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May be a cliche, but an amazingly well done one!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: October 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

A diamond in the bargain bin

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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.

Great Buy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I picked this up at a local retailer before Amazon made their price drop. After playing it, I feel that it definitely worth more than the 19 I paid for it. It is a fun game with pretty cool graphics. The look of the game is somewhat cartoonish, but still quite good looking. I like the theme of an alternate history it uses as its backdrop. You can control an increasingly growing band of rebels. Once you start accomplishing objectives, you gain more charisma. It is your charisma which allows you to recruit more rebels to fight with you. The game is not a real time strategy and does not pretend to be. The commands you give your rebel figthers are simple and to the point. Which I personally like. Give it a try. You can't loose at less than 20 bucks!

Best plumber since Mario

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Yes that's right, you're a New York plumber who gets caught in a war and grabs an AK47 off a soldier you hit with a wrench. So the major gripe of other reviewers, that your shooting is inaccurrate, makes perfect sense now doesn't it?

This game is an excellent squad-based tactical combat game. Yes you need to shoot, but you also need to think. There is almost always an indirect route to every objective that will save your life and the lives of your recruits. That makes this game a great blend of action, small scale strategy, and stealth too.

The AI for your recruits is terrific and they will duck when they see you duck, grab cover when an enemy opens fire, and shoot back to the best of their ability (remember, they're just average joes who found a gun too!) At lower difficulty levels the enemy troops use a dumbed down version of this same AI.

This game manages to create the realistic panic and frenetic activity of a battlefield as seen in films like Black Hawk Down, but in a middle ground. Medic packs heal gunshots instantly, but no one, not even the hero, is Rambo.

I hope they make a "Freedom Fighters 2"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

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?

Completely WOW

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing games all my life and this is one of the best games I have played. I had been following the production of the game and I was not disappointed about the wait. The story, the action and the music all blend together wonderfully. I just finished the game and you are completely glued and addicted to it until the end. One of the things I loved the most was the feeling of attachment and responsibility to my teammates that were fighting along with me and keeping them healthy. An instant classic.

As good as any hyped up game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is what a pc game should be. It looks great, plays great, and the story is emmersive, and addictive. The really nice part about this is game is it looks just as good as any game out there with ridiculous requirements, and actually has very low requirements itself, reletively speaking. Some of the new games out there have extreme requirements, and the only thing about them that is different is the amount of cash you put into your system. The game is different from most shooters. The levels are intereconnected, and you can go back and forth from one to the other to complete specific tasks needed to complete others. I found the game to be challenging, and creative. A lot of the time you get the feeling you're actually there, fighting the commies. It involves a lot more planning, and strategy, then most shooters. As far as negatives go, the save system could use some improvement, but its not that bad. If you exit the game, you lose your quick save, this is a ptoblem. This game is definitley awesome, and as good as any hyped up shooter out there.

Worth Fighting For. . .

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

"Freedom Fighters" is easily one of the best 3rd person action games to come around in a long time, and though it has a few flaws that keep it from achieving a classic status, it's innovative and visceral, and well worth purchasing.

The game plays upon old Cold War fears by creating a scenario in which the Soviet Union successfully invades the United States. You, the player, are a plumber turned resistance fighter who gradually becomes one of the rebellion's leaders as the game progresses. It's worth noting that the events in the game span a period of several months, and the game's main character gradually becomes more and more grizzled even as the seasons change from late summer into deep winter. The feeling of fighting a long, hard fight is well conveyed. Even so, the game's storyline is pretty weak. The game's few twists are easily predicted, and the transition from plumber to freedom fighter is more than a little implausible. Still, it all does the trick of setting up the action quite efficiently.

If you've played the developers' previous title, "Hitman 2" (a likewise splendid game), then you have some idea how the game plays, minus that game's element of stealth. "Freedom Fighters" uses the same engine, point of fact, and the same physics apply, but the missions are less diverse and more action-oriented. The biggest change, though, is the lead character's ability to lead other freedom fighters into battle. What bullet time was to "Max Payne," this element is to "Freedom Fighters." It's every bit as innovative and cool as the aforementioned, and as the game progresses you will genuinely feel like a squad leader moving your troops into battle.

Gameplay in "Freedom Fighters" is so wonderfully addictive that it certainly contributes to the game's greatest flaw - and that flaw is its length. Just when you're having the most fun, the game is over. Still, winning the game enables you to go back through all of its previous levels as you choose, which is quite useful. Even so, that doesn't make up for the brevity of the finished product.

Ultimately, though, "Freedom Fighters" is hugely entertaining, and so good that you won't be able to make yourself stop playing it. What more can I say?

Final Score: A-

This game ROCKS!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Sure, it could be longer, but this game doesn't herd you along like many a first-person shooter out there. The dearth of in-game saves actually makes for a better playing experience because it makes you more cautious, more like you would be in real life. You'll notice that the lead character's aim gets better as he becomes more entrenched in his freedom fighter role. Great graphics, great gameplay, great fun. Highly recommended. Right up there with Call of Duty.

Absolutly Unbeliveable

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Awesome. There's like no other word for it. When I got this game I bought it by geting World of Ea Games pack. I thought that this was going to be like any other shooter game. IT"S NOT!! The story line is very well writen, and the graphics are great! Now it's hard for me to really get into a game , but this was great I would play until 11 o'clock at night. Also the name of the character is the same as mine so it felt like they were really talking to me. The reds had no chance against me and the rest of new york. I'm not saying the game is easy, but you can change the diffuculty level. I heard from another review that they are making a Freedom Fighters 2 which is great because the game ends with your player talking about how "They'll be back with bigger guns and more troops." And now you know they will. Anyway its really cool how you can recrute new freedom fighters and comand them. This game feels so real. I mean it feels like its a real war. There's no monsters or aliens its just YOU and a couple of men ( or women) against the whole Soviet Army. I remeber in one level I got the explosives I needed, I broke out the Prizoners of war and had them at the sewers, but then out of a window I saw a freedom fighter that I hadn't recruted was injured, and I couldnt bring myself to leave him there so I went out and helped him back. I felt kinda good after I did that. Even thought its only a game, but like I said I was so into this game it felt like I was Christopher Stone and I had a duty to rescue him. Thats why this game is so great. It captivates you so you froget its only a game and start to think "wow this feels so real!" Thats why I tip my hat to you Ea Games and lo-Interactive you made a Absoluty Unbeliveable Great game.

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