Post by Mako on Apr 1, 2019 6:50:28 GMT -5
Okay, as promised here is my 'review' of Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare. The game is still in a 'beta' form and still being worked on, so I'll just go with what the current version is like. They released version 0.82 on March 16th and quickly followed up with several patches through 0.822 on the 20th. Was very necessary as there were some horrible game-breaking bugs. Still are some bugs, but at least it is playable now, and it shows that even with a rather small dev team they are working hard on this game.
If you like Mount & Blade and want a modern gun-based game, this is it. The background is that it is a Slavic region that has erupted into a civil war. It has a heavy eastern European slant. Like M&B there are cities scattered around the map with a couple of small towns surrounding them. Right now the play with the towns/cities is very generic. In the towns you have a town leader you can speak to that can give you quests, a trader, and sometimes some men to hire. In the cities you have more options, with a market with an arms dealer, a clothing/armor dealer, and a trader; a bar that has a 'slaver' who buys prisoners, a quest giver, and a bartender who can give info and rent a room to stay; and a barracks where you can hire men to fight from. If you don't own the city you will also have an option to attack it and take it over. If you do own it, then you also get some options for buildings you can build, putting army as a garrison, and collecting any taxes the citizens have paid.
Gameplay is mostly similar to M&B, as you wander around the map looking for enemies to fight or going from town/city to town/city buying and selling goods to make money. Each town/city will have an item that they produce for less and an item that is in demand in that city they will pay more for. Character progression is also the same as you level up and add attributes and skills to your character.
It is rather tough to start at the very beginning of a game as you start out with just a pistol and a few untrained men. It's best to go and hire some new men quickly, and you can give them some money to increase their morale, which helps in battles, as if they get too low morale they will run from the battle. As you win battles and gain skills you are able to start using equipment you loot or buy it in the cities. Basically you can have a helmet, chest armor, shirt, and pants to wear, and also can carry a pistol and some ammo for it, up to two rifles or rocket launchers, and then have a carried item inventory for battles of about 12 slots. You can put rifle ammo, med-kits, grenades, and night-vision goggles in to use. On the character slots there is an item for goggles/facewear, but the night-vision goggles do not fit there. Not sure if that is a bug or meant for that, as there are some things that are not in game yet. With some rifles you can add a scope that can be bought in cities, and there is a slot on the rifles and the pistols for a suppressor, though there are none in game yet that I've seen. You also have a basic item inventory like M&B for extra items/food or to hold items to take to cities to sell for money. That can be increased just like in M&B.
For your army you choose from several types of men to hire and pay to increase them to the next level as they gain experience. Pretty much just like M&B, but more simplistic. At most they have three levels. The men you have in your army are split into squads/teams of up to seven men. How many men overall that you have in your army is determined by your stat/skill, and how many squads you take into each battle is also determined by skill.
Before the battle you start with a selection screen with a map where you can choose from small areas you can start from and put each squad along with some simple orders if you want them to move. It will also show where the enemy will spawn. After the battle starts you can go back to the map to give new/change orders, or if a squad is defeated or runs away from the battle add new squads if you have any. When the battle starts you will see a countdown timer. During this time you can see nothing of the enemy on the map but the spawn locations, or indicators of enemy if your men see any they engage with. After the timer ends you will see the general locations of the enemy on the map. The enemy will spawn with all of their troops immediately, while you are limited to what you can use based on your skills, so even though you might have an equal number of men in battle they may start with more. Like with M&B you start out near a weapons cache that allows you to access your inventory during battle. I've found it to be very helpful to be able to grab my night-vision goggles when it is dark, a med-kit if you are injured, or if you run out of ammo.
If you like sniper type games the battles are fun once you are able to use rifles. There are all sorts of guns to choose from, from pistols to sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, to assault rifles. Though which you can use is limited by your stats. Your aim gets better as you level up and gain skill, and better scopes help you shoot further and further. Eventually you can use some defensive strategies to gain high ground and snipe away the enemy since they will just attack you until they are all dead. Though they do try to flank and move around so they don't charge straight at you. Well, not always. AI is 'all knowing' and can see you at all times, and the AI will shoot at an enemy that is blocked by a physical object (rock or hill). So definitely not highly advanced AI.
There are a bunch of different factions. Three are smaller and only start the game with one city each, while three are larger and control multiple cities each. They also start with an enemy they are fighting. There are also tons of groups of looters, bandits, and armed marauders (the various levels of those troops, too) that wander the map, spawning from bandit and terrorist camps.
There are a limited number of maps you battle on, and you will quickly recognize them and learn what strategies work best with each. If you attack a bandit/terrorist camp it is just like a regular battle, though they do have some buildings placed on the map. Attacking cities is a little more interesting in that there are more buildings to fight around and several capture points to control, though you are unable to go into most buildings (at least I tried once and ended up stuck - hopefully something they'll fix). The towns cannot be attacked and are pretty much just neutral, though you are able to try to threaten them to pay you protection.
Finally, spread around the map are some mines for lumber, amber, and iron that you can go and work into to collect resources that you can turn around and sell. Though you have to be careful that while you are gathering you can be attacked by an enemy or bandits.
With all the good, there is still some bad. Aside from being unfinished and buggy, the game is in a very simple state. If you are looking for a deep, rpg style story driven game this is not for you. They've improved on some very frustrating bugs that if you quit and loaded a save would start everything back as it is in the beginning, but it still has some of that problem. For instance, I conquered one faction and took a city from them. After loading a save of it the faction comes back and I have to eliminate them again, though at least now I still get to start with the city I captured. There are some misspellings and wording, though that is understandable since the devs don't speak English as their first language. That there are 'lumber mines' is one example.
The graphics are good. Not the best you'll ever see, but not horrible. They improved those quite a bit with this latest build.
The game is also missing quite a few things that once were in game, or are planned to be added still. They had vehicles/tanks prior to this patch, but don't now. They hope to add those back if they can. It also lacks companions/heroes. Again, something that was taken out and will be added again. Apparently you used to be able to customize your armies by giving them weapons and armor yourself, but they took that out and don't plan on adding it back in, which has caused some controversy as many players enjoyed that feature.
Overall, I've enjoyed playing this game and am looking forward to what the future may bring with it. For a small independent dev team they have done well. I've sort of stalled out with it in it's current state as I've leveled most of the way up and battles have become somewhat redundant. Also frustrating to try playing a little bit at a time only to have to keep having vanquished factions come back with each re-load. Something I'm really looking forward to is the devs say they want to support mods in the future. So as we've seen with M&B there should be a lot of improvements and features added in to help flush the game out and make it better by modders.
It reminds me of M&B back while the original was still being worked on. Buggy and unfinished, but they'd come out with a big new update every so often that added some great new content. The only thing missing from that at this point is the mods.
If you like Mount & Blade and want a modern gun-based game, this is it. The background is that it is a Slavic region that has erupted into a civil war. It has a heavy eastern European slant. Like M&B there are cities scattered around the map with a couple of small towns surrounding them. Right now the play with the towns/cities is very generic. In the towns you have a town leader you can speak to that can give you quests, a trader, and sometimes some men to hire. In the cities you have more options, with a market with an arms dealer, a clothing/armor dealer, and a trader; a bar that has a 'slaver' who buys prisoners, a quest giver, and a bartender who can give info and rent a room to stay; and a barracks where you can hire men to fight from. If you don't own the city you will also have an option to attack it and take it over. If you do own it, then you also get some options for buildings you can build, putting army as a garrison, and collecting any taxes the citizens have paid.
Gameplay is mostly similar to M&B, as you wander around the map looking for enemies to fight or going from town/city to town/city buying and selling goods to make money. Each town/city will have an item that they produce for less and an item that is in demand in that city they will pay more for. Character progression is also the same as you level up and add attributes and skills to your character.
It is rather tough to start at the very beginning of a game as you start out with just a pistol and a few untrained men. It's best to go and hire some new men quickly, and you can give them some money to increase their morale, which helps in battles, as if they get too low morale they will run from the battle. As you win battles and gain skills you are able to start using equipment you loot or buy it in the cities. Basically you can have a helmet, chest armor, shirt, and pants to wear, and also can carry a pistol and some ammo for it, up to two rifles or rocket launchers, and then have a carried item inventory for battles of about 12 slots. You can put rifle ammo, med-kits, grenades, and night-vision goggles in to use. On the character slots there is an item for goggles/facewear, but the night-vision goggles do not fit there. Not sure if that is a bug or meant for that, as there are some things that are not in game yet. With some rifles you can add a scope that can be bought in cities, and there is a slot on the rifles and the pistols for a suppressor, though there are none in game yet that I've seen. You also have a basic item inventory like M&B for extra items/food or to hold items to take to cities to sell for money. That can be increased just like in M&B.
For your army you choose from several types of men to hire and pay to increase them to the next level as they gain experience. Pretty much just like M&B, but more simplistic. At most they have three levels. The men you have in your army are split into squads/teams of up to seven men. How many men overall that you have in your army is determined by your stat/skill, and how many squads you take into each battle is also determined by skill.
Before the battle you start with a selection screen with a map where you can choose from small areas you can start from and put each squad along with some simple orders if you want them to move. It will also show where the enemy will spawn. After the battle starts you can go back to the map to give new/change orders, or if a squad is defeated or runs away from the battle add new squads if you have any. When the battle starts you will see a countdown timer. During this time you can see nothing of the enemy on the map but the spawn locations, or indicators of enemy if your men see any they engage with. After the timer ends you will see the general locations of the enemy on the map. The enemy will spawn with all of their troops immediately, while you are limited to what you can use based on your skills, so even though you might have an equal number of men in battle they may start with more. Like with M&B you start out near a weapons cache that allows you to access your inventory during battle. I've found it to be very helpful to be able to grab my night-vision goggles when it is dark, a med-kit if you are injured, or if you run out of ammo.
If you like sniper type games the battles are fun once you are able to use rifles. There are all sorts of guns to choose from, from pistols to sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, to assault rifles. Though which you can use is limited by your stats. Your aim gets better as you level up and gain skill, and better scopes help you shoot further and further. Eventually you can use some defensive strategies to gain high ground and snipe away the enemy since they will just attack you until they are all dead. Though they do try to flank and move around so they don't charge straight at you. Well, not always. AI is 'all knowing' and can see you at all times, and the AI will shoot at an enemy that is blocked by a physical object (rock or hill). So definitely not highly advanced AI.
There are a bunch of different factions. Three are smaller and only start the game with one city each, while three are larger and control multiple cities each. They also start with an enemy they are fighting. There are also tons of groups of looters, bandits, and armed marauders (the various levels of those troops, too) that wander the map, spawning from bandit and terrorist camps.
There are a limited number of maps you battle on, and you will quickly recognize them and learn what strategies work best with each. If you attack a bandit/terrorist camp it is just like a regular battle, though they do have some buildings placed on the map. Attacking cities is a little more interesting in that there are more buildings to fight around and several capture points to control, though you are unable to go into most buildings (at least I tried once and ended up stuck - hopefully something they'll fix). The towns cannot be attacked and are pretty much just neutral, though you are able to try to threaten them to pay you protection.
Finally, spread around the map are some mines for lumber, amber, and iron that you can go and work into to collect resources that you can turn around and sell. Though you have to be careful that while you are gathering you can be attacked by an enemy or bandits.
With all the good, there is still some bad. Aside from being unfinished and buggy, the game is in a very simple state. If you are looking for a deep, rpg style story driven game this is not for you. They've improved on some very frustrating bugs that if you quit and loaded a save would start everything back as it is in the beginning, but it still has some of that problem. For instance, I conquered one faction and took a city from them. After loading a save of it the faction comes back and I have to eliminate them again, though at least now I still get to start with the city I captured. There are some misspellings and wording, though that is understandable since the devs don't speak English as their first language. That there are 'lumber mines' is one example.
The graphics are good. Not the best you'll ever see, but not horrible. They improved those quite a bit with this latest build.
The game is also missing quite a few things that once were in game, or are planned to be added still. They had vehicles/tanks prior to this patch, but don't now. They hope to add those back if they can. It also lacks companions/heroes. Again, something that was taken out and will be added again. Apparently you used to be able to customize your armies by giving them weapons and armor yourself, but they took that out and don't plan on adding it back in, which has caused some controversy as many players enjoyed that feature.
Overall, I've enjoyed playing this game and am looking forward to what the future may bring with it. For a small independent dev team they have done well. I've sort of stalled out with it in it's current state as I've leveled most of the way up and battles have become somewhat redundant. Also frustrating to try playing a little bit at a time only to have to keep having vanquished factions come back with each re-load. Something I'm really looking forward to is the devs say they want to support mods in the future. So as we've seen with M&B there should be a lot of improvements and features added in to help flush the game out and make it better by modders.
It reminds me of M&B back while the original was still being worked on. Buggy and unfinished, but they'd come out with a big new update every so often that added some great new content. The only thing missing from that at this point is the mods.
