The Freedom Force thread

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 5:33 pm

Yeah, I agree with you on that. One of my favorite moments in FF sprung from putting Johnny Hollywood in a mission where people were shooting at him, and having the bullets just bounce off him and deflect everywhere. I couldn't resist saying, "THAT'S MAH BOY!!!" over and over again. Unfortunately, I said it verbally and not just in my head. so lonely

Skinning got easier when someone released templates. From there I just used the "desaturate" feature and created a lot of layers. Templates remained the tricky part -- I have yet to find one that modeled a trenchcoat wearing lycanthrope. There is also one out there for a girl with wings, but nobody ever made one where they the wings going together with those stripper boots that were on some models. (It also occurred to me that if I were going to put the Succubus from ACS in the game, I'd need to give her a gun or something. Otherwise she can't do much, I guess. The game unfortunately does not support picking people up and dropping them from the sky. This is also why the upcoming game based on Kevin Smith's Dogma will not be using the NetImmerse engine.)

Also, I agree with you on the Spidey thing. I didn't play through with him or Batman, as it would have added unnecessary frustration if some of those fourth-stringers in FF took them down. I didn't care as much if someone beat the crap out of die Fledermaus.

by **Debaser** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 5:14 pm

I played through strictly with the included characters, meself. Mostly because the characters I would want to include are mostly characters I created myself in my formative years, and my skinning skills have proven pretty ass. But I also understand Rood's rationale, I think I just feel more involved in things if I'm not trying to cross over Spiderman and Nuklear Winter.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 5:10 pm

Gyyyaha!!!!!

Roody, definitely put your own d00ds in. I'll even make them for you if you have a bunch that you want done. I'll create the directory structure and everything. The built-in characters are as bland as all hell, really. I don't think, throughout the entire game, I added one in where I didn't have to. It's pointless, even, to do so, as there's no new dialogue to be experienced (unlike, say, Baldur's Gate II where if you add one of the NPCs to your party, they will pipe up from time to time).

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 4:50 pm

I have to say that while I'll probably continue to play this game (I'm currently in the 'city of darkness' mission), I just don't think I'm going to really enjoy doing so. Of course, I'm sure it'd help if I had followed Robb's advice and did the prestige points thing and used a bunch of my favorite superheroes, but I really wanted to just see the game on its own merits.
That sequels-based-on-evolving-comic-styles thing sounded pretty cool, though.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 4:33 pm

Has anyone tried out the "Danger Room" feature that was included in the last patch? Here's my thing: inspired by the Daredevil movie last night I realized that there are no Daredevil games for the PC. There's one for the Gameboy Advance, but playing a sidescroller isn't what I was in the mood for. Plus, it was like one in the morning, and I couldn't just run out and get the game and a GBA at that hour.

(An aside: you know, if the new Gameboy, the one that came out a few days ago, could function as a phone I would buy that in an instant. But anyway.)

So I loaded Freedom Force, created Daredevil, and tried the "Danger Room' feature. All it does, from what I could see, is teleport a bunch of bad guys from the game into the park or wherever, in "waves." Well, that ain't gonna work. If I never go up against a mini velociraptor again it'll be too soon. I want to take on Doc Ock and frigging Mr. Hyde and Stilt-Man and whatnot! (OK, Stilt Man probably wouldn't work, but still.)

The FF community has been fractured into a million different jealous, bickering city-states. This is unfortunate. I am hoping that someone figured out how to get custom bad guys into the new patch's Danger Room mod.

(Of course, it's also possible that I didn't select the right game mode and all of this message is worthless. I should probably check on that.)

by **Secession of Invalids** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 8:02 pm

Remarkable. It's truly interesting to see that no matter how sincere Jonsey's concern regarding you, Invalid_Session, was, no one has ratted you out.

However...

THERE HE IS JONESYE!!!!

by **Invalid_session** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 11:42 am

ALL must BOW DOWN before ME!! ARRR!!

by **Debaser** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 12:00 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: God, I hope somehow they get the go-ahead to make a sequel. EA is getting their ass kicked over the Sims Online, however, so who knows if they are going to take a chance on a niche game like FF2 anytime soon.

I think the original design plan was to do a series, with each new game being chonologically further into the future with regards to the comic culture being portrayed. So you'd go from hokey Silver Age patriotism to... I dunno, I guess more disco oriented comics or something in the second, until eventually El Diablo is reinvented as a brooding anti-hero and Minuteman becomes an ironic emblem of the nation's failing innocence. Or something.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 11:55 pm

I think you can get it for $15 just about anywhere. It's really a great value at that price point. I paid $40, and definitely got my money's worth. God, I hope somehow they get the go-ahead to make a sequel. EA is getting their ass kicked over the Sims Online, however, so who knows if they are going to take a chance on a niche game like FF2 anytime soon.

by **Worm2** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 7:34 pm

Now I need to go down to my local EB! Then I'll notice it is overpriced by 300% and I'll download it. Those fuckers seriously tried to sell me SoF2 for ten bucks more than the price on their site and are still selling The Sims ... yea the first plain one for forty four dollars.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 6:38 pm

The character creation is EXCELLENT. You can definitely do that, Worm. I had Rorschach in my team (from Watchmen) and all I had him out there with was an approximation of his hook gun. (Actually, I may have just made it a regular gun now that I think about it. It was still great to see him out there. I think I had him on a mission where there were chicks shooting acid arrows and minotaurs running around. So I had Guy Gardner, El Diablo and Booster Gold all trying to take down the heavy hitters, and Rorscach trying to scurry about and talk to the enemies that had surrendered. GOD, THAT'S A GREAT GAME. I need to go play it again for moments like that.)

Punisher would be fine -- there are both Punisher models and skins out there. You can make him as powerful as you like. If you want him to have no ammo problems then you can have his guns fire without it depleting his "energy" reserves. Bullseye is doable as well, since you can control just how accurate your custom characters' attacks are.

by **Worm2** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 6:02 pm

This game sounds cool. How do the hero creation go? Can I make myself a Punisher or Bulls Eye type character? Or must they all have powers?

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 9:29 pm

Ah, good to know. I was mainly trying to throw everything at everybody.

by **Debaser** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 9:13 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Even though the Nuclear Winter boards were a little frustrating, the one that made me want to punch my monitor was El Diablo's solo thing in the 'nick of time' boards (at the starlight cinema). I probably would do better at it now that I've figured out that his punch attack, while it takes forever to KO someone, also means that the thug won't hurt you that much. But yeah, it was annoying.

There's also a water tower on top of the cinema proper you can blat for a massive explosion that takes out the tommy gun guy and everyone on that building, if I recall.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:45 pm

Even though the Nuclear Winter boards were a little frustrating, the one that made me want to punch my monitor was El Diablo's solo thing in the 'nick of time' boards (at the starlight cinema). I probably would do better at it now that I've figured out that his punch attack, while it takes forever to KO someone, also means that the thug won't hurt you that much. But yeah, it was annoying.

As far as the guardhouses go, maybe it's just that I took care of the right areas before even deciding to destroy them, but I found that most of them had a direction I could approach from (on the ground) without being seen and in at least one case, even though I'd have to be seen when approaching the house, I'd have it down before the thug got there.

by **Debaser** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:32 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:So yeah, I've been playing this (i guess just for the last day, although it feels like it's been longer than that). I'm about a third of the way through, level-wise (just beat the 'nick of time' boards), but I really do feel like I'm pretty bad at this, especially with how many times I had to replay some boards that the walkthroughs on gamefaqs.com (which pretty much suck so it's not like they're any sort of help at all) said were really easy.

The only levels I remember being really difficult were the underground ones (where you fight the supermodel). Those robed dudes had vicious, vicious attacks. The key, I found out on my second playthrough, was ranged, radiation-based attacks (get Mentor's beam attack, basically). But I don't think you've gotten that far yet, it sounds like. The last two Nuklear Winter levels were a bit tougher than average too, so maybe that's where you're coming from.

My favorite part so far was the board where the goons run to the guardhouses to sound the alarm, as just destroying the guard houses seemed to be a pretty good deterrent (and since it's not a civilian building, I don't think it hurt my score at all). Take THAT, walkthroughs that didn't even think of that!

How did you get them destroyed fast enough?

I'm not playing with any of my own characters. I guess, right now, the most important thing is to go along with whatever story they have so it doesn't really matter. I've got three superheroes I could recruit now, though. Is that pretty much a must-do thing to win the game? Despite the fact that I can recruit them, even if I do, I won't ever see Man-o-war and the sea urchin again in a movie, will I (just making sure there aren't bonus movies ahead if you recruit the right people)?

I wound up recruiting all the optional characters by the end of the game, and I think I remember seeing Man-o-War in like a single cutscene once. So, no, you're not missing any story without them. And they're not really "necessary" for play. But Man-o-War and (later) Bullet are two of the game's more useful characters.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:12 pm

So yeah, I've been playing this (i guess just for the last day, although it feels like it's been longer than that). I'm about a third of the way through, level-wise (just beat the 'nick of time' boards), but I really do feel like I'm pretty bad at this, especially with how many times I had to replay some boards that the walkthroughs on gamefaqs.com (which pretty much suck so it's not like they're any sort of help at all) said were really easy.

My favorite part so far was the board where the goons run to the guardhouses to sound the alarm, as just destroying the guard houses seemed to be a pretty good deterrent (and since it's not a civilian building, I don't think it hurt my score at all). Take THAT, walkthroughs that didn't even think of that!

I'm not playing with any of my own characters. I guess, right now, the most important thing is to go along with whatever story they have so it doesn't really matter. I've got three superheroes I could recruit now, though. Is that pretty much a must-do thing to win the game? Despite the fact that I can recruit them, even if I do, I won't ever see Man-o-war and the sea urchin again in a movie, will I (just making sure there aren't bonus movies ahead if you recruit the right people)?

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 1:16 pm

If there were one character mentioned in the manual to the old text adventure "Guild of Thieves" that best sums up the two minutes I spent with Freedom Force after installing the patch, it would in fact be, Waldo McAaaarrrgghh.

I saw a note about this on the FF forae, and I verified it on my system -- one thing they will now let you do is go through the game without having to necessarily take any built-in characters. I was pumped! I loaded up one of the later missions, unchecked Eve and El Diablo, and made up a quick squad of Havoc, Blue Beetle, Ice and a character of my own creation.

Unfortunately, with Eve and El Diablo out, it didn't place the last two heroes in the group. So it was just Havoc and Blue Beetle out there. They kind of awkwardly shook hands and began the misison, but it was obvious that they were concerned with where the hell the other two members are.

So, that kind of sucked. I definitely didn't dislike the built-in FF heroes so much where I'd rather not have them around at all, even if it meant that I used a squad of just two guys.

There may be a workaround to this; I'm not sure. Plus, I think the skirmish mode has no restrictions on the make up of a party. Further bulletins as events warrant, etc.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 2:40 am

The patch is out. Looks like they added an official skirmish mode and fixed a host of scripting bugs... more info tomorrow when I get a chance to take a look at it, but www.freedomforcecenter.com has the patch and details in the meantime.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jul 04, 2002 8:17 pm

The only downside is that all the villains seem to have some sort of powerful defense that blocks half your shots...

Huh. I can buy that for Solomon Grundy or Electro, I guess, but Catwoman? I guess she traded in her leather jumpsuit for vibranium mesh or something.

Oh, and none of the game's included heroes other than Minuteman have default attacks that don't take energy, so you wind up with Wolverine running around in circles waiting for his bar to refill so you can slash the villains a few more times.

That does suck, but Freedom Force seems to be pretty good about regenerating energy. I remember playing that old "X-Men: Madness in Murderworld" game where it took energy to use mutant powers and the energy never fricking replenished by itself, you had to go find power crystals or something.

But yeah. Wolverine should be able to punch somebody in the face without a risk of fainting. I mean, hell, he's the best at what he does. And what he does is not very nice.

The Freedom Force thread

Post a reply

Expand view Topic review: The Freedom Force thread