Freedom Fighters

"Let's find some Reds!"

In America's darkest hour, New York is over run and Mario is getting a tan on some island he has to clean. While Mario is on vacation, Chris Stone has been left behind to be the new Italian plumbing hero of New York City, but instead of giant reptiles, this tough guy has to fight COMMUNISTS.....and a LOT of them to. Freedom Fighters has got to be the most intense shooting action game since Devil May Cry. Freedom Fighters is just one of the many great sleeper titles this year.....and to make it weird, it was made by Electronic Arts who is the KING of hyping their games.....stupid EA.

The story is REALLY cool....in an alternate universe, all of Europe has fallen into communism, including Britain. And now the Soviets have turned their eyes on America. They have invaded Manhattan and they have pissed off the wrong plumber by kidnapping his brother. Now you must find your brother and take back Manhattan from the commies.

The story is told very well through news broadcasts by the new Russian stations....and they are kinda funny as you see it through their propaganda.....and there are parts where you see it through the Freedom Fighters points of view as well. I was very surprised with the emotion and detail of the story considering this is just a quick action game made by EA.

The soundtrack is very cool and it has that awesome Russian tone of music to it which is very cool. Sound effects such as bullets are great, but the best thing to come out from the sound is the amazing voice acting. Again, I was very surprised since this is just a quick action game. I wasn't expecting great voice acting either, but I got it.

Graphically this game is nothing special, but there is one cool this that sticks out from others and that is the cool bullet effects. Dunno why, but I just LOVED the way the bullets flew.

Gameplay wise this game is amazing. It feels just like SOCOM, but the action is about 100 times that of SOCOM (no I'm not comparing them, I know SOCOM is a stealth game) Throughout the game you can pick up a slew of crazy weapons such as a pistol, revolver, assault rifle, shotgun, etc...the usual works, but you can only have two guns held at at time and one of them has to be a handgun. And I will say that it is a GOOD thing that we never got into open war with the Soviets because after playing this game, I realize that their skin in bulletproof for about 7 shots as that is how many it takes yo kill them. We Wouldn't have stood a chance.

The meat of the gameplay lies in commanding your troops into battle. The interface is VERY easy to learn and use. All you need to do is press square, triangle, or X and the current troop selected will do which ever you tell it to do. There is no way to select troops as it will just allow you to command the next in line. And to start off with, you get 2 characters and you need to raise your charisma to get more. Eventually you can get 12 characters. To raise charisma, you need to blow up enemy obstacles or rescue prisoners. Beating the missions also raises your charisma.

And as for beating missions, all that missions really are are blowing something up, rescuing prisoners, and shooting guys. To finish missions you must raise an American flag on the building you are trying to take. After your mission, you return to your rebel base where you can stock up on supplies, save, talk to your buddies and plan out your next attack on the Soviets.

Multiplayer is kinda fun, but I don't have anybody good to play it with. you run around capturing your bunkers and you recruit up to 8 fellow fighters and you play capture the flag and seek-and-destroy.

Some bad things in this game as well. The controls (camera angles and stuff) are a bit clunky. Shooting can get kind of annoying as well since the bullets NEVER hit where you aim them, but I guess it is supposed to be like that. Again, the graphics are subpar for now adays and the loading times are REALLY bad.

Freedom Fighters is just one of the many AMAZING sleeper titles that has been thrown at us this year. I suggest you give it a go. Just rent it if you are skeptical (I don't rent games, I just buy 'em)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03