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.
The game shows a lot of polish and really brings the mechanics to life. The music isn't terribly intrusive, and the graphics are pretty, but simple, and it creates a great atmosphere for the game. With four different characters, each with their own mechanics, there's plenty of variety for the single player, and the ability to play multiplayer pass-and-play at home is a plus. The online multiplayer, however, doesn't connect very quickly to other players, which I'm assuming is simply a problem of not having enough players actually playing online multiplayer with others (and will likely change over time). As far as digital board games go, this one is pretty solid, and is definitely worth a download.
