Freedom Force vs. the 3rd Reich

I've played both the original Freedom Force and this game, and I have to say that they're both strong titles in their own right. Likable characters, intriguing story, and excellent tactical gameplay. While both games are very "champions of the homeland" oriented, this one has an even more "Yeah America! (or in this case, 'Yeah Allied Powers!')" feel to it than the first game. Everything about the story hearkens back to the origins of comic books--stalwart defenders of the common folk, battling against the forces that threaten their safety and way of life. The difficulty can range from easy to very challenging (the latter of which may or may not be desirable). Each super-hero or super-heroine has his or her own type of abilities with different damage types. In turn, enemies have a wide variety of resistances that can counteract those damage types. The cold-powered super-villain Nuclear Winter, for example, absorbs or reflects ice damage attacks. Because of a mix of enemies with different attack potential and resistances, the game can be difficult (especially in the first missions) if you don't know how to approach your objectives. Initially, this factor turned me off in a big way, but I got through each problematic mission after re-trying it a few times. As you progress throughout the game, you can upgrade your team members and/or recruit new champions of justice to your cause. You can even create custom super-heroes or super-heroines to join your team! I just wish there were more custom options other than using the main characters' templates. If you're a fan of strategy games, the bygone days of comics, and good old-fashioned campy humor, then you'll probably enjoy this overlooked gem.

Freedom Force was a special, magical game. It had charm and heart oozing out of every bit and it just felt right. Freedom Force 2 does a lot of the same things well. The main thing that changed between the two games was balance. In the original, some of your characters like Minuteman and Bullet were fast, accurate and good at dodging. They were perfect for stopping groups of gangsters and saving civilians. Meanwhile, characters like Manbot and El Diablo were power houses more suited to going up against giant robots. Send Bullet after a giant robot and he'll get smashed. Send Manbot to save a lady from a group of thugs and his slow attack animation and low accuracy will doom him to failure. But that was okay! Not all superheroes are created equal. Sometimes, you need Thor and other times you need Ant-Man. It gave the game strategic flavor and brought the story to life. In Freedom Force 2, the characters were rebalanced so that pretty much everybody had a medium strength melee attack and a low damage medium range attack. The characters were more equal but some of the heart was lost. There were no missions you needed to bring Man-O-War because a flier with electric and water attacks was especially useful, no missions where you needed Eve's ranged accuracy over El Diablo's pure firepower. You could just bring whoever. Didn't matter. The story is also less varied. While FF1 had you going up against Soviet mutants, Greek gods, alien invaders, super powered gangsters, giant robots, evil duplicates and time displaced dinosaurs, FF2 has you fighting the axis powers and that's about it. Still, it's a solid game and Tombstone is awesome.

Freedom Force was a love letter to the Silver Age of comics, and everything it managed, it did with absolute aplomb. But if the original was all about the Silver Age, its sequel is all about the Golden Age, resurrecting heroic archetypes familiar to anyone who's ever read a comic from Captain America's original run, or Wonder Woman's Nazi-busting adventures of the 1940s, or even later comic book wonders like Marvel's The Invaders--indeed, the last one is perhaps closest in spirit to this game, or vice versa. What's remarkable about this game is how very little needed to be tweaked for the game. Virtually everything the original did right is kept, and while the story is perhaps a bit less intrepid than its predecessor, the same wonder for comics and for fun gameplay is maintained here. There was virtually nothing that needed fixing from the first game, and rather than try to reinvent itself, Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich is a game about celebrating all of the fun comics and video games can represent, and as such, it's an absolute must-play.

A team-based sandbox-y superhero game, that is. The vast body of work the community has put into this game is worth the price of admission all on its own, and you're free to recreate your favourite superhero battles to your heart's content. In fact, you're much more likely to spend more time poring through the community's skins and mods, tweaking them to your satisfaction and customizing the hero files than playing the campaign itself, which is pretty good as well.

Freedom Force return in this the second of sadly only there two outings. The game follows on from the first and tells a great story from the Golden/Silver age of Comics. For those familiar with the first game nothing much changes here, it’s all just tweaked and refined to offer a better playing experience (if that where Possible). Combat is a mixture of real time and paused to make commands. The game just drips quality and love and it was sad we never got a third in the series. One of the greatest superhero games ever made.