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| Freedom Fighters combines the depth
of a squad-based game with the intensity of an action-packed
war game, all of which unfolds in the streets, subways,
and buildings of the ultimate urban battleground.
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September, 2003
Io Interactive
Electronic Arts
XBox
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In Freedom Fighters, the Soviets have invaded New York City,
and are winning the battle to control it. You assume the role
of a plumber, who one day is thrown into the fighting when
the building he is servicing comes under attack. Through acts
of heroism you are chosen to be a “Freedom Fighter”,
a rag-tag soldier, fighting alongside others like you in the
rebellion against the Soviets. Mission by mission, your objective
is to raise the American Flag on top of each building as it
is secured.
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Generally speaking, the graphics in Freedom Fighters have
a cartoon-like feel. The people and landscape have soft edges,
giving the game a look of hand-drawn animation. The characters
are very colorful, but lack detail. Although the graphics
aren’t quite realistic, the game manages to engage you
with a bright color palette and an extensive level of screen
activity, such as lots of people running around the city.
Here is a screen shot of a news broadcast that takes place
during one of the Cinematics. To progress the story, after
every major event you see the short clip of the Soviet "SAFN"
station. This element adds a nice touch to the overall presentation.
Landscapes
Freedom Fighters’ setting is confined to the city with
its typical urban features such as tall buildings, busy streets,
and minimal trees or shrubbery. Despite the limited backdrop,
the amount of activity on-screen makes the scenery appealing:
People running down the streets in a frenzy as they flee from
the Soviets, traffic jams, and crowded sidewalks all bring
the city to life. However, the limited urban setting never
sets the stage for more pastoral landscapes, so don’t
expect to see any rolling hills, towering pines, or fields
of wheat.
Buildings
The buildings are nothing really too spectacular individually;
they are not overly detailed or refined. However, their features
come together to produce a skyline that is rather eye catching.
But as you get closer you notice that many of the buildings
are very similar, and you get the feeling “Haven’t
I been here before?”, or wonder “Didn’t
I already play this level?”. A wider variety of urban
settings would provide some much needed points of interest;
perhaps a market scene with fruit and vegetable venders, a
police or fire station, or even the occasional garbage pile
or stray cat could liven it up a bit.
Vehicles
There is a broad selection of vehicles on the streets, ranging
from Soviet helicopters, personnel transporters, civilian
automobiles, and armored tanks. Although the same vehicles
do not differ at all (there’s just one style of tank,
one kind of car, and so on), the models are appealing and
generally look good. Much like the people and the landscape,
the vehicles have the same colorful “cartoon”
kind of look as well. While not realistically up to standards,
they do provide a certain amount of consistency that gives
the game a steady, though not very interesting, flow.
Here is a civilian's abandoned truck. You can tell
that it isn't very well detailed and is jagged along the edges.
The lighting does add a little interest to the screen shot
though.
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| Freedom Fighter cars. |
MetaVR cars; click to see a close-up. |
Characters
Characters, again, are cartoon-like, with rounded features
and colorful faces and clothes. However, much like the rest
of the game, they lack realistic details like wrinkles in
pants or dirt on someone’s face. While the colors are
vivid, there is not much variation in shading. For instance,
blue overalls are entirely the same shade of blue throughout.
The clothing looks like it is being worn for the first time.
The characters’ clothes would truly benefit from true-to-life
details such as faded areas or torn spots. Overall there is
not enough detail to make characters believable.
Here is the main character that you play in the game. There
is some nice detail in the face but notice that the clothing
is all one shade of gray. A little variety would help make
him look more interesting.
Far Horizon
Far horizons of the city’s edge work nicely with the
almost cell-shaded feel. They don’t really bring a sense
of realism but they still look nice with the cartoon affect.
When put in motion and at a long distance it generally looks
good. But don’t expect to feel as though you’re
walking down the streets of New York City and seeing the actual
horizon.
Special Effects
Freedom Fighters offers nothing new in the realm of gaming
special effects. For the most part, all of the explosions
and fire effects look like they were put in the game as an
after thought – not with planning or skillful execution.
The gunfire effects don’t bring anything to the table
either. All of this weak animation begs the question, “Oh,
I’ve only seen this 50 times, so what makes Freedom
Fighters different?”. Well, the answer is this: nothing.
There is nothing that positively distinguishes Freedom Fighters
from other games of its genre. All the standard effects are
there but, there is no further improvement on them. It’s
almost as if they set out to produce an average game –
not one that raises the bar or sets a higher standard in terms
of graphics and play. Just meeting the standard doesn’t
cut it for me – I need more.
Here is one of my favorite screenshots. You can see that
the fire effects are of average quality. The funny part is
that these friendly soldiers aren’t reacting to the
fact that they have been lit on fire.
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The central objective of Freedom Fighters is to travel through
the city and reclaim the buildings and land from the invading
Soviet enemy. This objective is accomplished by infiltrating
each building, reaching the flagpole, and raising your nation’s
colors – the Red, White, and Blue. Initially, you start
off on your own, taking on simple missions. Eventually you
are granted units, “freedom fighters”, that serve
under your command. The number of freedom fighters you control
is determined by your charisma- the demonstrated ability to
successfully lead and execute missions. To get charisma you
must complete objectives such as freeing a hostage, blowing
up a bridge and enemy weapon storage, and taking over an enemy
base by raising your flag. Each time your charisma bar goes
up, you get to control one more freedom fighter. This system
is pretty interesting -- unique in fact -- and does encourage
you to strive for all of the mission objectives so you can
get more charisma.
Your teammates will follow orders such as scout ahead, hold
this position, or attack -- the basic commands and nothing
more. It would be helpful if there were more commands, but
unfortunately there are not. The A.I. of your teammates is
very limited. They have a hard time taking cover, and seem
to constantly run into enemy fire. Also, your Freedom Fighters
don’t always attack the people you want to attack. One
example is when you are in front of a group of enemies and
a gunner is on the .50 cal in the back. You order your team
to attack, expecting that they would have the intelligence
to take out the gunner first, but instead they go after the
enemies directly in front of them, and as a result they all
fall victim to the 50.Cal. This gets quite annoying. Eventually,
you realize that they are more of a meat shield than a strategic
task force. To top it all off, your men are slow - they will
drag behind and you have to wait for them to catch up.
The inability to effectively instruct your freedom fighters,
and the fact that they don’t do much thinking on their
own, results in a predictable pattern of game play: You take
your team to the enemy headquarters, watch them get mowed
down by the Soviet opponent, then try hopelessly to revive
them with unsophisticated first-aid kits. It gets old fast.
Some mission variation and better A.I would make this game
easier to stick with over time. After a while I didn’t
even pay attention to the mission, because every time the
mission was to get through the enemies to some objective and
raise the flag up the pole. How about something new for a
change, huh guys? |
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CONTROL SCHEME |
SCORE: 6.0 |
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The controls are fairly different from other games of the
genre and might, at first, get on people’s nerves. You
use the right trigger to fire, left trigger to jump/climb,
and the A, B, X and Y buttons to control your troops. It would
be nice if they could have made a menu that pops up so that
there could be more options for what your troops can do. The
control designations are limiting; using all of the buttons
takes up room for controls that have to be put somewhere else.
For instance, you have to press in the left thumb stick and
move the right one to aim. It works OK, but it would be better
if you didn’t have to pause in the heat of battle to
think about which button does what. A menu system would free
up some button space and allow more commands to be available
in the game.
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After beating the game once, I have no desire to go back and
play Freedom Fighters again. There is no reward system in
which stellar play expands the game. The game could really
benefit from an incentive system where better performance
wins the player more points, more cheats, interviews, extra
characters and the like. Multiplayer mode has no value and
is truly a bore (basically it is a death match, but there
isn’t enough substance to bring you back for more).
Sadly, there are not enough features to keep this game out
of your closet.
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BUGS AND GLITCHES |
SCORE: 6.0 |
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I
found a few annoying glitches, such as being able to shoot
while reloading a handgun and in some instances clipping occurs
through walls. The major issue is the lack of good A.I., friendly
and enemy. |
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If you like the story premise and the charisma system, this
game might interest you for a while. However, it lacks the
good gameplay, graphics, A.I., and replay value to warrant
an overall good score. The really exciting team work and strategy
involved in games such as Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six is completely
missing from Freedom Fighters. The poorly designed command
system, lack of A.I., cartoon-like graphics, limited incentive
options, and narrow story line result in a game that is average,
at best. Overall, the graphic style and play options found
are more effectively realized in other games of its genre.
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