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Freedom Force Take On Third Reich
Thanks to GameSpot for their preview of Irrational's PC RPG sequel, Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich. According to the first look at this previously unannounced title, a follow-up to the popular tactical role-playing game which featured "a stable of superheroes based on classic 1960s Silver Age comics", this sequel boasts an enhanced 3D engine and Nazi tentacle-bots, as "...the Freedom Force team must travel back in time to World War II to battle a new supervillain named Blitzkrieg, who is the defender of the Reich."
Am I the only one who is suddenly reminded of the nazi death-rape machine referred to in some hentai? And no, I haven't seen it. it's just one of those urban legend things that just sort of gets talked about but nobody will admit to seeing. Mostly because nobody will admit to watching hentai.
Still, whuppin nazi ass is a lot of fun. Good to see that it'll be an RPG with superheroes and such instead of now-overdone Omaha beach landing sequence+five million other overdone cliches of videogames that take place during the second world war, most egregious in among the offending titles the everpresent, almost inescapable first person shooters.
I think this is great news! When I saw this over at Blues News I was very excited. Freedom Force was a great game on so many levels. It was a hell of a lot of fun, the script was hilarious right from the opening sequence, and it was just such an original take on the strategy genre.
The "Dirty Commi Bastard" humour was very amusing (even to an Aussie), so I can see the Third Reich angle being an easy target for them. I hope they bring back the same characters.
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I'll admit it! (posting as an AC to protect my identity)
Sort of cute really, the first freedom force is a great game that didn't get the sales that the accolades should have predicted. i am glad that a sequel is in the works, good games deserve good sequels.
I can't help but think though, are they giving it the WW2 spin because they think it might be interesting, or is it because WW2 games are the "in" thing right now?
Thats a rhetorical question by the way.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
I think the villian's name is a rather interesting choice. After all, Blitzkrieg ("lightning war" if memory serves) was the name given to the German air force's battle tactics--fly over, strike fast and hard to eliminate all the targets, and fly out. So is the supervillian supposed to be lightning-fast too?
Does this mean that the Freedom Force will also take on Arnold Schwarzenegger? Goodbye Karma! ;)
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Freedom force was a kick ass game. And a sequel that would be so bitch'n. and i think people can back me up on that. The one thing they could improve on is to make the game A L O T harder. thats why theres probally going to be a sequel. once again that will be bitch'n
I for one welcome our new tentaclebot...ah, forget it.
probably because Nazis are the ultimate bad guy. FF was really a live action cominc book. And while I know next to nothing about the history of comic books, I do know that characters like Captain America had great runs during WW2 because they had story lines where the heros would go after the Nazis.
and I must second the Freedom Force being an underrated game comment. One can still find it in bargain bins and at non-game retailers (Walmart, Target, etc.) for around $15 US. Definitely worth your money at that price.
Are you a bad enough dude to beat up Hitler?
Whenever I heard Ken Levine talking about possible sequels to Freedom Force just after the game came out, I remember him and other Irrationals speaking specifically of moving the Freedom Force characters through comic ages with each sequel. Maybe I'm just not seeing the correlation with this one, but it doesn't seem like this is following in that trend.
That's not say that I won't be the only one lined up at EB's gate the morning the sequel's out. I absolutely adored the first one and consider it among the best games ever crafted. Nevertheless, this seems more along the lines of an expansion pack than a full-fledged sequel.
Was anyone else as freaked out as I was when hearing the System Shock 2 announcement voice in Freedom Force for the first time? I kept thinking zombies were going to jump out from behind a corner, "Kiiiillll meeeeee...."
Here's the official announcement mirrored at Blue's News.
One line that intrigued me:
A radically revised rendering engine that gives "Freedom Force" a look torn right out of the comic book pages.
Are they moving to cel-shaded rendering? At least it's more than just a novelty in this case. Although I think it would be kind of cool if they'd tried to do a kind of 50s TV look as well - just to distinguish it from the multitude of cel-shaded games already).
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These tentacle bots look surprisingly similar to the Hitlerbot in Kill Hitler's Brain: http://www.alwaysondubs.com/gamesite/khbsite/khbfr ames.html
I'm surprised they're making a sequel. I thought that the first game didn't sell well to warrant one. But I'm glad it's happening because the first game was very cool. I think over time this could be a great franchise. I can totally see this evolving from the Silver Age of comics into the jaded, morally-complex 80's era (personified by the X-Men). But the first game was great for its corny dialogue and the black-and-white morality of the characters.