"This looks like a job for Freedom Force."

Freedom Force is a tactical superheroes game for the PC. It comes in a pretty, colorful box... On it, you can see some old superhero ''wannabes'' like the guy who looks like Captain America, or the athetic dude who may seem a bit like Spiderman. Well, buy it. It's worth your money! It's a bit like this... take a bit of beautiful graphics, have gameplay that is like Dungeon Siege or Baldur's Gate, and then add the cream on top - make the game based on the days where comics where the boy's favorite plaything... the days where Superman was ''cool'', etc. On top of that, there are some other features included in the game such as the Hero Editor!

Graphics (9/10): Beautiful. The character models are bright and detailed, and animate with a nice flow. All of the streets and buildings look like a 3d version of those that would be in the old comics. The special attacks also look beautiful themselves. When you hit an enemy, you can see ''CRACK!'' or ''SCHHRRK!'' popping out the blow, just like the old comics once again. Watch your enemies burn while your hero shoots a fireball right at their face. And then keep watching as THAT fireball exploded into 2 other fireballs that also explode in their face! Hahah!

Sound (9/10): Everything is good, from the voices of the heroes to the sounds of ice rays being shot out of Russian ice rifles... All of the voices very much fit their characters. You hear the gangsters (of course, the kinds that rob the 3rd National Bank) have that typical voice you'd hear from any other gangster you see in cartoons or comercials. The heroes also have great voices. Minute Man sounds like your typical main hero. The Ant almost sounds like Spiderman. Hey, is that guy playing the voice for Mentor the same guy who played Brain in Pinky & the Brain? The villains have great voices too. The Russian Nuclear Winter has just the voice that makes him sound both.. Russian.. and sinister. The great Timemaster has that very deep voice that you'd expect in any maniac trying to be king of the universe.. It all comes together in a neat pile.

Music (8.5/10): Music plays a big role in setting the mood in certain stages of a game. In Freedom Force, the music does just what I said - and with a vengeance. You can hear the overdramatic music playing while bashing the heads of villains. The main menu has a song that makes the Freedom Force sound like... legends (well, you'll understand once you hear it). Sometimes the music gets a little repetive. You'll hear some of the songs over and over, but that is just one of few parts in the game that bothers me.

Gameplay (9/10): If you have a good idea, you have to also make it a fun idea. Freedom Force is simple enough for a casual gamer to beat, but complex enough that real gamers will still enjoy playing through the game. There are 24 missions of bad-guy-bashing, including about 3 missions which help you get going. Once you're done with those few ''introduction'' missions, the game sets you off in a heroic crusade against evil. You can really see the effort put into this game. Every hero has a special animation about their secret identity; they're actually pretty cool, and look like they were pictures taken right out of a comic book. Unfortunately, they aren't very animated and the voice acting in those are pretty corny - too corny (although the game is SUPPOSED to be like a corny comic book from the '60s).

At first, you start with a single hero, who turns out to be very powerful in the beginning. There is almost no need for micromanagement or strategy during the first few stages in the game. It even seems more like an action game than a tactical game in the beginning. However, when you start to get groups of 4 characters, the battles start to get a bit more complex and you'll have to pause every so often to issue commands.

At the beginning of each mission, you'll get to choose from your roster (which eventually gets pretty large) to see who you want to use for the mission. All of the heroes have their own uses; for example, El Diablo is good for clearing out groups of enemies. But what if you're in a crowded area? What are you going to do about those pedestrians walking around? That's when you could use Alchemiss, a character set on inflicting bad status on enemies. All heroes have their weaknesses, too. El Diablo can't take anything that is cold, but he can scratch off any flames shot at him.

What happens after the battle? You go into a screen that shows ''prestige'' and ''experience points''. Heroes that were in the mission gain more than those who weren't; however, everybody gets experience from each mission. When you get enough experience, you level up, and get a set number of Character Points, which can be spent on activating special abilities or teaching your heroes new moves to use on the heads of evil. Prestige is used to recruit optional heroes and heroes that you make out of... the hero editor!!!

Probably one of the best features in Freedom Force is the hero editor. Freedom Force has a great system where you can take almost any model from the game (and some custom ones from the internet) and give it your own special moves. This is the interesting part. When you give them a move, there are some basic types such as Melee, Beam, Projectile, Active Defense, etc. You choose one of those to get how your move works. You can set the damage and the energy cost, plus several other things to change the move such as number of hits, whether or not the beam penetrates the target, or if the projectile homes in.. that's just a few things to name. But what does the move look like? You can change how the hero moves to use the attack, and you can change the graphics that shoot out from it! So you can have an icy beam, a ray of light, and bunch of other cool stuff... there are plenty of animations to choose. With that, you have a very flexible hero editor.

However, Freedom Force does gimp out in one section: multiplayer. It is a ''Deathmatch'' type of game where you have 30,000 prestige to make whatever team you want and battle it out with your friends online. It's decently fun, but since the Freedom Force community is actually pretty small, and the multiplayer is run on gamespy, multiplayer could have been better...

Difficulty (7/10): There are difficulty settings in the game. I beat it on medium and hard. From what I've seen, this game isn't very hard to beat, ESPECIALLY with the hero editor. You can make some very powerful heroes that don't have the weaknesses that the heroes from the game suffer from. However, I could see where it could be tough beating the game without your own heroes.

Replability (6/10): The redeeming factor here is the hero editor. When I beat the game, I couldn't have fun with this game anymore... Especially with the introduction stages.

Overall, Freedom Force is a nice game that is worth your forty bucks and the time to get there. Although the ride is pretty short with only 24 missions to play, the ride is a blast!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/02, Updated 07/05/02