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Freedom Force
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Sunsoft
RELEASE DATE: April 1988 (US)
The stars of Freedom Force, Rad Rex and Manic Jackson, might have a slight resemblance to Rutger Hauer and Lionel Richie. Don’t let their rugged good looks fool you, though. These two bad mothers are highly skilled members of the Guerilla Terminator Squad, hired by the U.S. govt. to take down terrorists kidnapping hostages across the country.
Packin’ heat? You bet they are – but hey, so are you. Freedom Force is a Zapper game, the first one since Gotcha! The Sport all the way back in November 1987. Like Gotcha!, each of Freedom Force’s five stages scroll automatically from left to right, then slightly back again. Your mission in every stage is to shoot the terrorists as they poke out from behind doorways, pillars, and other blockades.
You’ll know you’ve plugged the terrorists when a generous red splotch appears around their mid-section. That’s right, a licensed NES game with actual blood. If you remember Nintendo’s censorship policies in the 1990s, Freedom Force’s violence may surprise you. According to a Nintendo of America policy notice in 1994, the company didn’t start evaluating a game’s content until 1988 – the year Freedom Force was released. Coincidence? Probably. Still, I’d like to think that parents’ outrage at Freedom Force is the reason why Nintendo was so reserved with gaming content during the 90s.
We know Freedom Force brings the pain, but how does she play? Aggressively, to say the least. The very instant that a terrorist appears – usually a green suited dude with a bag over his head – shoot him down. If you give them any leeway whatsoever, they’ll shoot and take out one or two of your twelve health points. This is easy enough in the beginning, but eventually, multiple terrorists appear at one time, and they’re not shy about opening fire on you; taking a slug here and there is inevitable. Hostages and innocent passers-by will also appear. If you shoot them, your Error meter fills up by one. Six errors, the game is over, and you now have significant trauma.
To counteract the terrorists’ considerable unfair advantage, Freedom Force gives you some additional ammo and health options. In the bottom right hand corner of the screen, item icons occasionally appear. .44 magnum rounds increase your firepower, grenade launchers clear all people (including innocents) off the screen at one time, additional health and regular .38 caliber ammo keep you in line, and even a “Harder” stage icon in case you can handle stronger firefights.
The problem with these items is they don’t remain on screen for very long. So much so that even the fastest Zapper hands will have a difficult time shooting them. They flicker on for about a second, then flicker off as quickly as they came. You have a choice: focus solely on the terrorists and miss out on the items or try to get the items while risking your health.
After every second round, a Code Breaker minigame appears. Your goal here is to shoot the letters one at a time to guess the word. Only four letters are lit at a time, and the lit letters cycle through the entire alphabet over and over until you guess the complete word or you make five errors. You only get additional points if you win, but those points can make extra health appear so it’s worth it to at least try and guess the word.
Even if you’re a speedy shot, Freedom Force proves a solid challenge. Not getting hit, not shooting innocents, shooting multiple bad guys at once, trying to shoot items while keeping your eye on the environment. Shoot, shoot, shoot, it’s all so overwhelming, even for guys with nicknames like “Rad” and “Manic.” The stages are over surprisingly quickly, and once you’ve seen all five stages, the game just cycles through them again. At least on this playthrough, I only made it to stage 3 before the terrorists made short work of me.
If you were good enough in 1988 to beat Freedom Force three times through, you could collect three secret words (one unique word per time beaten), write the words down on an entry form in the manual, and send them off to Sunsoft for some sweet Freedom Force decals. Sure, the decals were likely some cheap-o pieces of crap that disintegrated within six months (perhaps why I can’t find any trace of them online), but the fact that game publishers used to reward players with neat tchotchkes is altogether wholesome
Rad Rex and Manic Jackson never returned for another Guerilla Terminating assignment and it’s just as well. Freedom Force, like most Zapper games, has very little to offer outside of some difficult target practice.
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Believe it or not, Nintendo thought well enough of Freedom Force to publish the game for their VS. Arcade cabinet setup. Has anyone seen/played Vs. Freedom Force out in some random arcade in Nebraska or somewhere? Let me know in the comments!
One down to my list of "games I played back when I was a kid, completely forgot about it, and only now I lean its name." Thank you so much for retrieving this one from back of my mental palace!
Just imagine Rad Rex showing up for Smash! Freedom Force is such a surreal title for the NES. If someone told me it was a modern homebrew, I would've believed them. The only other game for the NES that was this overtly violent was The Punisher.