60 Second Review of…
Freedom Force
Mark's review: If you're a comic book fan, Freedom
Force is a nearly perfect game. Irrational Games has done a pow!
bam! and bang! up job of recreating the feel and innocence of early
'60's comics and putting them into a computer game. Commies are
bad, heroes are good, the writing's perfect, and the never-before-seen
superheroes seem to have jumped straight from the cracked and yellowed
pages of vintage comics into the game. Every hero has a weakness,
though, and Freedom Force's kryptonite is dull multiplayer, a missing
skirmish mode, and an interface is a bit off at times -- no mini-map
and the camera control can be irritating. Do yourself a favor and
play the demo at least. It's a superb game.
Tom's review: Freedom Force sports a pretty swell
tactical engine, but it seems like Irrational just stopped working
on it after a certain point. They did almost nothing to give this
game any longevity beyond the single player campaign. The multiplayer
support has zero balance and it seems tacked on as an afterthought.
The lack of a skirmish mode means there's not much point in playing
around with the flexible hero creation system. If they plan on patching
the game up (which they've said they do), they're sure taking their
sweet time. So why did I enjoy it so much? As they say of California,
it's the cheese. The main appeal of Freedom Force is the goofy and
earnest comic book tone of the campaign, which includes a little
bit of everything: aliens, dinosaurs, cloning, time travel, giant
bugs, communists. Even if you're a snooty guy like me who considers
himself above comic books, it's hard not to get carried away by
Irrational's fondness for the genre.
Read Tom's full
review on Gamespy.
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Irrational Games
Genre: a superhero game that wasn't cancelled
Requirements: affection for those Silver Age comics
June 18, 2002
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