Freedom Force (2002 video game)

"For Freedom!"

Freedom Force is a two-game series of single-player tactical RPG games made by Irrational Games, and a homage to the Silver Age of superhero comics. It harkens back to the good old days when superheroes were all real paragons of heroism, supervillains were all real Card Carrying Villains, and flying nazi brains with Eye Beams were real flying nazi brains with Eye Beams. And signs showing *BIFF* showed up whenever characters landed a punch.

Freedom Force, as well as its Oddly Named Sequel Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich, follows the adventures of the eponymous Freedom Force, a team of superheroes given various powers by Imported Alien Phlebotinum "Energy X" introduced to the planet by Lord Dominion, a Galactic Conqueror who tried to conquer Earth by giving bad people superpowers and letting civilization tear itself apart. By the actions of heroic alien Mentor, one shipment of Energy X was instead scattered randomly over Patriot City, America, where it conveniently empowered people who turned out to be superhero material. Over the two games, the Loads and Loads of Characters of Freedom Force took on (amongst other things) such diverse enemies as communists, giant ants, dinosaurs, giant robots, self-copying criminal masterminds, alien invasions, satyrs, time travelers, the third reich, and a Reality Warper.

Freedom Force has a small but active community of modders based at Freedom Reborn, the Strangers mod is as long as the full game and arguably better. In no way related to the Marvel superhero team.

Not to be confused with the NES Zapper game of the same name, by Sunsoft.

This game contains examples of:
": You get to make a speech when you win, flame-brain, not when you strike out!"
 * Ascended Fanboy: Liberty Lad.
 * The Bard is a real life example: He was the winning entry of a character creation contest.
 * Added Alliterative Appeal: Everything, and we mean everything, has an alliterative pun in its description.
 * Cars, warehouses, dumpsters...and characters are often given alliterative descriptions by the narrator.
 * A God Am I:.
 * Affectionate Parody
 * All the Worlds Are A Stage: The penultimate series of levels.
 * All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Ant invasion
 * The Atoner: Man-Bot
 * Amazing Technicolor Population: Pinstripe is purple. Man O' War and Sea Urchin are blue.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Energy X. What does it do? Everything, apparently.
 * The Archer: Eve.
 * Badass Abnormal: Everybody but the 1930's heroes.
 * Badass Normal: The three non-Energy X heroes from the 1930's in vs. the Third Reich; Blackjack, Tricolour and Sky King.
 * They tend to be rather fragile because of this, and all get at least the Heroic ability, essentially granting them extra lives.
 * Batter Up: Thugs with bats are among the lowest-level enemy mooks.
 * Beautiful All Along: is a rather uncommon example of this.
 * Big Creepy Crawlies: Giant ants
 * Blessed With Suck: Man-Bot
 * Boisterous Bruiser: All the villains as well as a healthy spattering of the heroes.
 * Boss Only Level: The Final Boss.
 * Boss Rush
 * Camp
 * The Cape: The entirety of Freedom Force... Except Tombstone.
 * And Man-Bot. Plus Alchemiss tends to get really bitchy.
 * Captain Ethnic: There are plenty of examples, but El Diablo the team's latino pyrokinetic is one of the earliest and most obvious.
 * There's the very British Blackjack (who even has an attack called Biff for Blighty) and the very French Tricolour in the sequel.
 * Captain Geographic: Minuteman and Nuclear Winter.
 * Captain Patriotic: Minuteman and Liberty Lad, plus Tricolour in the sequel.
 * Car Fu: Get strong enough, and you can heft cars. Get to the maximum level of strength, and you can toss them all the way down the city block. And given that they don't cost Prestige points at the end of a level, one smart strategy is to gather as many damaged(so they stop moving) cars as you can, then find a way to lure the major bosses of the stage into a 3 car pile-up. Which you detonate by throwing a fourth car into them...
 * Catch Phrase: Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots. "Rings of Rexxor!", "Right Makes Might!", "It's ant-tastic!"
 * "Peaches and Cream!" "Your evil is unwanted here!"
 * "FOR FREEDOM!"
 * Clingy Costume: Man-Bot wears a powered exoskeleton that contains the energies he generates.
 * Conflict Killer: Time Master... twice!
 * Create Your Own Villain: Nuclear Winter was originally just a communist spy named Sukhov. Minuteman was responsible for the accident that turned him into a supervillain.
 * Crutch Character:
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy: Blitzkrieg, the Big Bad of Third Reich.
 * Don't forget, when the team goes
 * Dating Catwoman: Minuteman and Red Oktober get rather friendly in the second game.
 * Death Dealer: Black Jack.
 * Destructive Savior: Freedom Force are indisputably good guys, but they tend to cause a lot of damage to the cities they're defending; aside from the many tactical applications of environmental destruction, they'll likely level many buildings entirely by accident over the course of the game.
 * Can be annoying when the objectives are "Don't let X building be destroyed", meaning you can't use things like Disruption or Ignition.
 * Die, Chair, Die!: Pretty much every item of scenery, from small rocks, to chairs and fences, to cars and boulders, can be thrown for damage. It is possible to completely curbstomp otherwise-difficult bosses by launching cars at them from halfway across a level with your super-strong heroes.
 * Dirty Cop: A few missions feature "Crooked Cops" as enemy mooks.
 * Does Not Like Shoes: Eve and Quetzalcoatl.
 * Doing It for The Art: the mad architect Mr Mechanical.
 * As well as the menu theme from Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich.
 * Try the ending generic theme music, which sounds like an epic march theme/Freedom Force theme.
 * Drop the Hammer: Order
 * Easily-Thwarted Alien Invasion: The Domain's alien soldiers are "Thin Skinned". Meaning they are vulnerable to Piercing damage. Meaning they are vulnerable to bullets. Meaning, a squad of ordinary police officers can tear through them like butter. And these are the aliens that conquered the entire Multiverse.
 * Elemental Powers:
 * Playing With Fire: El Diablo and Red Sun.
 * Making a Splash: Manówar. Water powers do physical damage in this game.
 * Blow You Away: Bullet can create whirlwinds. They also do physical damage.
 * Dishing Out Dirt: Used only by the Subterrestrial minions. Also physical damage.
 * Shock and Awe: Mentor's electron beam, Manówar's storm bolt and melee attacks, Sea Urchin's and Bullet's static eletricity and Tombstone's bullets.
 * It is easily overlooked, but Shadow and her minions have electrical powers too.
 * An Ice Person: Nuclear Winter and his minions, of course. And for some reason, Blackbird's basic attack is a penetrating ice beam.
 * Poisonous Person: Sea Urchin's bubbles, The Ant's acid grenades and Quetzalcoatl's melee attacks.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Fortissimo. Blackbird and Supercollider too, but only to stun.
 * Green Thumb: Eve and Pan.
 * Pure Energy: Man-Bot and a number supernatural or laser weapon weilding enemies.
 * I Love Nuclear Power: Microwave. And Nuclear Winter's melee attacks. Mentor can learn a radiation beam power late in the game. Also, expect most kinds of laser weapons to do radiation damage.
 * Functional Magic: Alchemiss, Quetzalcoatl and Red October and her minions. It's used mainly for debuffs, while Quetzacoatl can also buff and heal allies with it. Offensive magical powers do energy damage.
 * Psychic Powers: Mentor and Blitzkrieg. Only used for status effects though.
 * Casting a Shadow: Shadow and her minions, of course. But it is only a stealth power.
 * Enemy Mine:
 * Everything's Better With Dinosaurs: One mission has time-displaced dinosaurs running rampant at the college campus.
 * Everything's Better With Monkeys: Kill-a-Rillas.
 * Evil Costume Switch:
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin: Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich.
 * Expressive Mask: There's some of this to be seen in Freedom Force vs the Third Reich. It's most visible with Black Jack and Alchemiss. Tombstone even gets Oddly Visible Eyebrows for a scene or two.
 * Expy/Captain Ersatz: Nine-tenths of the cast, although some more than others.
 * Minuteman is clearly a Captain America expy, with Liberty Lad as Bucky.
 * Liberty Lad has She Hulk's origin story.
 * Mentor has shades of both Professor X and The Martian Manhunter.
 * El Diablo is a Spanish (Latino-American with Mexican roots, to be percisely) Human Torch.
 * For another Man-Bot is a bruiser whose powers cut him off from humanity, like Thing of the Fantastic Four or Robot Man of the Doom Patrol. His suit is also reminiscent of early Iron Man, and he can fly too.
 * Most of all comic heroes, he resembles DC's Human Bomb.
 * Alchemiss is the Scarlet Witch with the story arc of Jean Grey in the sequel.
 * The Ant is pretty much Spider Man, for instance, with ant-related powers like burrowing and super-strength and gadgets that shoot acid.
 * Bullet is any number of super-speedsters including The Flash and Quicksilver.
 * Man O'War is Aquaman if he was played by Sean Connery and had more offensive powers.
 * Sea Urchin resembles Jubilee, being the Bratty Half-Pint Sidekick of the rather gruff and edgy Manówar. Oh, and her power is making acidic bubbles.
 * Microwave is based on Vision.
 * Tombstone is a pedestrian Ghost Rider with the background of The Crow III.
 * Quetzalcoatl is a cross between Thor, Captain Marvel and the almost forgotten El Dorado, plus Firestorm's shared consciouness, and his origins are similar to Spider Man's.
 * Iron Ox has Juggernaut parallels.
 * Supercollider is The Thing in Power Armor.
 * Blackbird is Black Canary.
 * Blackjack might be inspierd by Spy Smasher.
 * Sky King is, of course, The Rocketeer, if he was played by Jimmy Stewart.
 * Most likely coincidentally, Tricolour has a background similar to classic Kamen Riders, mostly Z-Cross.
 * Fewer examples are found on the Villains' side.
 * Time Master has bits of Kang the Conquerer or Galactus mixed in with Darkseid.
 * Lord Dominion has the same mustache and cape as Emperor Ming the Merciless.
 * Shadow looks like Phantasm and her personality is similar to the X-Men villainess Callisto.
 * Blitzkrieg appears to be inspired by The Leader. Part the Marvel villain, part the other one.
 * Evil Is Deathly Cold: Nuclear Winter, in addition to being An Ice Person, prefers to hang out in really cold places.
 * Evil Knockoff: Deja Vu's ability is making these; of himself, civilians, cops, and even your heroes.
 * Though the cops and civilians have extra tricks like exploding, energy draining, laser pistols, flight, self-healing...
 * Eyepatch of Power: Man O' War.
 * Face Heel Turn:
 * Fauns and Satyrs: Pan himself makes an appearance as a boss.
 * Flying Firepower: El Diablo, fire and flight.
 * Fighting a Shadow: Some heroes, like Blackjack, can do this - create a fake duplicate to take the heat for them.
 * Amusingly, the spawned duplicate constantly shouted the catchphrases of the character in a robotic voice.
 * Final Speech: Defied in Freedom Force versus the Third Reich..
 * Final Speech: Defied in Freedom Force versus the Third Reich..

"Tombstone:"
 * Five-Man Band: The original five members of Freedom Force form this.
 * The Hero: Minuteman, patriot extraordinaire and recognised leader of Freedom Force.
 * The Lancer: El Diablo, intensely loyal, yet laidback pyrokinetic.
 * The Smart Guy: Mentor, mysterious psychic exile of the Domain who gathered Freedom Force and teaches them of their powers and the threats they face.
 * The Big Guy: Man-Bot, melancholic conduit of raw Energy X, sealed in a suit of Powered Armor.
 * The Chick: Alchemiss, the bratty college vixen with incredible mystical powers.
 * Other characters that come later fit the various roles. Ant's another The Smart Guy, Tombstone's another The Lancer etc.
 * Flying Carpet: Green Genie has one.
 * Freeze Ray: Nuclear Winter's Frost Warriors carry them.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Red Sun, the Japanese supervillain, is vulnerable to radiation. Whether intended or not, it's a bit of offensive Irony right there.
 * Well, radiation and acid are the weaknesses of every character made of flesh, which is quite realistic. Also, Red Sun's weakness to acid is more important in his duel with Black Jack.
 * Typically, the first three Allied Nations that come to mind are the US, UK and USSR and the WWII heroes represent the US, UK and France. Why? Because, had this been a comic series made during the game's setting (the Cold War), an American comic company would be hesitant to glorify its current enemy by making a Russian hero. This also explains why Nuclear Winter is FF's first enemy and why he's the only character other than Time Master to return for the sequel.
 * Fridge Logic: Alchemiss was a college student before she became a superheroine, yet in the second game, she's treated as super old for some reason - probably the new voice actress.
 * Well, she's one of the longest serving Freedom Force members...
 * Fun Personified: The Green Genie.
 * Fur and Loathing: The fur trimmed outfits worn by the villain Nuclear Winter and his henchladies.
 * Game Mod: So, so much. There were quite a few websites devoted to making downloadable game content, including charcter models for a vast amount of classic superheroes, as well as full mods that added their own storylines and missions. Some of the more famous ones included the DC Comics mod, which told an original Crisis Crossover story set in the DC Universe. There was also The Great Hunt, another Crisis Crossover which included DC and Marvel characters, as well as pulp and obscure ones.
 * Annoyingly, some people can't get the Steam versions to run mods for a reason the fandom has yet to discover.
 * Godwin's Law of Time Travel: As the title of the second game reveals, this trope's involved in it.
 * Glass Cannon: Tricolour would be considered one. She hits fairly heavily for a non-superpowered character but doesn't need to take a lot of damage to be taken down.
 * Liberty Lad fits the trope too, once he's leveled up a bit and starts spamming grenades.
 * Minuteman and Black Jack are less extreme versions of this.
 * Gratuitous Spanish: El Diablo
 * Green Rocks: Energy X.
 * Guns Akimbo: Tombstone.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: The Kill-A-Rillas in the second game.
 * Handicapped Badass: Law, who can still kick ass just fine, despite being blind.
 * Heel Face Turn:.
 * Heroic Willpower: All heroes have one Hero Point, which can be spent at any time to trigger a burst of Heroic Willpower that will instantly fully heal the hero, restore all their energy, or allow them to shake off any status effect. Minuteman can get extras, which helps to offset his squishiness.
 * The Grim resolve ability makes characters immune to knock-back through sheer force of will.
 * Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Ant has a Shove attack, which can knock an enemy back but does no damage. Increasing the power of a shove just knocks back an enemy farther. What purpose does this serve, you ask? Well, see, on some maps, there are bottomless pits... You can also hurt folks by shoving them off buildings. Alchemiss had a similar power, which didn't require you to get up close to the enemy.
 * Hive Mind: Red Sun.
 * Human Popsicle: Nuclear Winter's method of choice for keeping hostages around.
 * Humongous Mecha: Several, but especially including Mr Mechanical's personal mecha. In addition, fan made models include generic mecha, Sentinels, Gundams, and even Transformers.
 * An Ice Suit: Nuclear Winter.
 * Informed Ability: The Domain, under Lord Dominion, reportedly has access to a vast battlefleet that can and has conquered entire dimensions, leaving Earth as the only free world left in existence. Do they ever demonstrate anything that suggests that scale of military might? Not really, no.
 * Instant Fanclub: Somehow, Nuclear Winter is able to get a small army of Soviets with Ice Rays within a few hours of his transformation from a more-or-less normal guy into a full-blown supervillain. Everyone else has some explanation for where their mooks come from.
 * Well Sukhov was already a presumably high ranking Russian secret agent so it makes sense for him to have a bunch of flunkies at his command. As for their ice based weaponry, it was probably supplied by Lord Dominion
 * In the Hood: Shadow in the first game, Red Oktober in the second.
 * Jack of All Stats: Minuteman. His attack is high, but not as high as Supercollider. He's fast, but not as fast as Bullet. He's tougher than many team members but cannot compare to Microwave or Man-bot. He cannot fly, but he can jump over buildings. An overall decent character, but not exceptional in any particular area.
 * Japanese Politeness: Red Sun.
 * Kirby Dots
 * Large Ham: Minuteman, though since the game is based on the Silver Age, there are quite a number of others.
 * The Narrator, dear god the narrator...
 * Mentor really ramps it up in the sequel.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Bullet and Supercollider.
 * Love Makes You Evil:
 * Mad Artist: Mr. Mechanical. Despite the name, he's actually an architect... with a somewhat destructive sense of aesthetics.
 * Made of Iron: Literally. "Metal" is one substance a character can be made of, which renders them near Immune to Bullets and blunt force, but vulnerable to Energy X attacks and electricity. This includes the very human Sky King, due to his metal armour.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Fortissimo, the Italian Opera-Singer themed villain.
 * Malignant Plot Tumor: Entropy in the second game.
 * Me's a Crowd: Deja Vu and Red Sun.
 * Meta Origin: Energy X.
 * Mighty Glacier: Sky King's armour deflects most projectiles, and he's tough to boot. But he doesn't do much damage outside of his special moves and moves real slow, even while flying.
 * Man-Bot is really tough and powerful, but slow too, until he gets the flight power.
 * Most Common Superpower: Check out any female character besides Sea Urchin.
 * My Greatest Failure: The death of Man-Bot's brother, which constantly weighs on his mind.
 * Twice.
 * Frank Stiles considers not getting O'Connor caught as his. Still, without it he wouldn't be Minuteman, courageous leader of the Freedom Force.
 * Nature Hero: Eve.
 * Nineties Anti-Hero: Tombstone. One-person Dark Age, no less.

""I've been hit / I don't feel well / I fall down / You go to *groan*""
 * He claims puppies die by just being around him.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
 * Non-Lethal KO: makes some sense when you remember about the Comics Code.
 * Subverted by Tombstone (who's a one man Dark Age) as well as the 40's heroes Sky King, Tricolour and Black Jack. Justified in that they're all alone against the Nazi army.
 * Also subverted by Entropy, to show how evil she is becoming.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: The final villains of both games fit this trope.
 * Personality Powers: True to the '60's Cliché Storm, most characters have Energy X abilities that are related to their personality in some way. Minuteman was a patriot before he was a superhero, El Diablo was always Hot-Blooded, and so forth.
 * Phlebotinum Rebel: Lord Dominion's master plan is to amuse himself by giving superpowers to the scum of society so he can sit back and watch Earth tear itself to pieces. Mentor interferes, causing Energy X to be spread at random over Patriot City and creating the superheroes.
 * Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Mentor.
 * Pyrrhic Victory: Timemaster is defeated, but at the cost of Poor guy, 'cause when  He just can't catch a break.
 * Pyrrhic Villainy: Time Master's plan is to destroy the multiverse in order to gain immortality. Wouldn't he get bored after a while with nothing but himself in existence?
 * This gets pointed out/lampshaded by Man-Bot. Apparently Timemaster doesn't mind.
 * Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Mentor.
 * Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Bullet.
 * Real Time With Pause
 * Reality Warper: Entropy.
 * Alchemiss has some of this in the sequel, but nowhere near as powerful.
 * To a lesser extent, Green Genie.
 * Reckless Sidekick: Liberty Lad and Sea Urchin.
 * Red Scare: Nuclear Winter.
 * Red Oktober in the sequel.
 * Reverse the Polarity: Played ridiculously straight in the sequel.
 * Rhymes On a Dime: Deja Vu.
 * Includes a case of Curse Cut Short:

"BOKKO!"
 * Right Makes Might: Minuteman's Catch Phrase.
 * Sealed Evil in A Duel:
 * The Something Force
 * Spock Speak: Mentor.
 * Spoony Bard: Quite a few characters do not really pay off leveling when compared to others. The Bard is just a literal example.
 * Steven Ulysses Perhero: "Nathan Graves" is Tombstone, "Hank Waters" is Man'O'War, "Jack Spade" is Blackjack, "Sabrine Tricolette" is Tricolour
 * Stock Dinosaurs: Raptors, T-Rexes, and a purely decorative Pteranodon.
 * Stylish Protection Gear: Nuclear Winter. His lady minions wear fur-trimmed hooded shoulder capes.
 * Stylistic Suck: 40s-era heroes get origin stories with golden age artwork and simpler colouration.
 * Super Dickery: Parodied in the sequel's tutorial.
 * Superhero
 * Superhero Packing Heat: Black Jack, Sky King, and Tombstone.
 * Superhuman Transfusion: Liberty Lad's origin.
 * Superpower Lottery: Using the character editor, it's possible to make a hero with any combination of powers you want. Think about that for a minute... Though, if you make a hero too powerful, their Prestige point cost will probably be too high for you to use them in the game.
 * Telephone Polearm: At a certain strength level, characters could rip poles right out of the ground and swing them.
 * Traffic lights too.
 * That Man Is Dead: And quite literally too. "Where Nathan Graves once stood,
 * Man-Bot considers this of his past too, and no-one else seems to be looking back or even bothering to refer to each other by their real names...
 * Third Person Person: Deja Vu in the first. Red Sun in the sequel. Considering Red Sun is a Hive Mind, it's appropriate.
 * Those Wacky Nazis: Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich.
 * Though Blitzkreig qualifies for Nightmare Fuel.
 * Time Master: The Big Bad bearing that trope's name.
 * Unsound Effect: But of course.


 * Victory Is Boring: The entire reason for the plot. Lord Dominion is so bored with ruling the entire universe that, instead of simply steamrolling over the last planet he doesn't rule (Earth, of course), for lulz he dumps a bunch of Green Rocks on it so bad people will develop superpowers and trash the place.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can run up and smack pretty much every civilian, who go flying away with a hilariously pathetic scream. Bonus points if they hit a building and cause it to collapse.
 * The only downside is that civilian kills and building collapses will count against your Prestige for completing objectives and your villain kills, which is spent to recruit optional heroes during the campaign. And considering that you can get "Robot Killer" Man O'War and "Lil' Mook Destroyer" Bullet this way, it's best left to skirmish.
 * Fun fact: For some reason, picking up a car that just drove up to you and stopped (clearly implying that there was a driver inside) and throwing it at other cars (which also presumably have drivers inside) has no impact on your prestige at all. Have fun!
 * "The Villain Sucks" Song: Nuuu-cle-ar-vin-tar oooo--ooo-ooh-ooo turns your land.. tooo snooow!
 * Useless Useful Superpower: Abilities like Tunnel Travel and Teleport Self are really useful to bypass obstacles and get in good positions for boss battles, but little else.
 * Plenty of Active Defences guard against only one or two types of attacks, often ones the characters resist anyway.
 * Weak but Skilled: Several characters, the sidekicks Liberty Lad and Sea Urchin in particular.
 * What Could Have Been: There were two potential third installments in the works at one point or another. One of them (which was tentatively named "Freedom Force 3") would have taken place in The Seventies while there was another project on the board which would have given the franchise a Ultimate Universe treatment set in the present day. Both projects were put aside because of a combination of factors, including the reduced sales of the sequel as well as needing more time to work on development for a little game called...Bio Shock. While Ken Levine hasn't completely closed the door on another Freedom Force, he's admitted it definitely won't be coming anytime soon.
 * Whip It Good: Wielded by Kill-A-Rillas in the second game.