Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare

Review

Being a military strategist is one thing, leading your troops on the battlefield is another, but both are extremely important if you want to win each battle and ultimately the war. Commander, it’s time to make your mark in this world! Mobilize an army, from conscripts to mercenaries, and capture cities from your enemies and bandits. This is not going to be easy and you’ll need the best leader to command his men in this guerrilla warfare.

Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare is a FPS / strategy and management game where you lead your own faction with the primarily goal of capturing and managing more towns than your opponents to win the game.

After launching a new campaign, you’ll arrive in the world map. Your army will be represented with a soldier and the flags you have chosen when you created your faction. Underneath your animated figurine a number will be displayed which represents the number of men you’ll have under your command. The map world is a nice 3D map where you’ll be able to see towns and other armies moving around. You’ll also have the ability to check out your party at any given time, as well as your inventory, the number of prisoners you have, and information on the different factions, by clicking the tabs at the bottom of your screen. You can move all around the world very easily and at the start of the game you’ll not be at war with any factions, but beware of the bandits. Actually, it’s best to attack them first by clicking on their respective figurines. Try to attack the smaller group first.  When your figurine reaches its target, the battle phase will take place. First, you’ll have to place your squads (five men per squad) in the spawning green circle. Somewhere within the battle map a red circle will also be displayed and that is where your enemies will most likely be spawning. Make your way to that circle with your squads and engage with the enemy. You have the ability to swap from the FPS to the battle map and vice versa as you wish.  You can also select waypoints for your squads to follow and select whether you want them to move cautiously or as fast as they can to reach a certain position. If they need to, you can choose to have them fire at will or follow a choice of other commands. Bear in mind, you can’t jump into one of your squads and take control of one of its members. They’ll engage the enemy as soon as they see them and they’ll be marked with a small red circle on the battle map. On your first battle, you’ll only have a revolver at your disposal, and you won’t have any armour. Eliminate all enemies and collect your loot, which will always include money, weapons and other items which you can trade each time you visit a town. If this is the other way around, the likelihood of losing your squad is pretty high and you’ll probably need to get to hospital (in towns) to regenerate your health. I must mention that each time you personally eliminate an enemy (not your squad), you’ll earn experience points and each time you reach a new level, skills points will be allocated to you, which you can then distribute into a large number of skills on the skill tree.

A few options are also available in the towns; selling or buying weapons, armour and/or food, and hiring mercenaries, too. If it’s your town, you can construct buildings such as factories and markets, as well as farms to generate income; also houses, police stations and a few others. Make sure you always have money and food in your inventory so you can pay your men and keep their morale running high.

I really like what I am seeing here and the developers are updating the game frequently. The FPS phase is pretty fluid but needs some polishing. The strategy and management aspect is really easy to use and you get all of that for only $14.99 USD. Excellent value, I must say!

Graphically it’s good, but as I mentioned above, needs a bit of polishing in the FPS phase. Plenty of weapons, amour and items to loot, buy or sell. This is a superb game and it’s only on early access!