Freedom Fighters

Don't you just hate it when the commies invade over dinner?

More Images

This review is going to start off with an admission of stupidity. When I took my first shot at this game I thought the difficulty selection was a level tutorial selection thingy. So I wound up playing through the whole game on 'easier than hating David Blaine' setting, putting the trouble free progress down to it being a console port - and don't all we PC owners know what a daft bunch those PS2/GC/XBOX 'fanboyz' are? Well feeling suitably ashamed, I can give you a review of the game that took me the least amount of time to compete in the last ten years.

As the easiest game of the last ten years (EGOFLT), Freedom Fighters is an excellent way to spend five or so hours. Put the difficulty setting up, as I did for the sake of journalistic integrity, and you should get a good few days of fun out of this very good console port. No matter what difficulty setting you play on there's no getting around the fact that there are not a massive number of levels, and each level is not the largest thing you ever did see. However this has meant that the developers have taken good time and care to make sure each one is lovelingly detailed and nicely controlled.

The premise is straight from that classic 80's film Red Dawn, although there's not a single body warmer in sight. And the setting is New York City, present day, so the music should be marginally better. The Commies have invaded the US. Not only that, they've managed to take over the whole country. The player takes on the role of Chris Stone, a 32 year-old plumber from Manhattan. As the game unfolds you will progress from the role of an unknown freedom fighter to the leader of not just the local resistance but a figurehead for the whole US counter-revolution. Employing an arsenal of real world weapons that range from Magnum .44s to AK47s through C4 and Molotov cocktails (the irony) you will lay waste to any Red that has had the temerity to occupy your home town. Freedom Fighters uses a charisma system that bears some similarities to the trust system employed in that other consoley squad-based shooter, The Thing. For every objective you complete, whether it be blowing up a power station to assasinating the general who executed someone close to you, Chris gets a handful of charisma points. Gain enough of these and Chris can then lead other freedom fighters in the struggle against the Red Menace. This starts off slowly, but by the end of the game you can have up to twelve men and women following your every command.

The system is kept nice and simple, with only three commands to choose from; fall back/rally on me, scout/attack and guard. By simply pressing either the 1, 2 or 3 keys and defining a spot with the mouse you can give out your orders. You have no control over the individuals in your group as each instruction is given in a round-robin fashion to the fighter who has been waiting the longest for a fresh direction. As a result of this you gain no attachment to any in your band, which is a shame but it does keep things nice and uncomplicated. Incongruously, you can get yourself some extra charisma points by healing fallen comrades as well as the injured good guys that you'll frequently come across. They in turn are usually only too happy to take up arms and dish it out to the commies. This can make for some pleasingly rag-tag looking squadies fighting alongside you, as the screenshots will testify. This system takes a little getting used to due to its bare simplicity, but once you get the hang of it it works very well. In fact, by the end of the game you can send your bunch off to do most of the killing while you concentrate on sniping or carrying out the mission objectives. For the way it works you do get a good sense of being in charge of a freedom fighting force.

The AI of your troops is not the best. They will often take an age to kill a commie, preferring to hide in cover rather then blast the swine. The enemy aren't the smartest in the world either, but this isn't an FPS so the lack of smarts doesn't affect the game too adversely. On the other hand the pathfinding is pretty good with your buddies having little difficulty navigating the map. They will quite happily climb any obstacle that you do and generally do a fine job in keeping up with you. A little more intelligence wouldn't have gone amiss yet it would be churlish to ask for Half-Life or UT2004 in an action-adventure game like this.