• Publisher: Crave
  • Release Date: Mar 24, 2002
Freedom Force Image
Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 27 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 34 Ratings

  • Summary: From a distant corner of the galaxy, an evil alien race sets in motion a sinister plan to conquer the Earth. They unleash a powerful catalyst - Energy X - that imbues the planet's worst miscreants with super-powers to bring the planet to its knees. Now Earth's only hope lies with a new breed of heroes... The Freedom Force! Command a squad of comic book heroes in the defense of Patriot City. Choose from over a dozen heroes or create your own comic champions. Fight for freedom in over 20 action-packed missions. Restore order in a completely interactive 3D world. Take your heroes online and join the fight in multiplayer mode. [Electronic Arts] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 27
  2. Negative: 0 out of 27
  1. In an age where you thought everything has been done before, along comes Freedom Force, shattering genre lines, daring to do something different, and instilling fun for all ages into a game—you can't ask for anything more.
  2. The most pure fun you'll have with a strategy or RPG game this year. [June 2002, p.80]
  3. One of the best games of 2002 (it was released way back in March), and it’s even better now that it’s seen two patches and Electronic Arts has lowered its price to under $15.
  4. Like the comic books that inspired it, Freedom Force features slick animation and plenty of boffo, whiz-bang special effects.

See all 27 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Negative: 1 out of 10
  1. ChristianB.
    10
    The Best super hero game i ever played. The chance to customly create your own hero is great.
  2. CarlosG.
    8
    Game is good, but if it was great, I wouldn't be writing this, I would be playing it.
  3. 5
    I won't lie, what completely ruined this game for me is the control scheme. I know its opinion but still. I just don't do point and click with a game like this. Expand
  4. The game is pretty terrible. I love the art and the over-the-top comic book-esque voice acting, and the atmosphere really captures that comic book feel, but the gameplay is awful.

    Though the basics are in place, click something to interact with it, it's the extras that just flat out fail. There are pseudo-stealth elements to the game, and they just do not work. Enemies can see you no matter where you stand, your character is too slow and inaccurate to react accordingly. In fact, the slow pace is very obvious throughout. The characters seem to wade through water, and though your character is noticeably faster when running (at least compared to enemies) he manages to have the attacking speed of an epileptic sloth, and, on the rare occasion when a projectile based attack hits, you have basically wasted your time because of the sheer slowness of the game.

    The earliest (and best) example of this, that I noticed, was the second mission. Though this is supposed to be a tutorial mission, unfortunately focused on the aforementioned stealth elements, the overall goal, especially the secondary mission goals, seem to be outright impossible with the guide of the game. Admittedly, if you're clever, you can get around this by ignoring the tutorial, but the point is that it seems to me to be a huge oversight when a tutorial doesn't actually lead to success, at least when it's intention is supposed to be success.

    Though the game technically works, it has not aged well. The game is slow and plodding and the action is pretty underwhelming. Damage seems completely randomized, ranging from one hit kills (for no apparent reason) to barely scratching the enemy with the same attack an instant later, and, though you can technically react to the situations that play out, I never found anything more useful than letting my character auto-beat the hell out of the enemy with my only input being to tell him which enemy. Though there are many skills to choose, and many characters, it all just seems pointless.

    This game just suffers from age. The mechanics are either boring or don't work, and, though it has a fantastic setting and voice acting (that really captures that comic book world) it doesn't manage to deliver on the action that should accompany that. It's just overall a disappointing game.
    Expand

See all 10 User Reviews

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