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Freedom: First Resistance

The Specs

Freedom: First Resistance is a 3D third-person action adventure game that puts the player in control of a small squad of underground resistence fighters. Earth has been conquered by the Catteni, a race of bipedal catlike creatures, and the player will attempt to overthrow them during the course of the mission-based game that combines stealth, action, and puzzle-solving. The player's small squad will be led by a freedom fighter named Angel Sanchez. They will consist of characters with unique abilities -- one will be good with electronics, another at fighting, etc. All the dialogue is spoken, with over 6000 recorded lines of speech. Freedom: First Resistance is set in the world of a series of novels by Anne McCaffrey, who is best known for the Dragonriders of Pern novels.

The Speculation

Mark's Comments: Everything Red Storm has done has been interesting -- Shadow Watch is one of the year's best games -- though only the Rainbow Six series has been a hit. So that automatically puts Freedom on my short list of games I want to play. Third-person action games where you have to control multiple characters worry me, though, and puzzle-based games usually make me want to toss my mouse through a window. Red Storm better have a nice interface devised for this game to help us control the action, and I hope the puzzles are both clever and yet easy to solve. Nothing destroys a game's immersiveness more quickly than an inane puzzle.

Tom's Comments: Mark's a little more bullish on Red Storm than I am. They've done a handful of superlative games, but they've had their share of middling fare: ruthless.com, Dominant Species, Bang!, Force 21, and the latest Rogue Spear expansion. Freedom: First Resistance sounds like it's straightjacketed into telling a linear story with fixed characters and scripted puzzles. Unfortunately, I remember how well that didn't work in Eidos' Commandos. I also have reservations that this is the first computer game from lead designer Richard Dansky, whose background is in writing horror RPG's and fiction at White Wolf.