Freedom Fighters is great concept-wise, the music equally so, it takes a bit of strategy of what targets to take down first to weaken enemy forces before you can launch a attack on the enemy HQ outright (although you're never stopped from attempting to do so) the downside is it's archaic shooting, the weapons have a very large spread, the HUD doesn't scale well to modern resolutions and the AI is dumb as rocks. So it's a big give and take but for what it was at the time, it's still considered a gem.
I can't do it! the level design is split-hair centric, with other games in the same vein of semi-open worlds like Soul Reaver or Zelda you progress in a linear direction and have to explore to proceed, with Shadow Man, you are basically a mouse in a maze, bumping your nose along every identical wall, backtracking to find a key to progress all the while there's very little variation in a set envioment. If you are in it for the story, prepare for a exposition dump spoken of a ambigious prophicy with a book given that gives a full 20 mins worth to read up on. It's honestly no wonder why this game didn't catch on, the shooting is awkward, movement and jumping is 'lanky' it just doesn't have the chops to implement it's vision. I stopped at the asylum after running around and tiresly jumping on the same platforms trying to find a way through, no more! Play Soul Reaver instead, a MUCH better game.
