Freedom Fighters

"You can't expect the Soviets to turn back and say, "Astalavista baby!""

Introduction

EA is not exactly the brightest company around when it comes to shooter games, but this game, Freedom Fighters, has been pulled off with such fantastic action and gameplay, that it can easily be said one of the best THIRD PERSON shooters EVER. Onto the review we go!

Story: 8/10

The story takes place after the Cold War between the U.S and the Soviets. The Soviets were successful in creating the Hydrogen Bomb, snatching themselves a victory against what, in the real world, is known as the most powerful country, the U.S. Soviets have already invade the Europe and large portion of Middle East, and U.S is one of the few countries under less influence by the Soviets. Portions of the U.S citizens and police officers gather and form a Rebel army but have not been too successful in slapping Soviets across their faces, until you, assuming the roll of Chris Stone, an average plumber and soon to be a heroic strategist-in-action, get involved in this whole liberation thing.

Pretty good storyline, think of it as one of "What if U.S wasn't the strongest country?" sort of thing.

Gameplay: 9/10

My god, this game is just AMAZING in this field. This is going to be long, so you may want to go get yourself a cup of tea or coffee.

This is a third person shooter as I said in the introduction, and this is what makes the game playable. In this game, you are able to bring some Rebel soldiers to the bloody and decisive battlefield. At first, your are only able to recruit up to 2 soldiers, but as you, throughout the game, do good deeds such as freeing captives from the mighty control of Soviets, healing the wounded and blowing Soviet properties sky high (Uh...okay, just blowing them up)! When you gain 100 Charisma points, you go up a charisma level, which enables you to recruit an additional soldier. A hundred point may seem a lot, but each charismatic action usually gives you 20-25 points, and the map (which is very easy to navigate and ALWAYS gets you out of "sticky" situations) tells you where the chances to proceed with the deeds are located at. You can recruit up to 12 VERY skilled Rebel soldiers.

You may be asking a question about the smartness of your companions by now. Fear not; they are SKILLED, SMART, and very SUPPORTIVE (Heh). They know how to aim and kill, they know how to take a cover, and find a good one too, and they know how to lay down a covering fire on the Soviets and clean the way for you. They can even use Nested Machine guns, and some of them even bring out can of whoop butt quotes like "Hell yeah!!". Also, you can control their actions and use them at disposal (although you don't really want to), which is either attack/scout, defend, or simply follow. Attack/scout basically tells them to go to a specific spot and be on alert, or attack a specific enemy. Defend tells them to hold their positions and kill any enemies in sight. Finally, follow tells them to...follow and cover you. Each of them are done by tapping of one single button, and if you hold the button, you give the order to the whole squad. It's up to your strategies to make good use of them. Remember the 3 S's; Skilled, Smart, and Supportive!

Controls are just as simple as commanding your squad. If you have been playing FPS all your life, you'll find the DEFAULT control scheme to be VERY awkward and uneasy to get used to. However, you can change the control scheme, to meet your specific style. The R button fires your weapon (where by the way, an auto aim is used), if you are targeting an enemy far away, you can use the L button to zoom up and stuff never suspecting enemy with bullets, and so forth. Nothing to complain here.

You can only carry up to 2 heavy weapons, and 1 light pistol, with several medic kits, couple of explosives and a binocular. You will rarely have to worry about ammo's, as the Soviets will leave you tons of ammo's after you kill them. The only flaw is that there aren't many weapon types available. There are total of 12 weapons ranging from your trustworthy Monkey Wrench to tank busting Rocket Launchers. Although there are small selections, it's enough to meet whatever strategy you may have for the Soviets.

The missions themselves are familiar to the Medal of Honor series, where you have several different objectives in a single mission. Some will have to be done first in order to proceed with another (Like blowing up helicopters to prevent them from killing you in 2 seconds after trying to get to a specific place). Some others are optional, like freeing captives, but you will want to accomplish them if you are to survive in the later missions. Also, one mission is usually divided to different sections, which you can do in any order you like. If you think you can't make it, you can locate a sewer and go back to the Rebel base (Yeah, they use the sewer system as their base) to save, reload and heal (which are also located in your royal(?) map. Types of missions can be an infiltration, a stealthy infiltration or an assassination (!), and each of them require you to use different types of strategies, because you can't just rush into the enemy fire and expect to survive, or expect no one to bust your butt cheeks with Assault Rifles in stealth missions (unless you have the difficulty to the easiest). Unfortunately there is no epically huge battles, but hey, what do you expect in a whole army vs. small rebellion situations?

And finally, there is a multi-player, but for GameCube, it kind of lacks a bit since it can't go online. That's not much of a problem in this game though, since each player can recruit an army (either Soviets or Rebel), so it's not all lonesome in one huge map. If you have 3 other friends, the battles may even turn epically huge battles!

Phew! That's it for the gameplay and don't worry, the rest won't be as long!

Graphics: 9/10

There is particularly nothing too distracting about the graphics, except that when people talk to you, they only look one specific way and talk. So if you are standing across from them, it will look like they are talking to their old imaginary friends or something. Other than that, no flaws. Movements are very realistic, and environmental effects make them even better. Explosions are especially superb, like when you blow up a helicopter, a small explosion occurs first, followed by a big one, and then the helicopter just gets torn apart and parts fly everywhere like darn meteor rites or something, and the main body is just on fire. Superb and realistic, so brilliant.

Sound: 9/10

I love this, I love the voice acting. Although there is less Russian language involved, the accents are perfectly executed and they sound like real Russians (they probably are <_<). Americans sound like Americans also, and different characters have different tones and the voice actors express feelings well. Sound effects are also nice, but the gun sounds aren't anything spectacular. The nice sound of explosions can cover it though. Excellent.

Re-playability: 7/10

The only thing I don't like about this game. This game is fairy short, and seasoned players can beat it in one night under easy difficulties. You could try all four difficulties and try to accomplish all the mission objectives, but there isn't anything more or any side story whatsoever. I just keep playing for the sake of listening to funny quotes and scenes, like the one I have as the tile for this review and the gameplay, in my opinion, never gets old. Multi-player also keeps me interested anyway.

Rent of Buy?

I advise you to rent it first, if you could beat the game within the time limit, great. If you find it addicting even if you do, go and buy one. If you have some friends who are willing to play with you, go buy one right now! This is a nice break from being a total James Bond.

Overall and final comment

8.5, rounded to 9/10: Great game, sometimes emotional, sometimes romantic, and sometimes even funny, it's a great choice for any die hard squad based, tactical third person shooter fans.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/05