For a game that's undergone so many name changes during its short marketing life, Freedom Fighters turned out surprisingly well. Whether you remember it as Freedom: Battle for Liberty Island or Freedom: Soldiers of Liberty, the third person action shooter blends squad-based tactics with a well presented story. The whole package comes off like an entry level tactical action game for those who can't get their minds around the all-too authentic realism of games like Rainbow Six or Conflict Desert Storm. It also deftly avoids the identity crisis that undermined Digital Anvil's Brute Force by keeping the basic game systems easy to understand and easy to execute.
The Russians Are Coming
In Freedom Fighters, the Cold War never really happens. The USSR drops the first A-bomb to end WWII and basically runs things around the globe, culminating with a semi-covert invasion of the modern-day United States. We pick up the story of Christopher Stone, a mild-mannered plumber, on his way to fix a leaky pipe or two in Manhattan. Things take a turn for the worse when the lady with the leaky pipes turns out to be an outspoken anti-communist leader and you're knee-deep in the middle of the US-USSR conflict.
The game does a marvelous job of maintaining the illusion of a Soviet-run New York City. The barricades on city streets, the pro-Soviet posters in the environment and the well-done newscasts full of propaganda are all top-notch and every cutscene just reinforces the idea. The concept may have borrowed heavily from the film "Red Dawn" but the Russian invasion in Freedom Fighters is at least as believable as Patrick Swayze with a machine gun.
Gameplay
The main character is asked to proceed through a series of semi-linear missions where you can choose which of several objectives you want to achieve first, but you're going to have to complete the whole set before advancing to the next handful of missions. You're given one main weapon and one secondary weapon with limited amount of ammo. During missions, you can swap say an assault rifle with a shotgun during the heat of battle, but you'll have to find another assault rifle and pick that up somewhere in the environment if you don't like the shotgun anymore.
The run and gun gameplay ends up playing a lot like the non-stealth segments of Eidos' Hitman 2. And it should since IO Interactive is the developer behind both of those titles. You're getting the same physics and a lot of the same AI from Hitman 2 in Freedom Fighters. This isn't a bad thing, especially if you missed Agent 47's last adventure. The auto-aim found in the console versions has been turned off here due to the PC mouse and keyboard control, which really, is quite superior to it's console couterparts. The mouse wheel can select weapons as well as an easy click and pick radius, the right button zooms for aiming purposes and squad orders are given very easily with the number keys.
It's the command and control system for your AI squadmates that gives FF it's distinctive feel. Stone has to build up his charisma by accomplishing missions, rescuing innocents and healing fellow soldiers in the field. Each time his charisma fills up, he'll be able to approach and recruit other freedom fighters in the game world and add them to his team that follows him around. The game starts you off with a couple just to let you get the feel of it all, but soon you're managing up to 12 soldiers. For this reason you only have three basic commands: move, attack and defend. Tapping a number key tells one of your mates to perform one of those actions in the general direction that your main character is looking. Pressing and holding that key will send all of your teammates in that direction to perform that action. You get another layer of control by zooming in on a location and telling your teammates exactly where you want them to attack, move or defend.
The environments of Freedom Fighters are intricate and extremely detailed and thankfully, the squadmate AI is outstanding so you hardly ever them bashing their heads into walls, jogging into obstacles or getting stuck doing something dumb. They'll move intelligently and attack any enemies they see when they're on the move or when they're standing still. The difference between the different commands then becomes more tactical. Telling them to defend an area will compel them to look for the best available cover while "attack" makes them more aggressive and willing to look for trouble with enemies. You actually end up managing this aggressiveness more than anything, because the AI fighters can be quite independent. They'll run headfirst into a hornet's nest of enemies without thinking if you're not keeping track of your squad. It ends up feeling authentic because we could imagine a battlefield commander telling his troops what he wants them to do, but being unable to actually think and act for them. In this case, your soldiers have unlimited ammo, different weapons, and they can be resurrected as long as you have a spare health pack to use on them. Keeping things simple like this is a true advantage.
Covering your teammates as they move and getting them to cover you as you move, works very well in FF. The AI guys will even take hold of mounted machine guns and automatically mow down any bad guys they see when you tell them to defend in an area that has a nest. Using the zoomed in targeting to command your troops can be problematic when you start dealing with stairs, riser and other multi-level structure, since the targeting icon can't always read what level you're pointing at. Usually pointing at the ground near a machine gun nest and giving the defend command will get your guy to grab the machine gun and start shooting, but if it's in a tricky area they've been known to walk around in front of the nest and start defending. Having your guys on the wrong side of a sandbag during a firefight is no way to earn charisma. On the other hand there are several parts of FF where you can set your guys up in a nice defensive position with heavy machine gun nests and they'll have no problem laying waste to wave after wave of enemy soldiers while you do a little freelancing. This is proof that using an overwatch system is what you're supposed to be doing.
The Russians Are Coming
In Freedom Fighters, the Cold War never really happens. The USSR drops the first A-bomb to end WWII and basically runs things around the globe, culminating with a semi-covert invasion of the modern-day United States. We pick up the story of Christopher Stone, a mild-mannered plumber, on his way to fix a leaky pipe or two in Manhattan. Things take a turn for the worse when the lady with the leaky pipes turns out to be an outspoken anti-communist leader and you're knee-deep in the middle of the US-USSR conflict.
The game does a marvelous job of maintaining the illusion of a Soviet-run New York City. The barricades on city streets, the pro-Soviet posters in the environment and the well-done newscasts full of propaganda are all top-notch and every cutscene just reinforces the idea. The concept may have borrowed heavily from the film "Red Dawn" but the Russian invasion in Freedom Fighters is at least as believable as Patrick Swayze with a machine gun.
Gameplay
The main character is asked to proceed through a series of semi-linear missions where you can choose which of several objectives you want to achieve first, but you're going to have to complete the whole set before advancing to the next handful of missions. You're given one main weapon and one secondary weapon with limited amount of ammo. During missions, you can swap say an assault rifle with a shotgun during the heat of battle, but you'll have to find another assault rifle and pick that up somewhere in the environment if you don't like the shotgun anymore.
The run and gun gameplay ends up playing a lot like the non-stealth segments of Eidos' Hitman 2. And it should since IO Interactive is the developer behind both of those titles. You're getting the same physics and a lot of the same AI from Hitman 2 in Freedom Fighters. This isn't a bad thing, especially if you missed Agent 47's last adventure. The auto-aim found in the console versions has been turned off here due to the PC mouse and keyboard control, which really, is quite superior to it's console couterparts. The mouse wheel can select weapons as well as an easy click and pick radius, the right button zooms for aiming purposes and squad orders are given very easily with the number keys.
It's the command and control system for your AI squadmates that gives FF it's distinctive feel. Stone has to build up his charisma by accomplishing missions, rescuing innocents and healing fellow soldiers in the field. Each time his charisma fills up, he'll be able to approach and recruit other freedom fighters in the game world and add them to his team that follows him around. The game starts you off with a couple just to let you get the feel of it all, but soon you're managing up to 12 soldiers. For this reason you only have three basic commands: move, attack and defend. Tapping a number key tells one of your mates to perform one of those actions in the general direction that your main character is looking. Pressing and holding that key will send all of your teammates in that direction to perform that action. You get another layer of control by zooming in on a location and telling your teammates exactly where you want them to attack, move or defend.
The environments of Freedom Fighters are intricate and extremely detailed and thankfully, the squadmate AI is outstanding so you hardly ever them bashing their heads into walls, jogging into obstacles or getting stuck doing something dumb. They'll move intelligently and attack any enemies they see when they're on the move or when they're standing still. The difference between the different commands then becomes more tactical. Telling them to defend an area will compel them to look for the best available cover while "attack" makes them more aggressive and willing to look for trouble with enemies. You actually end up managing this aggressiveness more than anything, because the AI fighters can be quite independent. They'll run headfirst into a hornet's nest of enemies without thinking if you're not keeping track of your squad. It ends up feeling authentic because we could imagine a battlefield commander telling his troops what he wants them to do, but being unable to actually think and act for them. In this case, your soldiers have unlimited ammo, different weapons, and they can be resurrected as long as you have a spare health pack to use on them. Keeping things simple like this is a true advantage.
Covering your teammates as they move and getting them to cover you as you move, works very well in FF. The AI guys will even take hold of mounted machine guns and automatically mow down any bad guys they see when you tell them to defend in an area that has a nest. Using the zoomed in targeting to command your troops can be problematic when you start dealing with stairs, riser and other multi-level structure, since the targeting icon can't always read what level you're pointing at. Usually pointing at the ground near a machine gun nest and giving the defend command will get your guy to grab the machine gun and start shooting, but if it's in a tricky area they've been known to walk around in front of the nest and start defending. Having your guys on the wrong side of a sandbag during a firefight is no way to earn charisma. On the other hand there are several parts of FF where you can set your guys up in a nice defensive position with heavy machine gun nests and they'll have no problem laying waste to wave after wave of enemy soldiers while you do a little freelancing. This is proof that using an overwatch system is what you're supposed to be doing.
System Requirements
OS:Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7;CPU:733MHz Processor;
RAM:128MB
Hard Disk:650MB Hard Disk Space;
Graphic:32MB;
DirectX compatible nVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon Class Video Card
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