Freedom Fighters

"One of the best shooters of this gaming generation."

Okay, put this in your mind: The United States of America has, in a cruel twist of fate, lost the Cold War to the Soviet Union, and in the year 2003, a Soviet invasion went underway in New York. Sound realistic? Nope. But would it be a lot of fun to blow those commies back to the motherland? Hell Yeah.

Freedom Fighters takes that idea and puts it into the story of a squad-based third person action game. You are Chris Stone, a New York plumber who is caught in the midst of this Soviet invasion with his brother (also a fellow plumber). You stand and witness buildings crumble, red flags wave, and you find yourself wallowing away back underground as your brother is captured. Soon you find yourself rising to the occasion of freeing your troubled country with an arsenal of weapons and recruits, ready to dismantle the newly established commie regime.

Gameplay wise, you are to lead your recruits to various sites such as police stations and warehouses taken over by Soviet military forces, and you must infiltrate, kill any commies you see, plant explosives over areas such as helipads and bridges, and eventually get to the top of each structure, get to the flag pole, and replace the hammer and sickle with the stars and stripes.

The controls are sharp. You move with the analog sticks, circle through your weaponry with the D-pad, jump/climb with the left trigger, shoot/throw with the right trigger, and perform various actions with the more solid buttons on the Xbox controller, such as performing more stealthy entrances to reach your goals and leading your squad.

Speaking of the latter, you can order your fellow Freedom Fighters attack a certain enemy squad, defend a certain position, or have them break their post and continue following your position. Everything is very simple and streamlined, lacking the convoluted options of most RTSs while avoiding the incompetence of other console squad shooters such as SOCOM.

Another element of the squad-based gameplay is another more RPG-style element-adding more recruits to follow you. You can perform special tasks during each level that will not only make tasks easier, but will also add charisma to your stats, which in turn will convince more rebels to believe in your cause and fight for it alongside yourself. When you begin this game you may have two or three followers, but when you get to finally blowing the reds out of the New York Harbor, you may have up to a dozen battle-hardened recruits surrounding your presence as you lead them into enemy territory. THAT'S rewarding.

The visuals and sound effects don't amaze, but they are solid and get the job done with no framerate gaps or glitches. The music is a very big high point: Composed by Jesper Kyd of Hitman 2 fame, the musical score is a marvel and includes some of the best musical pieces I have heard to date.

Freedom Fighters is one of the most fun and rewarding games I have played to date, and I can't think of any type of gamer who doesn't enjoy video games who wouldn't enjoy this. This game is easy to pick up and play and becomes very rewarding after seeing all that you have you accomplished. Highly recommended.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/06