Freedom Fighters

"Russia has invaded the USA, You are a freedom fighter can you lead the resistance?"

The Game

Freedom Fighters brings you to an alternate reality where the Russians have invaded the USA nad you and your brother are placed in a role to try and lead the resistance fighters against the monster Red Army. You are a plumber that must find within you the courage and the leadership to challenge the Reds.

The Game Play

You are first on your own and by your actions against the Reds you gain respect and the fighters will join your cause. I have had up to 8 people with me on my missions. You can set your team members to due many actions to go and attack to recon an area to defend an area or to follow you. The team members AI is pretty decent they will seek cover and attack from strategic points as well as mount weapons. However they do tend to wander sometimes example when a chopper is tearing at you I needed to call them in several times however thats a small issue. The enemey AI is pretty decent as well and makes a fun game.

The Controls

The controls are easy to learn and do the job quite well. You can only carry two weapons at a time a side arm and the main gun. The basic menu allows you to use whatever inventory you have. The only small complaint is you can't throw a grenade and use your weapon at the same time you have to switch from one to another and more than once I switched to the wrong one in haste. Your team members are easy to control however you can't select one out of the many without cycling through them not that there are differences between them but can cause a bit of trouble when trying to calling a guy back from defending. You can switch from third person view to first to do some sniping. All in all the controls are pretty good although they could have been a bit more specific control for your team members.

The Sound

The sounds are done quite well of course it uses 5.1 so the action surrounds you. Every gun has a distinct sound and the explosions are good. The voice are done well in the cut scenes and the Russians voices sound like Russians.

Replayability

Heres where I say the game is lacking big time. The single player missions are great but the game is so short a couple of hours to finish it and I started with the second hardest level. There is multiplayer but we all know that EA dosen't support LAN links or LIVE so thats a limited replay right there. This game has major potential if the make a part 2 if they use LIVE and allow for downloadable content you will see a must have for the XBox.

Over All

Freedom Fighters is a great game that has a few minor glitches and suffers from being really short. Not a bad game by any means but not worth a purchase as it can easily be finished by a rental the lack of LIVE support and LAN link is a poor decsion as this could have been a great game for a LAN party but not. A must rent but not a must own.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/03