Freedom Force

Insert the standard blah blah about the PC superhero curse here, I'm tired of writing about it. Freedom Force reviews and previews seldom pass up a chance to talk about it, which is unfair and inappropriate, because Freedom Force cleanly rises above all that to be an excellent game in its own right.

The game takes place in a Leave it to Beaver kind of America that's threatened by an alien overlord named Lord Dominion. A conscientious objector flees from his boss, spilling a powerful alien substance known as Energy X on Earth. This leads to the creation of many different superheroes who decide to band together to fight evil, and the creation of many different supervillains who decide to provide the evil to fight. The story and performances are beyond cheesy, but deliberately so. The Reds are our enemies again, all the women civilians wear pearls and dress like Nancy Reagan, and Freedom Force leader Minute Man is so pure and upstanding that he makes Adam West's Batman and Burt Ward's Robin look like Bluntman and Chronic. It's all part of the fun, and be prepared to hear more alliteration than you thought possible, you gasping galloping gamers.

There are all sorts of heroes with different powers and personalities. You even get to see their origins as they're introduced. The big hulking Man-Bot. The Southern Belle witch Alche-Miss. The man with the powers of the ocean and the Sean Connery-esqe voice Man O' War. And more. Some heroes even get sidekicks, like Liberty Lad and Sea Urchin. Because you're a good guy, you don't kill--you only knock out your foes. There's also no gore--just the occasional ring of stars around a head and comic book word balloons. Wham! Krak! Pow!

The game starts you off with just one hero, but you gradually encounter and control more, up to four per mission. You are presented with different top-down maps such as city blocks, underground passages, etc. You clean out the villains on the map using your superpowers, protect civilians from harm, and achieve various primary and secondary goals. At the end of the mission, you can gain experience points to gradually improve your characters and your team, recruiting new and more powerful members. Missions are grouped together to lead up to boss fights, though there is an over-all story dealing with Lord Dominion.

What's great about these battles is that you'll find most everything can and will be destroyed, if you're playing right. If you're strong enough, you can pick up mailboxes, street lamps, rubble, whatever, and chuck them at your foes, or swing 'em like a scythe. It's a joy hammering some guy hard enough to knock him back through a phone booth. Even many structures can be destroyed. Don't wanna go after the thug on the rooftops that's shooting at you? Fire a high-power energy bolt or toss an explosive barrel at the building, and suddenly the third floor and the lobby are sharing the same space. Irrational Games understands something that a lot of the cretins who make superhero movies don't--when superheroes and supervillains go at it, they flatten the scenery with each other.

The game takes place in real time, though you can adjust the speed at which things unfold, or pause the game to issue orders. Right clicking on a target pauses the game and gives you a variety of actions to choose from appropriate to that target. Heal, Pick Up, a whole truckload of superpower attacks, etc. It's easy to control, and the only micromanagement aspects present are there for those who want them (change the damage/energy cost of an attack, etc).

One particularly cool thing about the game is that the developers have really managed to build up a community around it. Prior to FF's release, they posted a character editor for the game and a series of character meshes, allowing gamers to create their own skins. Pop over to www.freedomforcecenter.com and you'll find skins for just about every superhero imaginable, plus stranger things such as characters from other games (Cate Archer), wrestlers (Kane), and even actual people--some maniacs made skins for Sandra Day O'Connor and John F. Kennedy. The skins that made me laugh the most were Greg and Marsha Brady from the The Brady Bunch. A little more practically, there are plain flesh-coloured skins so if you're bad at drawing facial features or muscles, all you have to do is download the skin and work around it.

You can give your hero specific powers, down to assigning animations and even the comic word effects, and when you're done, you can import your custom hero into the game for both single and multiplayer play. Although depending on how powerful you made the hero, it might be a while before you've built up enough prestige to use him or her.

I used the editor and some of this site's graphics to create EP Man, champion of justice and good gaming everywhere. Check out the screenshots and you'll see him delivering a righteous smackup to Shadow, one of the game's supervillains. She was still traveling east last time I checked.

What we have here so far is a well-presented, unique, and grin-inducing game, but on to the inevitable minuses. Occasionally, characters resist instructions for no apparent reason--the custom characters seem to especially prone to this. You'll see an object such as a lamp post or can of Energy X and want to pick it up, but for some reason the game won't let you. In the case of the custom character, I actually had trouble getting him to swing at the bad guys. He'd walk up to them but wouldn't hit them. If this is a glitch it should be patched, if it's a legitimate game rule, than there should be a message to explain why you can't do what you're attempting.

I'd like to have seen more camera control given to the player. The default setting is good enough to play the game, but if you want to rotate the camera to get a more interesting view, you'll have trouble. That's a pity, because pausing the game and just looking at a thug sail through the air or get lit up by an energy beam is really fun. I wish the camera system was closer to Dungeon Siege's. And, here's a complaint that falls into the Gee-We-Give-Them-The-World-And-They-Still-Want-More department: I'd love to see a random Quick Action/Skirmish mode, and the ability to make your own maps. Maybe someday.

Freedom Force's big downer is that the multiplayer is basically nothing but deathmatch. I know it would have been hard to work out a co-op mode, but there are lots of unexplored possibilities here. Imagine Capture the Flag or King of the Hill matches with guys in tights and superpowers. Clearly the focus was on the single player aspect, which admittedly is very deep and makes it worth the price to get on this ride. There are all sorts of enemies to fight, from goons to supervillains to dinosaurs, robots, and giant insects. Not only is the delivery just plain cool, there's a surprising amount of tactical depth. Should Minute Man use a stun attack to hold Nuclear Winter's minion next to the explosive barrel while El Diablo uses an area attack to detonate the whole area, or will that endanger the civilians and cost me prestige? And keep in mind, your attacks can damage hero and villain alike... Should I take big tough slow guys on this mission, speedy little guys, or a mix of both?

Graphically, the game is decent, though not overpowering. It does present a look that suits the comic book approach. Special praise must go to the audio, which is fantastic. Aside from all the lovely crashes, punches and power rays, this game has some really awesome music. I love Nuclear Winter's music in particular.

In the end, the single player game does the job for Freedom Force. I even find it replayable, using different tactics and heroes (after all, I can create an endless supply). And ok, ok, I'll say it--we PC gamers have waited a very long time for the superhero experience. Well, here it is finally, and it arrived in style. This is the kind of fun and innovation we long for--now go pick it up.

"In what other profession can you run around in a cape, jump off buildings, swing on flagpoles or run down Main Street screaming 'Show yourself, Invisible Lashlord!' and not get dragged away by the police on suspicion of a major drugs violation?" -Mark Leigh and Mike Lepine, How to Be A Superhero

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