Freedom Fighters
Platform(s): Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 2, PC
Developer: Io Interactive
Publisher: Electronic Arts
What would you do if Russia had invented the hydrogen bomb, dropped it on Berlin to end World War II, spread Communism throughout the world and ultimately invaded New York City?
If your answer is "pick up a gun and kill some Commies," you need to play Freedom Fighters, the latest multiplatform action monster from EA Games.
Freedom Fighters is a game where you can run around mindlessly and shoot stuff, Grand Theft Auto style. It's also a game where you can strategically command a group of soldiers to accomplish a series of difficult goals, like in Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. Somewhere in this unlikely mix of gameplay styles, Freedom Fighters manages to be a pretty sweet game.
The game involves running around war-torn New York, and completing objectives from a rag-tag group of Freedom Fighters. They run the operation out of a sewer base, Ninja Turtles style.
And you have to do their dirty work. Using a system of maps, you complete team objectives in certain areas, often going back and forth between the areas to make things easier for yourself in the long run. For example, blowing up a helipad in one area grounds the helicopters that would otherwise gun you down the next area.
Unfortunately, this results in an annoying amount of map checking, but it's better than running around aimlessly.
And aimless running is bunk, because in Freedom Fighters, you have to be cool. The game has a charisma system, meaning you get points for accomplishing major tasks, raising the American flag, and helping people. The more charisma you have, the more Freedom Fighters you can command.
And commanding is what the game is all about. Most of the buttons are verbal commands, ordering people to do things a la Oddworld. But you're not commanding scrubs. Your Freedom Fighters are a force of destruction, and men and women willing to do anything you say, even if it kills them. It usually does, too, but you can heal them with miraculous medic kits that are littered throughout the game. But as long as the Freedom Fighters stay standing, they kick Commie butt.
The controls take some getting used to. The awkward camera system doesn't let you zoom in and out, and aiming a gun is tough. Selecting weapons requires you to press the d-pad in a certain direction, and it's easy to accidentally select the revolver when you need a medic kit.
But this game is compelling enough that you'll get used to it. Constantly evolving characters, landscapes, and storylines are what really drive this game.
At the outset, your character Chris is an overall-wearing plumber from Brooklyn. But before Nintendo can file a lawsuit over obvious Mario similarities, the Russians attack and change Chris' life irrevocably.
As the Russians attempt to "liberate" America from the "flawed system of Capitalism," the game covers a long period of time, and Chris evolves into a grizzled badass. His hair even grows as the game goes on. Other characters change, too. A great payoff is watching the Soviet anchorwoman on the government-run news channel get more and more flustered.
Some games are boringly linear, and some games play out like movies. Freedom Fighters unfolds like an elaborate novel.
Top it off with a chilling original score, a multiplayer mode that lets you command small battalions against your buddies, and an overwhelming sense of patriotism, and this is a solid game.
Just don't expect to get any homework done after you buy it.
Tim Agne hates Communists. Reach him at tim.agne@asu.edu.
