Freedom Force Preview

Each character also has a unique mixture of stats and attributes. Stats are simple in a sense that they determine the basic characteristics like: body style, intelligence, health, and physique. Attributes on the other hand present players with a dilemma; they can be a nagging drawback, or a great addition if the specific situation calls for it. A hero's attribute might be the ability to fly, and another's maybe the ability to go berserk in a fighting situation, but you'll have to know which of these attributes best suites a particular situation.

Surely though, the greatest thing about Freedom Force's RPG elements is the incredible character customization option, which lets players construct their own unique powers for their hero. There's a system for creating new powers using the same templates that the developers use to create pre-built powers. What's more, players will be able to include these characters in the single player game, and although the actual plot may be somewhat limited because of this, it will give you enough tools to be creative and set your own preferences, so that you can identify with your team even more.

Once you're all set with either the default or custom made characters it's finally time to lay some justice and kick some villain butt, but in that righteous 60s comics kinda way. There's been some confusion, or rather I was confused regarding the way the whole combat system works. Is it real-time or turn-based, and does it have any turn-based combat elements at all? Luckily, Chey was quick to shed some light on the subject: "Real time and turn-based are just categories into which games are slotted. Not all real-time games are created equal nor are all turn-based games. Turn-based generally implies a whole bunch of things like: units moving sequentially, unlimited time given for movement, simulation paused during orders and so on. Real-time games generally don't have any of these features. However, if you look at a game like Baldur's Gate - it has some elements of a turn-based game but not others.

Freedom Force is actually a completely real-time game. It's not turn-based. However, it will play in a far less frenetic way than most real-time games because of the pause mechanics. The player can pause the game to issue orders just as they can in Baldur's Gate."

Probably the biggest selling point of Freedom Force's combat system is the fully destructible environment, and the resulting high level of interactivity in the game world. The battlefield is a 4x4 block of New York City, and there virtually isn't anything in it you can't smash, break, or tumble with your superpowers --- everything from making a mess out of skyscrapers to blowing giant craters in the ground. During battle, players can pick up all sorts of cool stuff they find in the streets; anything from buses to cars, street lights, mailboxes, trees, and dumpsters. I've asked Chey to name actual gameplay advantages of being able to blow up or smash every single object in the game, and he simply said: "Well, it's fun. If you want to know what the advantage is - try dropping a dumpster on someone you don't like from the top of a six story building..." (Tried it and it feels so liberating.)

All this smashing and tumbling comes courtesy of Numerical Design Ltd's NetImmerse game engine. "NetImmerse's flexible architecture suited our technology design, and it provides an impressive range of capabilities, including skeletal character animation and the continuous level of detail system," said Chey. The engine also boasts such stuff as: Character Skinning, Curved Surfaces, and of course the Deformable Mesh System which is responsible for the destruction of most of the New York in the game.

Besides an involving single player, the dev. team also has high hopes for FF multiplayer. There are no specific details on the kind of mods Irrational plans to include in FF. All we know is that multiplayer games will work a little differently with the dynamics of "good vs. evil". The "good" and "evil" characters need not necessarily follow the constraints that might normally be forced upon them in the single player mode. There'll still be some good and evil battles, but the focus of multiplayer is really on players' imagination and their ability to come up with morally indifferent, yet engaging concepts.

That's about it for now, folks... That's all the info we could squeeze out of Irrational. All that's left now is to wait for a playable copy, so that we can finally see some of that groovy "Energy X" stuff in action. Kinda like "action trip" on "Energy X" or something...