Freedom Force: Patriotism, Destruction, and Humour in a Superhero Adventure

Judging by the comics of the 60's, our cities were constantly attacked by aliens, giant roaches, communists, ancient beasts, or robots from

the future. The streets were the field of the fight between Good and Evil. Worthy men and women with great powers were always standing against the dark forces. The tradition also requires that they should be dressed in attractive costumes and hide their faces behind masks. There is always some final big fight followed by a happy end.

Freedom Force is not really different from the above described comic atmosphere. The story takes place in Patriot City where a cosmic Energy X gives super powers to the citizens. Some of them decide to use their new skills for evil purposes, however. This is where Freedom Force hits - a squad of powerful superheros under your control fighting on the Good side.

Starting off with the overall feel of Freedom Force, it's just great. There is a lot of irony, sarcasm, self criticism, mocks, and jokes. You will certainly fall in love with Minute Man, our American color dressed super hero who supposes that the communists are behind everything. There is also a friendly alien called Mentor who abandoned his civilization to help ours. There's El Diablo, Man-Bot and many others. The total number of super heroes is around 15 and each of them has it owns abilities, characteristics, and personality. I was a bit disappointed that none of them is a real hero from a comic or animation. If you are unhappy with the current hero setup, you will find a tool to create your very own hero.

The game consist in 23 missions, some of them split into several smaller parts. In them you will recall those typical super-hero cliches and phrases. On each mission you are in control of four characters only. Your main objectives are closely connected with fighting the bad guys but from time to time there are secondary ones giving you more reputation. The more reputation you have, the better – when you have enough of it, you will be able to add new superheroes to your squad.

At the end of the mission every superhero receives some skill points that work like a currency for new abilities or upgrades.

Although it's an old game, Irrational Games did their best into making the atmosphere more dynamic. You can destroy nearly any object

on your way – building, cars, trees, lamps or rocks. There is no problem to pick up a taxi and throw it on your enemy or pull out a pole and use it as a colossal bat. Doing so however or hurting civil people will lower your reputation and I bet you don't really want this - you are a superhero, remember?

The fighting system is very similar to Baldur's Gate – you give your orders while you are in some sort of a pause and after you are done, you watch your actions. In multiplayer however, there is no pausing, all it matters is your speed and mind quickness.

The graphics and sound are both very good for this 'era', if I may call it that way. A pat on the back also for the voice actors who really did a great job. The music is highly varied and it depends on the level. I don't feel the need of posting this game's requirements as they are very low, any Pentium II+ would do here in a combination with 128 MB ram and a 3D video card.