The world is changing. The Russians have gained power during the years following their success at creating the first Hydrogen bomb ahead of the Americans. During the Cold War, the Russians slowly started stretching out their Red hands across the globe. First to fall into their grip was Europe, followed by the Middle East. The U.S. was now the largest country left in the free world. However, the Russians have their eyes on the U.S. next, slowly moving into the South American territories with military 'advisors'.

Freedom Fighters is more than your average shoot em' up. The main character, Chris Stone, finds himself thrust amongst a city full of invading Russians, his only solace found in the underground sewers. Using his natural charm (charisma) he soon finds that he is not entirely alone in this battle. Chris has the ability to charm and influence other characters into joining his make-shift army of rebels.

There will be missions that you will need to complete to reach different levels (to unlock them) through-out the game. There are also important characters that you will be required to rescue to help the FF movement. Chris must learn to navigate his way around the city through heavily guarded buildings, balconies, post offices - you name it. You can advance by gaining favour with people you will meet along the journey, which in turn boosts your charisma bar considerably as you advance.

The interface of the game is easy to use. Using a third-person perspective, it is easier to see around you and behind you as well as directly straight ahead. And you will want to see where your enemy is at every opportunity. When aiming at targets, there is a constant cross-hair on screen, and to the top left hand corner two bars representing your health and charisma counts. Charisma can be boosted by completing missions and saving other characters. Keep an eye on your charisma count as this is an important factor to completing missions successfully.

Directly underneath the charisma bar there may be a few open 'slots' which indicate that you have successfully influenced other characters into assisting you by using charisma. Obviously the higher the count, the easier it is to get people to agree with you. Dialogue will appear between your character and other characters throughout the game. Not all characters will fall to Chris's charm as easily as others, so make sure to read the dialogue as you go. When these slots are filled, a small icon will appear. This icon will change into several different icons. Learn to master this because this will determine what Chris's comrades do, whether they attack, defend or fall back. This is a very nifty part of the game, and the AI is extremely impressive. Take the time to learn how to get your troops in line and in control. Chris is now in command so make sure he knows exactly how.

During the game you will need to find somewhere to store ammo, med kits and the odd Molotov Cocktail. This is where you will need to make use of the inventory. Make sure that you know how to navigate and scroll through it. You will undoubtedly find yourself in hairy situations, and you will need to get access to certain items at speed so that you can easily replace weapons or use medic kits if required. Make sure you keep an eye out for these kits as they arent that easy to come by.

Movement in the game can be difficult, so take your time learning the basics. If you've tried your hand at Hitman 2, then you shouldn't find any hitches here as basic movement is pretty similar. You can set the keys to control the movements however you wish at the start of the game, and there will be situations where you will need to know how to do more than just run and strafe. Dodging bullets just became much harder. Try sniper bullets on for size! It can be challenging and that's a major bonus. Running out of bullets is something you dont want to do but if you find yourself in that situation, try hand to hand combat. Yep, you can fight the bad guys with the butt of your rifle or, try the handy wrench, anything is better than nothing! The only downside to movement in the game is access to doors. Basically as Chris, you won't have any. You can only enter doors already opened by other characters in the game.

Freedom Fighters is graphically pretty smooth going. The integration of the outdoors vs the indoors environmental aspects is so smooth you barely notice the changes. This game runs extremely nicely on an AMD Athlon 1800 running a Ge Force 4 Ti 4600. Running FF on the same CPU but with a slightly lower end graphics card produced some 'blockiness' effects when moving from outdoor to indoor environments. You might want to keep this in mind when looking at playing this game at full capacity. The sound is pretty standard, although you might pick up on the fake Russian accents every now and then when you listen to the cutscenes.

If point and shoot is what your'e after, FF has that and more to keep you battle-hungry. Keeping in mind the objective is to lead the rest of the world to Freedom, Chris Stone is as much a diplomat as he is a soldier.