Freedom Fighters

"Great game - poor controls..."

Like you'll read about in all the other reviews, much of this game is excellent. The concept, the designs, the graphics and the dieas of the gameplay - it's all great. I won't go into details here, as it would be redundant, with all the other reviews at your disposal here. There is a flaw with Freedom Fighters, however, and it is a massive one. The controls. And when you have a great game like this one, the controls are the only thing that can keep you from getting all the enjoyment you can out of it. My three main problems with the controls are these:

The button layout:
The button layout is somewhat original, but nevertheless totally restraining. When you want to aim your gun instead of just shooting madly around you, you have to press and hold the L3 stick "button". Not only is this annoying to do for long periods of time, but it makes it very hard to move around whilst aiming. Doing this witht the L1 button instead, like it's done in many other games, would have been infinitely better. Since the aiming system is so vital to this game, having it this inaccesible and restraining really puts a massive dampener on the game.

The movement:
A lot of the movement is really jerky. Suppose your guy is facing west, and you want to turn him 180 degrees so he'll fae east. You'd expect to see him turn around, right? Well in this game he just zaps over in the blink of an eye. Not only does this look really jerky, but it also makes a mockery of the idea of precision controls. On a sidenote, the walking/running setting on the stick is also geared far too much towards running. If you press down the stick the first 5 percent you'll see your guy walk, but if you press it down even further, he'll be running. You don't want to run around like a madman, so the gearing should definately be more towards walking as well. This sounds like nitpicking, I know, but these things really does ruin what could have been an awesome game.

The aiming system:
The aiming system, like said before, is one of the crucial parts of the game. If you don't use it a lot you'll end up dying much more than you'd like to. Concepually, it's done pretty well, but the actual execution of it leaves a lot to be desired. When you are trying to take out a bad guy before he kills your last man, you'll find that the dead zone on the stick - you are forced to use - is quite massive. This means that you'll have to press the stick halfway to the left before the game even notices it. How a mistake like this got through all their playtests really is beyond me. As a result of this, trying to aim at a bad guy is quite tricky, unlike in game like for instance Metal Gear Solid II, where it is an easy task.

Sound.......: 8/10
Graphics....: 9/10
Gameplay....: 9/10
Controls....: 4/10

Pros: Great presentation, concept and gameplay
Cons: Frustrating and unresponsive controls

OVERALL.....: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/05