KK GAME STUDIO | Photo Courtesy
A little over a month and a half ago I wrote a review for a game called “Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare” by KK Game Studio, which was released Feb. 1. When it came out, I played the hell out of it before recently revisiting it.
After a hard day’s work, I was in the mood to revisit “Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare” because I had not touched it in a month. After I started up a new save file, I immediately realized that the developers had made a lot of progress with updates. I instantly noticed their hard work.
The first thing I noticed was the main menu screen looked more refined. The trees lining the road going into the village in the background, the sky, the grass and the shadows all looked like they had been reworked. As a result, everything looked much more intriguing and vibrant than before.
The second item that interested me was a character selection screen. When “Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare” was released, there was no option to pick a male or female character. Instead, you were thrust right into the action as a dude with jeans and a sweet T-shirt. Now, you can pick to be a preset man or woman as an avatar to mow down terrorists and looters.
When I got into the world map of the game, I checked my inventory and was once again pleasantly surprised that the equipment and skill tree had been redone. Now upgrading your character and equipping items seems to be easier and more straightforward.
There is still one little glitch that the developers have yet to address, however. The glitch happens in the upper right-hand corner of the inventory screen, and sometimes when the cursor is hovering over an item in that one spot, it will suddenly shake around and disappear. Get on that, KK.
I went to a town to drop off the useless extra stuff in my inventory like extra food, clothes and a solid gold nugget. I then checked the “Hire Mercenaries” tab. The mercenaries were, like everything else mentioned so far in this article, updated. They were no longer generic names like Freedom Fighters or Sniper Squad. They are now called GCO Freelancer squad and GCO Sharpshooter section.
The mercenaries also look way better than before. They now wear sunglasses and T-shirts with bulletproof vests around them. This makes them look cooler. To my delight, each member of a mercenary outfit carries a different firearm than their squad-mates. This adds to the effect that they are an elite unit with different skills spread throughout the members.
From the weapons that I have wielded in preparation for this article, I have to say they look great. The guns seem to have character emanating from the scratches and marks along the outside. These marks make the gun appear used and bumped around.
One thing that really stood out to me above all else in this game was the lighting and environmental effects. On my first battle I loaded into the map, and after deploying my troops I saw progress. The ground was no longer barren with patches of grass and shrubs. There are now different types of flowers. At one point I could have sworn I saw bees (only true gamers eat bees). When I walked past a tree, I saw the most dazzling thing I have witnessed in a game for a while. You know the filtering effect a tree has on sunlight when the sun is directly behind the trees? That is exactly what I saw, and I walked a couple times back and forth to fully appreciate the visual effect. Because I have not seen a nice sky in a while, another bonus was the in-game sun looked real. It was so realistic that when I stared directly into it, my eyes started hurting just like when I have accidentally looked at the real-world sun. Now that is true art.
Combat is pretty much as it was when “Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare” was first released. One thing that changed is there are now more than three map variants to fight on. Battles are now more random and based on what environment you are occupying on the world map. While playing this updated version of the game, I had a squad of looters chase me. Normally they would shoot until I disappeared and only then move toward me, but now they shoot and run toward me.
After dealing with pesky looters and bandits, survivors become your prisoner. The prisoner menu allows for prisoners to join your squad over time. Sometimes prisoners will be strong willed and not want to join you, but there are ways to make them like you. You can execute, torture, bribe and threaten prisoners to join your glorious conquest of the island and its factions of warlords.
I’m glad “Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare” has been treated right and is being updated regularly. If you want to experience the game and what the developers have put into it for yourself, you can find it in the Early Access section of the Steam Store Page.