Reviewed: April 28, 2005
Reviewed by: Tyler Whitney

Publisher
Vivendi Universal Games

Developer
Irrational Games

Released: March 8, 2005
Genre: Action-RPG
Players: 1-2
ESRB: Teen

8
9
9
9
9.0

Minimum System Requirements

Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich abounds with tongue-in-cheek campy humor and an innovative strategy/action hybrid design that super-hero fan’s can’t be without. With the current explosion of comic based movies and games, this title fits right in but also exudes it’s own unique style that sets it above the rest.

All the heroes and villains return from the first game, as well as some new ones, but you will be seeing more of the same most of the time; a small disappointment. The character creation is pretty neat too, as you can really come up with an endless combination of powers. You can choose from any character skin in game, and the online community is VERY active in producing mods and new skins regularly. All powers are also present, allowing for some very odd combinations like mind control with fire blast, but even the animations and sound effects can be tweaked to your liking.

The view is isometric rotatable and zoom able, even into an over-the-shoulder view that puts you into your character’s shoes even more. You can point and click, drag and select, all controls very similar to most RTS of the day.

Powers can be accessed via a handy pop-up menu near the character, and you have energy points that you have to keep an eye on, lest you become weak as an ordinary human. All of these powers are pretty unique to each character and make sense; often you must coordinate your attacks to get the most out of your members. For instance, Mentor can subdue openents from afar, but is weak in damage dealing. Therefore you need the bulk and power of ManBot to finish them up with energy beams and giant metallic fists-or just huck a dumpster at them.

The environments are very interactive as well; you can hurl cars or wield telephones like a bongo bat-even pick up trees! Along with that, all the buildings and surrounding objects usually can be torn down in the wake of combat. After playing City of Heroes, where the environment was very static, this comes as a very refreshing feature. Hopefully this helps to continue the trend of more interactive worlds to explore.

The online experience has deathmatch, team deathmatch and also a more fleshed out story mode type of multiplayer experience, whereby you would be forced to play certain characters in a certain scenario. After a bit of playing online, it was really a blast coordinating your attacks and trying to outdo your opponent, although there is no handy pause feature when things get hectic.

All of this is yet again used with GamespyArcade, a system I really don’t give high marks to. Sure it is has lots of features and is colorful, but it is plagued by ads and also some wonky ping displays for servers. I prefer to use All-Seeing Eye (also free) for my gaming, supporting 99.9% of games out there but without all the clutter of GamespyArcade.

Also, if you want the multiplayer feel but without having to go online, the “Rumble Room” is a sort of create-a-battle system where you can select from a huge assortment of heroes and villains to duke it out. I loved having a massive Time Master battle; 8 towering robots firing laser beams out of every orifice, buildings evaporated, cars flew wildly and civilians ran for cover-it was glorious.

While the animations are simple, they are also quite varied across the plethora of characters and enemies you interact with. Perhaps the coolest aspect are the nearly fully destructible environments-especially the urban areas, I had flashbacks to Rampage after I crumpled a couple buildings into rubble.

The art direction is certainly akin to Kirby/Lee of old; especially in the comic-esque cut scenes- don’t expect high-end CG sequences. But the style fits perfectly for this title and I am glad they didn’t spend valuable development time on flashy cut-scenes.

Musically, this is another strong showing by Irrational. The set theme song is some strange humming march tune, but beyond that each level has it’s own catchy rift playing. Although at times, I was slightly annoyed by them-sometimes the campy nature of the game just became too much for me too handle- as I prefer more hardcore titles- you shouldn’t be bothered too much.

As far as sound effects go, a lot of it reminded me of old school Batman show stock, sans the robust, yet eerily soft voice of Adam West. Lots of zips, zaps, bops and pows, as well as laser beams, tornadoes and other effects seemingly plucked from the 4 corners of the Earth.