A couple of months ago IGN ran a story about the Freedom Force franchise and included a lot of concept drawings for a 70's and possibly 90' version of the team. While the stereotypes and comic homages were plenty, most of the redesigns completely missed the mark. I pondered why changes were made to the cast - giving Microwave the Million-Dollar Man's face, casting Evel Knievel as the Bullet, and making Liberty Lad a dapper dandy - when it hit.Irrational just dumped me and Freedom Force is dead.
Certainly this wasn't to inspire fans to go and download the first two installments on Steam. We already have a copy of the game, if not two! They showed us these images to let us down easy -
"Look Freedom Force fans, there is a really cool idea for a moody FPS we want to make but it requires a next-gen engine and frankly we are tired of the useless flaming Spaniard . Here are bunch of pretty pictures, don't be mad at us."
I resent Irrational Games for showing me these images and ignoring it's large and rather faithful fanbase. How dare they dump us for a plot-driven FPS games where the main antagonists have an unusually close relationship with strung-out little girls. A game so deep with character development and plot it makes all other FPS look like Duckhunt. Don't act dumb, you know what game I am referring. You are probably anticipating the sequal right now!It would be interesting to see if a third installment of Freedom Force had a chance though. If the sales of Freedom Force on Steam were significant enough maybe they would reconsider but that is highly unlikely. They will never run back to us and say how faithful we were, how much they missed us ignoring Marvel's demands, and that Bio-Shock was for man-children who live in their parents' basement.
So I guess that leaves the development of a new Freedom Force game in the community's greasy palms. We have the talent. We have the passion. We just do not have the drive. We are too concerned with the latest comic characters or making full conversion mods that are never released. Could you imagine the exposure the community would get if we created a sequal based on these pictures? Game companies eat amateur game developers up. Who knows maybe a few of you Bio-Shock playing man-children can secure employment and finally move out of your mum's basement.
Truly, that would be nice.
- Spectre Lad
