Rating: 
Summary: Freedom Force - XP SP2
Review: 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
Rating: 
Summary: Superman vs. Wolverine! You name the battles!
Review: 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...
Rating: 
Summary: Online play is awful.
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: Great interactive RPG play, comicbookish or otherwise
Review: Freedom Force does have a somewhat cheesy first-glance appearance that might put off some gamers. The protagonist characters are all 60s-style comicbook superheroes (none you'd recognize, as they were all created specifically for this game), complete with occasional booming puffed-chest declarations of righteousness. The setting is a fictional U.S. metropolis during the red scare period of the early 1960s, when a seemingly freak occurance transforms a scattering of the population into superpowered heroes and villians. I'm not particularly partial to comicbook settings myself, but... if you can look past that surface comicbook appearance for a moment... Freedom Force's gameplay is similar to a fantasy RPG, but more impressively interactive and flexible than most. Players initially control one hero character, the burly and highly patriotic Minuteman. Additional heroes are met and can be recruited over the course of the game, allowing you to play squads of up to four heroes at a time. Each new hero has a distinct set of superpowers (which can be trained and expanded as each gains more experience), and comes with his or her own comicbook origin movie (which make for amusing intermissions, in their cheesy 60s comicbook way). And while coordinating a squad of four varied superheroes can seem overwhelming at first, frequent use of the pause button (and a little practice) makes this much easier than it might initially seem. The Freedom Force heroes find themselves called into situations in a variety of different settings (including cityscapes, parks, a battleship deck, caverns, and more) and against a diverse range of opponents (from city thugs to similarly empowered supervillians to giant insects and raging dinosaurs), requiring the player to consider different tactics for different situations. One of the best features of Freedom Force is the fact that most items you encounter (rocks, oil barrels, street light poles, cars, etc.) can be picked up and wielded or thrown. (My favorites are tossing explosive items such as TNT crates at approaching baddies, and ripping street lights from the corner sidewalk to wield for smackdown purposes.) Even most buildings can be brought down, including damage to anyone standing atop them at the time (although the local citizens might not appreciate this). The storyline is distinctly linear, which may limit the appeal of repeat playthroughs of the game. But I am definitely enjoying my romp through this game so far (and equally enjoying my eight-year-old son's animated excitement as he watches me play, or as he works out his own manner of heroic doomsday prevention). And a sequel game (Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich) is expected in Spring of 2004....
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