Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare Review

It was a sunny day, sometime around the twelfth hour as I lay in the woods with my four squads. Something passed the large tree I had my scope on. I continued to wait until more targets of opportunity walked into my field of fire. I would be scared into action by someone on my left opening-up with a SAW (M249), only moments before the rest of the squads began their rain of bullets and explosives. The weapons bloom of the SAW was making me uneasy because it gave away my position, so I crawled a short ways away to gain an interval of distance and began firing again. It wasn't long before the last enemy dropped and we'd won the day.

Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare is a first-person shooter that combines RPG and strategy game elements. You can conquer a town, build armies, start treaties with allies, and wage wars on enemies. It's a mix of Mount and Blade tactics and a bit of Arma's movement and shooting. The story is somewhat vague and leaves the player with a slight confusion on why everything has gone to hell in this world. Besides a starting message, the story itself is almost nonexistent, once again leaving the player to fill in these holes with their imagination. Other than the start of the game where the player chooses their background and history, there isn't much to add. The multiple campaigns start in different scenarios depending on the beginning you choose, giving the game a high replayability rate.

Creating a character is fairly straightforward. You have your character's name and what sex you are. From there you enter the limited character creation pool. There aren't a ton of choices, but the gear you loot later will cover up your weird character. The player will now receive a "Welcome to Cherniv!" message that explains that you're free to run around and experience this world at war. Players will start in a place depending on their background given, usually by a small town and a short way away from a major city. Among the first things that are quite noticeable are the map size and the cities. Being a default game mode I wasn't sure how big the map would be, but I was pleasantly surprised. You have enough starting money to get a few basic weapons and a few civilians who you can recruit to fight for you. The player will receive weekly progress reports on their territories and groups. Occasionally receiving story messages on the side, which make no sense most of the time.

The day and night cycles are much like Mount and Blade. Players can engage with enemies on the map no matter what time of day or night and the battle map will fit that time. The night battles are quite fun even when the player doesn't have night-vision goggles. The tracers in-game are decent. The same colour tracers for all sides can be confusing in large battles. The shadows and lighting are pretty good as you can hide behind things to get the sun out of your scope, or simply low crawl into a shadow of a tree and bush for cover.

Weapons and armour are a big part of this game, along with the camouflage stat you get with certain types of gear. There is a massive variety of weapons and ammo. Some can only be found in certain cities, but all can be found by traveling the world and visiting towns or black market dealers for the more rare items. Weapons have addons including scopes and silencers. Scopes come in infrared and holographic, as well as 2x, 4x, and 6x magnification. Some scope settings can be messed with including the scope sensitivity, giving the player more control. The companions you meet during the game can become your generals, leading armies to attack other cities and forces, or protecting the area around your territories.

The enemy and player AI isn't overly hard even when on the more difficult settings. Simple tactics and flanking maneuvers can easily roll up an enemy force from the side. However, having trained troops with better equipment and weapons is noticeable compared to untrained civilians. Another note on the combat AI is that armies won't identify each other until they are both in a certain range, even if the player has been shooting for minutes.

Mods have added a new diversity to the game. Players have already released custom campaigns, weapons, and sound mods, as well as a few texture changes. An incredibly easy cheat system is in the game too. Simply press End on your keyboard and it brings up a list of cheats. Or if players just want a quick battle, jump into one from the custom battles button on the main menu.

There's always something to do in Cherniv with criminals, pirates, and war in abundance. Watch out for the smoke grenades because they will completely white out an area. And toggle that friendly fire setting. Welcome to Cherniv!

Freeman was better than I anticipated or expected. The shadows and lighting were beautiful and the updates that have been rolled out have been fairly uniform. The update map on the Steam page is something to be excited about when you see all the possible upcoming features. The worry I have is that the game felt pushed out of beta quicker than I'd like. KK Game Studios has grown and shifted focus onto another game. So only time will tell if the updates will continue to be as great as they were before.