Freedom Fighters

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Genre: Action/Adventure
• Mission: The USSR threatens New York City

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000088KH5
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches ; 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: October 2, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,830 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.com Product Description

Freedom: The Battle for Liberty Island is set in a world where the Soviet Union won the Cold War. Now a fierce conflict is beginning to unfold in the streets of America. Red Army troops are pouring across the borders of Mexico and Canada shortly after a nuclear missile is unleashed on Washington D.C. Chaos sets in when breaking news informs Americans that their President has been killed and the Russians have invaded the country.

Players take on the role of a blue-collar worker who evolves into a charismatic and fearless freedom fighter obsessed with finding and freeing his brother, who has been taken hostage along with other New Yorkers by the Soviets. You must recruit and lead an army of urban guerillas to take on the Soviet threat in the streets of New York City. Freedom: The Battle for Liberty Island provides two layers of gameplay: A strategic turn-based mode that centers on base operations in an underground sewer system and an action mode that unfolds in the streets where fierce battles are won or lost and resources are captured.

Product Description

Freedom Fighters: Battle for Liberty Island turns you into an unlikely hero, as you fight to be free in a world where the Russians won the Cold War!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Games of 2003!!!, March 11, 2004

By 

Robb Boutros (Northford, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freedom Fighters The Battle for Liberty Island (Video Game)

There are few games that I'd use the term "great" while describing them. Freedom Fighters is such a game. Though released to critical acclaim in the fall of 2003, the game became a "sleeper" with higher profile titles being released around the same time. That critical acclaim was well deserved, because this is one game that has managed to surpass every one of my expectations.

Freedom Fighters takes place in what is described as an "alternate reality". In this timeline, the Soviet Union was the first to develop the Atom Bomb and bring and end to World War II. The game is prefaced by a brief rundown of events leading up to the present day. When the game begins, you find the game's hero, a New York plumber by the name of Chris Stone, is going about his daily route. When he and his brother stop to fix a clogged sink of a prominent anti-Soviet activist, he finds himself smack in the middle of the Red Army invasion. He's then thrust into the role of guerilla fighter.

The gameplay is what makes Freedom Fighters such an outstanding game. The game is a third person shooter. As you progress in the game and accomplish certain objectives, you gain "Charisma Points" which elevates your status eventually to where you can command fellow soldiers. You can recruit and command up to twelve freedom fighters with a very basic command interface, using the controller buttons, that works surprisingly well. Your troops will take cover and fight independantly when they need to, so you won't have to worry about them getting picked off one by one. The enemy A.I. is also very sophisticated. The Red Army will fight just as fiercely as your troops and will often try to pull and "end around", trying to sneak up on you and take you by surprise. The only thing that I didn't like about the controls was the precise aiming. It tended to be a bit of a pain to hold down the L3 button. The gameplay is structured so that whatever you accomplish in one mission ultimately affects another. For instance, if you blow up a helipad there will be no attack helicopters in another level. There is also an off-line multiplayer mode, which players engage in split screen action and co-op mode.

The graphics on this game are excellent, while other games may boast more photo realistic character models, the emphasis here placed on making the player feel like he was actually fighting on the streets of New York. Streets, street lights, snow, and even elevated train platforms have a very "New York" feel to them. One of the more intersting graphical features is what's called "rag doll" physics. When a parked car explodes it sends whoever is standing next to it flying into the air. Which makes for some pretty cool visuals. The sounds are also exceptional. Soldiers speak Russian, explosions rock the dual shock controller, tanks rumble through the streets. This game sounds as great as it looks and plays.

The story is moved along through the use of fake newscasts from the Soviet Armed Forces Network. This is a technique that was used in another game, Splinter Cell, earlier in 2003. But here the newscasts do a much better job at moving the story along. The obvious difference is that in Splinter Cell, the hero was operation covertly, but the newscasts did little to shed any light on the story and often felt like they were not interwoven into the fabric of the game. Here the newsbroadcasts feel like they are part of the game and help to immerse you further into the game.

Freedom Fighters is without a doubt one of the best games of 2003. If you're not playing it, you're really missing out on one of those really special games that makes you glad you own a Playstation 2. I HIGHLY recomend this game!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome game! Equal to the Medal of Honor series!, November 8, 2003

By 

Christopher J. Martin (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freedom Fighters The Battle for Liberty Island (Video Game)

At first I was skeptical of this game, but I decided to pick it up based on some things I'd heard about it from other people who'd played it. I'm really glad I did! I just bought it a couple days ago and played it for 10 hrs. straight yesterday, it's that addictive!
The story line is great, in fact even though the Soviet Union hasn't existed since 1990-91 and hasn't been a military threat to the US for decades, this story line is carried so well in the game it's downright believable sometimes.
The graphics are simply awesome. Everything in every level looks very real, including the "cut" video scenes at the end of every level. The two main characters, Chris (who's the guy you play as in single player mode) and his brother are designed to look as what Mario and Luigi would look like if they were real people instead of cartoonish characters. The only drawback to the graphics I've seen so far is that while there's several different levels dependent on what you've done before in the game, the levels take place in different areas of the same places. There's two levels (that I've seen so far) on the docks area. Rather than this being IO/EA Games being cheap on the design, I think it's just because the whole story line takes place in NY City, so the designers are pretty much stuck with certain areas of NY for any levels that take place at the docks.
There's a multitude of weapons to use in the game, you choose which weapon you wish to use because you're not only able to pick up additional ammunition but on occasion drop the current weapon you have and pick up the weapon of somebody you or your team has just killed. This is especially useful in tougher levels where finding ammunition isn't as easy.
The team aspect of a single player mission is very SOCOM like. You're the team leader and can issue orders to your fighters. One additional fun thing is you've got to recruit fighters to join your anti-Soviet fight. If you've got enough "charisma" which you earn by freeing POWs, healing civilian wounded and other (mostly) non-killing things during the game, people will join your cause. If you don't, people will refuse your recruitment. It also seems that the designers have made each CPU character you can recruit have different fighting abilities. So far, I've had teams of recruited fighters that seemed to fight and follow orders better than others.
Even on the easiest setting, the AI does present a challenge in most levels, they don't just walk in blindly to your fire and almost willingly get killed. There are also soldiers with full body armor on in the game in certain places. These guys take a lot of strategy and smarts to deal with because unless you shoot them in the face, everything else just bounces off. It also even takes multiple grenades or molitovs to kill the guy. I think it's great because it requires you to use stealth sneaking as well as use your weapons wisely.
I also think as a bonus for players who don't play this type of game very much the levels on the easiest setting aren't TOO difficult and shouldn't cause a player to give up in frustration after just a couple levels.
I really hope this isn't just a one-time game from IO/EA Games. This game I think is of such good quality that it's worthy of a series of games that come out yearly, just like the Medal of Honor series. Perhaps the next game could be about terrorism in NYC and not the Soviets.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a classic, must-own for the PS2., October 20, 2003

By 

Cotton I. Joe "cottonijoe1" (Northport, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freedom Fighters The Battle for Liberty Island (Video Game)

This one is a dark horse surprise. I had not heard much about this game until the day it came out and received some impressive ratings. So I picked it up on a whim, and I cannot put it down.

The controls take a little while to get used to, much like GTA, but once you do its fine. The graphics are ok, not great. But the game is fun enough to overtake that. It is very difficult in spots, although a different strategy or route is usually available to avoid the difficult areas. Course, I usually don't figure that out until I've spent an hour trying to make it through an area. The story has a nice mix of corniness and dark ambience. It like the cut-scene crew wasn't really in tune with the gameplay developers.

My one knock on the team control is that it is very difficult to assign any one particular team member to one location. Because they all carry different guns, sometimes you want the guy with the AK to guard a spot. That is difficult to do. However, it never was much of a problem.

The team interaction is nearly flawless. Sometimes the A.I. is too aggressive and team members will run out and get shot up before you are ready to attack, but overall it is well done. That's good because your team does the vast majority of the fighting late in the game.

The only bad thing is I find myself AT WORK thinking about this game or planning strategies to move past a level or obstacle. Not good for concentration.

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