not as bad as a "you reached this point" save system), but this is not completely satisfying. A quick-save-anywhere system should be standard these days. Luckily, the excellent play balance makes this a minor issue and it doesn't ruin the entire game. So no biggie.

Personally, I got much more satisfaction and fun out of Freedom Fighters then I got out of Call of Duty (for instance). People may call this short. Others may not find enough depth in this game. I disagree however. To me, this is one of the greatest surprises in a long time! In fact, this may be the first game ever, where I actually am interested in replaying some of the levels...

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