Freedom Fighters

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• Christopher Walker has lost his family in New York City, after the nuking of Washington D.C. and the death of America's leaders. As Soviet forces cross the borders of Mexico & Canada, he'll lead a guerilla band to fight through them and learn his loved ones' fate -- becoming an unlikely hero.
• Jump headlong into intense urban warfare, as you engage in guerilla combat -- from small sabotage missions to large-scale battles
• Turn-based startegy gameplay allows you to pick your own missions - each one has a different set of strategies and outcomes
• Keep your charisma high - it's your primary recruitment tool, and you'll need all the help you can get
• Enahnced rendering technology and rich multiplayer support lets you become a legendary guerilla warrior -- and Freedom Fighter!

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00007LVJC
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 1, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,864 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

Freedom Fighters 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

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars May be a cliche, but an amazingly well done one!, October 11, 2003

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Freedom Fighters (CD-ROM)

Let's see - this computer game involves 2 plumbers who get wrapped up in world-changing plots. There's an evil group out to destroy things as we know it, and a beautiful girl in trouble. Sound familiar?

Nope, it's not Super Mario X. Instead, this is the start for Freedom Fighters, set in an alternate reality of New York City. In this version, the Russians are taking over the world and have just reached your metropolis home.

The graphics on this game are simply amazing. It's more of a cel shaded high-end cartoon feel than a realistic one, but the facial expressions and movements are dead on. You move through various areas of New York - Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the landscapes and buildings are very well done. You move through movie theaters, churches and more, and as the game progresses they turn into more and more of a war zone. Escape from New York was just the beginning.

The gameplay is great. You start out as an 'average Joe' - but as your search for your brother continues, and you get involved in the resistance movement, your character wears more gear, knows the ins-and-outs more, and draws more followers. At first you only have 2 people believing in you, but as you prove yourself you can recruit more and more followers to help you out.

The sound effects and music are excellent. The ambient noise are right on, giving you a sense that you really are under fire in a dirty New York street. The music is rich, Russian epic, giving you the sense that a gigantic empire is rolling across the world, and you are a mere toothpick in its path.

The AI and gamplay is superb. Your teammages take cover, peer around corners, provide covering fire, take over machine guns when they're available. You can tell them to advance to a given point, or 'scout an area', or follow behind you, so depending on your gameplay style you can be as specific as general as you wish.

There are helicopters that chase you down, APCs that bring reinforcements, buildings to run around in, streets to terrorize. There are turned-over cars, barbed wire fences and everything inbetween. The in-game maps are incredible and the physics are very realistic. Having been in New York many times and having a boyfriend who grew up there, the atmosphere is dead on.

Highly recommended for any strategy-war fan who really enjoys a game that envelops you. This isn't an arcade blood-and-guts fest. The game lets you heal your teammates, build a reputation and make a stand to protect your home and your family. Just about the only thing this is missing is multiplayer. We can only hope that a future release will add that in, and make this a true gaming classic.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A diamond in the bargain bin, March 12, 2004

By 

bayou_hannibal "bayou_hannibal" (West Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freedom Fighters (CD-ROM)

Freedom Fighters is a great game, and it's only problem might be that there is not enough of it. The game is very simple, but it somehow just manages to be nonstop action and fun. The price for this game has dropped so far that even despite the fact that it's a bit short, buying it should be a no-brainer.

The game is played in a series of chapters, each of which contain 2 or 3 submissions. In each submission, you usually blow something up like a bridge or depot, and then capture an important building. The best part of every mission is at the end, when you go to the roof of the building and raise the Stars and Stripes over it. You get this warm, fuzzy patriotic feeling and then move on to the next mission so that you can shoot some more evil Commies. Yes, it's corny, but it works great. The game does a great job of paying homage to Cold War era action movies like "Red Dawn" and "Missing in Action". Between each mission, you get to watch a Soviet propaganda news broadcast describing your activities as "terrorism". The news broadcasts are usually pretty funny and provide a good reward for completing each chapter.

The graphics for the game are decent, but not great. The scenery is immersive enough to be believable, but other games out there look sharper. The cutscenes don't look very good, and characters don't move their lips when they talk.

The core gameplay is what is so great about this game. You control a squad of Freedom Fighters, and you lead them through the streets, pointing them at objectives and generally shooting anything with a red star on their uniform. Mission design is great, and no two missions are quite the same. Gameplay isn't complex. There aren't that many weapons that you can use, and you can only give three simple commands to your squad ("Follow", "Attack", and "Defend"). Usually, your squadmates are good at fighting, but you will do most of the work. AI for enemies is good enough to give you a good challenge, but never frustrating. Enemies are pretty good at using cover and avoiding grenades, but you can often snipe them from far away, and they won't do much to retaliate. The action is always exciting, but you still have to use your head. You are usually outnumbered, and lots of areas are guarded with machine gun banks or guys behind walls. You have to use your head, but the game never gets bogged down with micromanagement.

Freedom Fighters has a checkpoint save system that we PC gamers love to hate. However, the game is very forgiving. Squad mates never get killed. They just get incapacitated, and you can revive them with health packs. You never have to worry about running out of those, since each level has tons of them laying around. You can take plenty of bullets yourself, so if you get surprised, it usually won't kill you.

The soundtrack might be my favorite part of the game. Jesper Kyd composed the music for the game, and it's simply excellent. The opening track is a booming orchestral piece of music that sounds like it could be a Red Army cadence. The action music is great at raising the tension in the levels and giving the game a sense of drama.

The interface for the game is not good. You can tell that this game was not designed for the PC. If the game wasn't so simple, then this might be a problem. Also, as I said before, the game is pretty short. I finished it in about 10 or 11 hours, although I liked it enough to play it again. Other than that, the game doesn't have any real problems. Since the missions aren't very scripted, you can find different ways of fighting the same battles. It might have only been 4 stars when it first came out and cost fifty bucks, but now that it's really cheap, there is no reason to miss this game.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I hope they make a "Freedom Fighters 2", November 11, 2005

By 

Jerry Jackson Jr. (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Freedom Fighters (CD-ROM)

I bought this game because of the bargain price and because I was bored. Well, I was blown away by this game!!! I heard about it a year or two ago but didn't pay attention to it. I'm just glad that I finally discovered what a GREAT game this is.

Sure, it's not without its flaws and I can think of a couple things that could be improved, but overall this is a GREAT combat game with a FANTASTIC story that makes you feel like you're living through the invasion of the United States in an alternate reality.

I really, REALLY hope they make a sequel ... what better praise is there?

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