Others say...

"Classy, stylistic, fun and great music to boot!"
Most of the time, when you see a game in the bargain bin for almost nothing, it means it's either outdated or it wasn't that much fun to begin with. Of course, every once in a while, you can find a gem. Freedom Force is one of those.

Freedom Force is a team-based classic comic-book action-RPG that doesn't compromise with its audience. No corners were cut in this game. You won't see any modern slang in here, or any lame attempts at out-of-context humor. All of the dialog in this game is strictly what you would expect from a rerun of the original Batman or Superman TV show. You get as convincing a 60's comic environment as possible.

This game is brimming with style. From the moment you first start playing, you're instantly immersed in a 60's comic book world. A great amount of detail was put into each and every environment, allowing your super-heroes to manipulate and destroy the environment ... everything from skyscrapers to cars and telephone poles can be used in combat, or destroyed little by little into a pile of rubble.

Characters advance by gaining experience on missions, and learn new super powers. You can either use the ones you're given in the campaign or create and import your own using a character creator that looks like it's straight out of one of those 200 pg table-top RPG creation guides. The possiblities are almost limitless, though the creation editor allows somewhat over-powered super-heroes early in the game. You can also play this game or compete online with your friends, in multiplayer mode.

On top of the great gameplay, style, and class that Freedom Force provides, there is also a killer soundtrack. The music was composed by someone truly in-tune with the style of the game itself. I found myself humming the overtures provided in some of the final battles days after playing the game.

Although the game is a little short, and can be beaten in a week or two, it is worth playing for the incrediblely accurate dialog, style, gameplay and music. Personally, I enjoy RPG campaigns that cap off before I *want* them to cap off. Being short and sweet keeps them from becoming monotonous.

It is not hard to believe that Freedom Force was made by the same great minds who brought us the wonderful System Shock series. Irrational Games is quickly becoming one of my favorite dev teams.

"Freedom Force - XP SP2"
Just a quick note to say I bought this game yesterday and today I find out it is not compatable with Windows XP SP2.
There is supposed to be a patch being worked on but it is three months since this was first mentioned.
I would recommend NOT buying this game if you have Windows XP SP2 - as its only useful as a drinks coaster unless a patch is made

"Superman vs. Wolverine! You name the battles!"
I rarely played the campaign game.

I always played the game using its service pack which unlocked/included a "Training Room" or war room. I have downloaded hundreds of costumes and meshes and sounds that others have uploaded to the internet. I then have created nearly 50 characters (limitless) to play and test in a one man standing against upto 50 enemies.

Characters like the X-Men and spiderman and such, cost few points, like 2k to 8k. My Superman character is nearly unstoppable at 35,000 points. At 50,000 points he is about the same, but then has all his little powers that not many know about, like his power to take the sun's life energy out of plant life (I found this in a thick comic book of BatMan... Dark Knight Returns?). I created other characters with well into the 100's of thousands of points, but Superman can take them all down eventually, except for one. If I take my superman's stats, and give him the ability to regenerate (like wolverine) he becomes unstoppable.

So I would see how smart I could play against these other superhero creations. I would have the computer play the enemies while I would choose an underdog to attempt to rise above the strong tactics the computer would use. Using Superman as an underdog, I would see who I could defeat, having to use different tactics against different opponents. So I battled against a regenerating superman. Oh man! This guy was crazy to fight! I had to be right on top of him all the time cause if he got hurt a little he would fly away while regenerating. My non regen superman died hundreds of times, until I finally started using his small and weak power to steal life energy. It kept him alive just long enough to continuously pomel the evil super guy.

I told my friend about it, being such an awesome game for so cheap, he went out and bought it during lunch one day. He loved it! Where I like punching, he liked other stuff and made a Storm character whose tornados would multiply. With one casting, it had destroyed the entire city's buildings to rubble. Very powerful.

My only complaints are that with so many others who love the game, I was never able to find/start a multiplayer game. If only the game company had advertised and gave out playable demos, then their success would have been realized all at once, and they could have hosted games like blizzard does, and hosted player uploadable content.

This game has so much un-realized potential...

"Online play is awful."
The offline, single-player mode was okay I guess -- not the best story, but excellent cut-scenes, recognizeable characters, and pretty even-handed challenges.

Once that was over, I tried the online play, and that was just TERRIBLE.

What I was hoping for: an online game where users would model their characters perhaps after popular comic book characters like Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America, etc. and battle it out. As I recall I made myself a Hulk character to start out with -- impossibly strong, but also kind of slow.

Little did I realize that EVERYBODY online opts instead to use over-powered characters. If your character can't fly at incredible speeds and fire blasts that will instantly kill anyone, then forget about it. You can try to start a game up that limits the powers a character can have (by limiting the number of "points" the user can put towards the character), but nobody will play with you. They're all busy seeing who can press the "instant destruction ray" button faster. What fun.

"Stand Back Evil-Doer!"
If you don't enjoy this game, then you're taking video games WAY too seriously. This CD has not left my PC's CD drive in over three months. The back story's great. The graphics are excellent. Skinning your own characters is not hard at all. The voices, while somewhat hokey, are extremely accurate for the timeframe portrayed.

All in all, this is probably the most fun game I've ever purchased, and have been recommending it to everyone I know ever since I got it.

Button-mashers beware... You can't just punch your way through this game, you need to choose your heroes based on their strengths. If you don't like thinking, this game isn't for you.

Otherwise, get it... NOW!