Freedom Fighters

From Io Interactive, the developers of the 2002 hit Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, comes Freedom Fighters. The two games share similar controls, 3rd person perspective, and killer scores by Jesper Kyd, but that is where the similarities end. Hitman 2’s stealthy gameplay is traded off for ferocious squad battles where you can command upwards of 12 teammates against endless communists. This is a good thing.

The premise of the game is standard enough; the Russians put an end to WWII, and therefore had a more powerful role in the events following it, leading to their eventual takeover of Europe. America had been one of the last “non-red” havens around… until now. You are Chris Stone, a NYC plumber who works with his brother, Troy. You two are dispatched to unclog a sink that coincidentally belongs to the leader of the resistance. The leader is not at home however, and you find instead your brother captured by the communists and yourself whisked away to the resistance.

The story is well written and believable, albeit lacking some depth. It can be likened to the story behind a good action movie: enough to keep you interested in between fight scenes and not much more. That is not to say the story is useless. There are in fact times that the story (in combination with the excellent game music) really makes you feel like you are fighting for something, but you will find sparse amounts of things like character development.

The gameplay is where Freedom Fighters really shines. The game is broken into separate chapters each having several missions. Each mission has a purpose as well. Instead of you blowing up cookie cutter targets for intangible results, you’ll do things like destroy a helicopter pad, thereby removing that oh-so-very-lethal attack helicopter from another area of the game. Following your missions in a sensible order can go a long way to making the game easier. The controls are tight and well done, using auto-aim to compensate for any aiming problems you might encounter. You can also enter an over-the-shoulder view that allows more precise aiming. More precise aiming unfortunately does not mean more precise guns though. You will find more often that not that if you can’t hit something in standard view, you can’t zoomed in either, but it’s handy for taking out explosive barrels and whatnot that don’t register with the auto-aim. You don’t have to take on the whole of the Russian army alone either. Near the start of the game, you learn that the more objectives you complete, the more charisma you gain and the more rebels you can recruit. You start off able to recruit two team members and if you do all the secondary objectives, can get 12 before the end of the game.

The AI, especially your squad’s, is excellent. Gone are the days of constantly looking behind you to see if your teammate got stuck on a blade of grass, these guys cover for each other, run from grenades, commandeer mounted guns, and even clear out when you plant explosives. You can command your squad using three simple buttons: attack, defend, and recall. The button’s names are pretty self explanatory and can be applied to just one soldier by tapping it, or to all of them by holding the button slightly longer. On the easier difficulty levels, you can just recall your troops and go about your business without too many problems, but you will need to master sending your troops to defend strategic points and attack turrets on the higher difficulty modes.

Graphics are top notch, suffer from slow down at only the most intense of battles, and are very much what you would expect if you had played Hitman 2. The physics in explosions look nice, and it’s rare that you’ll find enemies in the comical/impossible positions that are so common in recent rag-physics engines. The cutscenes are presented in the game engine rendered broadcasts from the Russians’ own news program, and by all accounts is done equally as well as the rest of the game.

The game’s biggest flaw is in its short length and lack of replayability. There is nothing wrong with a well done 7 or 8 hour game, but without any new modes to unlock despite being able to play all the previous missions again with your final crew, you have little incentive to play the game again. All said and done, this is still much better than filling the game with repetitive missions that would lose the player’s interest. Conclusion: if you’re in the mood for an extremely well done squad shooter that doesn’t require much more than a thirst for action, this is your game.