Freedom Fighters

Freedom Fighters is one of those games that you really want to enjoy. Unfortunately it is spoiled by repetitive gameplay, a very short game-span and a ridiculously sickening patriotic story-line. A squad based action game is something that people were crying out for but then they got SOCOM and this just does not compare. I bought this game on the mere fact it had 9/10 from the Official Playstation magazine, handing over my cash happily to walk away with a title with so much promise. I was particularly interested in how the multi-player game would turn out as this feature could well be the saving grace or the cherry on top. So in went the two controllers and me and my friend were ready for some urban warfare. Then we discovered somebody had to go America...a fight ensued and I lost. Out came the foot-long hotdogs and the big giant foam hand with "Osama Kiss My Ass" written on it to get me in the mood and off we went.
The first thing you notice is the controls, It's a very similar control system to that of Hitman 2 which they also developed and once you have figured out which buttons do what it's very easy to play. Kudos to the game designers for that one. Multi-player consisted of a small area with four bunkers and a flag, once you walk into a bunker you get a few soldiers and the ability to spawn more. You can command these soldiers to defend the bunker, scout/attack a certain area or follow you. Obviously the more bunkers you have, the more soldiers you have and the better chance you get to fly your flag. It was a decent multi-player game but I wouldn't bother with it again. It got too repetitive and it was too easy for your opponent to just defend the flag and keep you at bay for 15 minutes. The levels were unimaginative and I was really hoping for so much more. It get's really boring and it just does not come up to scratch with other multi-player games (Red Faction being the best I've ever played).

So on I went to single-player mode and the plot began. This game takes place in an alternate reality where the Soviet Union dropped the bomb on Germany ending World War 2 and became a super-power..taking over the whole of Europe and worked it's way up South-America until Mexico became a Soviet state. America was being surrounded and was the only place in the world not taken over....that was about to change. You play Chris Stone, a plumber who works with his brother Troy in New York. They are sent to a house that is owned by one Isabella Angelina, a woman who is a big voice in a watch-dog organisation that warns the American public about the evil-doings of the Soviet Union. Once they get there they find it deserted and the next thing Soviet Union heavies burst through the door looking for her and mistake Troy as her boyfriend....luckily Chris went in to investigate the bathroom so they don't spot him. After a few questions and a few hard slaps Troy is taken away by the Soviet troops and Chris is left wondering what to do. On comes the news and the announcement by the new Russian anchor-lady is that the American people have been "liberated"...the old news-readers will be back once they have returned from the Russian attitude-adjustment camps in Moscow. I really hope this story-line is tongue in cheek, but considering the amount of times I've seen the stars and stripes waved in a "tear-jerking" motion I doubt it.

So the game begins and you only have a monkey-wrench to defend yourself. One Soviet soldier bashed over the head later and you have Mr.Jones on your side guiding you on how to shoot, jump, blow up barrels and throw Molotov cocktails onto a Soviet soldiers head. The game is just basically walk, shoot, take-cover and repeat. You gain charisma points by blowing up things, healing people and flying the flag, once the charisma bar is full you can get another person to be in your squad. Unfortunately nobody in your squad has a personality and they can't die. They get "knocked out" then all you have to do is give them a medikit and they are back on their feet, I don't think you would give a damn if the person died anyway because the developers failed to make different types of people as in a bomb expert or a sniper. Luckily your squad don't wander away and get lost so you don't need to worry about babysitting them and with a tap of a button they do what you ask them to. The enemy's AI is pretty impressive. They duck behind cars (which is satisfying when you blow it up and 4 soldiers fly 20 foot up in the air), hide on rooftops and run and dive when a grenade is thrown their way. Most just have a standard machine-gun but some have shotguns, and sub-machine-guns. You'll have some rare ones with a rocket-launcher and the snipers are tough as hell. I only encountered one tank which was probably the only decent challenge I had...I was very disappointed there were no more. The Soviet helicopters are the thing every Freedom Fighter fears because they are impossible to get unless you have a rocket-launcher which is very rare. You make you way around the city through the sewer-system which is where the rebel base is. You can go one place and get something you need (say C4) then jump back down the manhole and go to the heli-pad where you can blow the helicopter whilst it is grounded so you can progress without it firing a rocket up your bee-hind. The goal is usually to take over a certain place on the map and the level ends once you run the stars and stripes up the flag-pole....it isn't a very satisfactory conclusion to the level and might induce vomiting.

All in all it is a decent game but wouldn't last in a dedicated game-players house for more than a week (it only lasted 5 days here and I've completed it and went over it a few times). The American patriotism could put a few people off and the storyline is utter bollocks. Sometimes you begin to wonder if this game is an attitude correction device. The multi-player mode is very disappointing but if you fancy a crack at throwing a Molotov cocktail into a crowd of Soviet soldiers there's no better place to start.

RoBB IdLE 6/10

[Stu]

I've spent a couple of hours with the PC version of this... I think PC Gamer put it right when they described the whole thing as 'competent'. It's got competent graphics, competent sound, competent gameplay, competent AI, etc etc etc. It's not a bad game, just not a brilliant one. The storyline actually offends me, it's absurd, and indeed, sickening patriotic. At least the C&C games did it with a bit of class. Still, enough fun in here for a few hours.

[Robb]

Thanks for the response. As you can see I'm not the greatest reviewer in the world but I'm trying to get better.