Freedom Fighters Review

I thought Freedom Fighters was going to be those "cult classics" games that I was going to play for a couple of hours and then stop playing because it was dated or that I found it to be overhyped. Turns out Freedom Fighters was not that, I enjoyed a lot more than I initally thought I was going to, the game does have it's weird quirks for sure and some of them geniunely annoyed me especially at the start but the more I played it, the more I started to like it.

I'll start with the good, Freedom Fighters does a great job at having it's mechanics tell the story. Games back then and now rely heavily on cutscenes to tell their stories and while I am not against that and it is all fine and good, it is rather refreshing that you can tell a story of sorts primarily through gameplay mechanics especially through a shooting game, there is barely any cutscenes and when there are, it's all reaction to what the player did in the game.

How does FF do this? It's through the "charisma points" system where doing objectives, like raising flags, helping prisoners, blowing up various installations will have the game world be "inspired" by your actions, as a result you will have more people to recruit in your squad and you will have more of a fighting chance with others around you then you do alone. Like many "squad based tactical shooters," the lone wolf tactic will not work and you need npcs to help you out as either distractions or extra firepower during battles.

This will especially be felt early game, where Chris can only take on maybe 2-4 soldiers max on his own and you are barely scrapping by gun fights as you waiting to ambush soldiers to that run into your crosshairs, waiting for the right time to heal up, and desperately hurrying to find ammo as you progress through the early levels, it's one of the most "harmonic" sync ups between gameplay and story I have experienced in a shooter. Chris and the player start off as an "underdog lone wolf" and then slowly throughout the game becomes an "underground freedom fighter" and he is able to take more soldiers with him to battle and more of the various maps will be populated with npcs on your side. The game really laid an impression on me because of all this especially in a time where games get derided for not having their "gameplay" match with with the stories the developers are telling to tell, I really don't care but when a game does manage to pull it off the connection between story and gameplay, it can really stand out.

The assassination "stealth section" was also surprisingly tolerable while the AI does get easily alerted like many action games attempting it from the era, FF at the very least when you are spotted only alert enemies in a sector will know and if you do get alerted the whole hivemind at least doesn't come after you. Also, sniping the Soviet general and then getting out after can feel pretty awesome since it wasn't scripted from what I recall.

Level design is also solid. Can be a bit too bottlenecked with the amount of fences and closed doors, I do like how there are alternate places to climb up, alleyways to cut around and pillars to hide from gunfire as you slowly close in on the enemy, it kind of reminded me of the Lobby shooutout from the Matrix.

There are some isssues with the game like the manual aim being awkward to use and I used it a lot early game but eventually just relied on the auto aim a lot of the time and used manual aim for far off targets.

The lack of a reload button can be pretty annoying since Chris can reload at the most inopportune of times as I am surronded by enemies and it could lead to a death, this could be avoided if there was a a dedicated reload button so I can know when to cower and when to attack.

I also wished throwable weapons had an "arc" rather than a vague throwing meter since then it will be easier to tell where they are going to land.

The save system at first can also be very dated and awkward especially early game. For example one of the early missions required me to destroy a helicoptor that landed, so I did and save in the area where that helicoptor is located and I thought since I destroyed it means firendly npcs will spawn next to me and I "took it over" but I was alone and surronded by enemies who can kill me with ease and I can't choose spawn points either so if it wasn't for an emu save state, I could've gotten soft locked here. This gave me a bad 1st impression that I slowly got out of but be warned, sewer/spawn points can't be selected and early game always save at the start of a mission rather in the heart of enemy territory.

Overall, Freedom Fighters was a good time, and it managed to be a shooter that told a story primarily through its mechanics which is impressive, there are some odd quirks about here and there but if you like playing older "underrated gems" then this is worth looking into.