自由力量
Freedom Force

Irrational Games, 2002
Windows 和 OS X

Irrational Games, 2002
Windows and OS X

在二十一世纪初期,超级英雄与漫画在电脑游戏中几乎是未被发掘的体裁。有几部游戏反响平平而且都没能给人留下多深的印象,直到《自由力量(Freedom Force)》发售才打破了这一切。

该款游戏由电子游艺公司(Electronic Arts,简称“EA”)与渴望娱乐(Crave Entertainments)联合发行,由《网络奇兵 2(System Shock 2)》的幕后团队 Irrational Games 工作室开发,制作团队成员以窥镜工作室(Looking Glass Studios)[1] 的老员工以及联名开发的澳大利亚团队成员为主。本作就销量而言所获成绩一般,但它打破了“超级英雄类游戏的诅咒”,成功地为该类型商业化铺平道路。

《自由力量》分明是对诞生于“白银时代”的漫画[2] 的致敬与表白,其以充满活力、色彩丰富和野心勃勃的引擎作为特色,故事情节也完全遵循了漫画的套路。角色全都有着基于漫威[3] 和侦探漫画(DC)[4] 的经典原型,用纯粹的英雄来诠释善恶分明的英雄幻想。

In the early 2000s, superheroes and comic books were an almost unexplored genres for computer games. There had been a few lacklustre releases, but they had failed to impress. All this changed with the release of Freedom Force.

Published by Electronic Arts and Crave Entertainments, it was developed by Irrational Games, the team behind System Shock 2, featuring veterans of Looking Glass Studios, as well as the Australian side of the team who would co-develop it. The game would be a moderate success in terms of sales but break the “superhero game curse” and pave the way for much more successful ventures in the field.

A blatant homage and love letter to the Silver Age of comic books, Freedom Force featured a vibrant, colourful, and extremely ambitious engine, and a storyline that trod the well-travelled paths of comic book conventions. The characters introduced were based on classic archetypes from both the Marvel and DC universes, simple heroes acting out heroic fantasies where the good guys and the bad guys were clearly defined and there were no blurred lines.

2005 年 1 月到同年 6 月,首部《自由力量》的游戏故事在《影像漫画(Image Comics)》上以六期迷你漫画的形式重新讲述。

From January to June 2005, the story of the first Freedom Force game was retold in a six-issue comic book miniseries published by Image Comics.

战役分为几个任务展开,每完成三到四个任务便会出现一个“当周反派”。

The campaign progresses through several missions, with every three or four featuring a new “villain of the week”.

看过《飞侠哥顿(Flash Gordon)》[5] 的人可能会觉得游戏的剧情简介似曾相识——邪恶的异星帝王多米尼奥(Lord Dominion)用 X 能量污染了地球,这种能量源可以让暴露其下的普通人获得惊人的超能力,随着 X 能量的储罐倾倒在爱国者城中,一个属于英雄与恶棍的时代拉开了序幕。

关于游戏玩法方面,《自由力量》采用了简单直观的即时暂停系统,玩家作战方式不光有“近战攻击”、“范围技”、“投掷物”和“射线攻击”还有很多特殊技能,它们都有着单独的动画和气泡框特效,像是“砰”(POW)、“啪哒”(WHACK)、“哗啦”(WHOOSH)什么的,这使得战斗变成了一种生动、刺激同时令人心满意足的体验。

除了一些奇特的能力,英雄们还可以飞行、漂浮、传送、跃上屋顶或是举起汽车砸向敌人等。游戏玩法的总结起来便是“做超级英雄能做到的一切“。

声望系统的加入则让游戏锦上添花,在这个简易的系统中,做好事保护市民或是将罪犯绳之以法等支线任务都能搏得其他超级英雄的青睐,让玩家招募更多的英雄。每名超级英雄都有自己独特的能力及作用。每张地图上都隐藏着许多相应的支线任务,增加了游戏的耐玩性和深度。

以在抓捕罪犯的同时必须保护城市和市民作为主要目标也增加了游戏的复杂性与难度,玩家不得不分开派遣自己的英雄团队并监督地图上不同区域的不同事件,或是搜寻城里废弃的 X 能量。

The storyline introduction will be familiar to anyone who has watched Flash Gordon: the evil alien emperor Lord Dominion contaminates Earth with Energy X, a power source that grants amazing superhuman abilities to anyone who is exposed to its radiation. As Energy X canisters fall over Patriot City, an age of superheroes and villains is born.

In terms of gameplay, Freedom Force features an intuitive and accessible real-time-with-pause system, with a variety of powers at the player's disposal: one can use basic melee attacks, area effects, projectiles and beam attacks, as well as a number of special powers. Each of these came with its own animations and effect bubbles – POW, WHACK, WHOOSH, etc. – making combat a colourful, exciting and instantly gratifying experience.

More than just performing fancy attacks, heroes can also fly, levitate, teleport, jump onto roofs, lift cars and throw them at enemies, etc. “Do whatever a superhero can do” kind of sums up the gameplay.

The game is further enhanced by the addition of the Prestige mechanic – a simple system where doing good deeds and side-objectives like protecting citizens and bringing the guilty to justice earns favour with fellow heroes, allowing the player to recruit a larger roster of superheroes, each with their own unique abilities and uses. There are many little instances of these objectives hidden away on every map, and they add life and depth to the gameplay.

The imperative to protect the city and its inhabitants while pursuing the villains and main objectives also adds a pleasing level of complication and difficulty to the game, with the player having to split up their teams of heroes and oversee different events on different parts of the maps, as well as find the canisters of Energy X that litter the city.

__________

1 译者注:窥镜工作室,Looking Glass Studios,代表作《网络奇兵(System Shock)》,后因人员流失被迫解散,2015 年其前创意总监召集老员工重组为 Otherside 工作室。
2 译者注:美国漫画的白银时代(Silver Age of Comic Books),指美国主流漫画界取得巨大艺术进步和商业成功的一段时期,尤其是在超级英雄方面,时间一般界定是从 1956 年至 1970 年左右。
3 译者注:漫威漫画公司(Marvel Comics)是美国漫画巨头之一,它创建于 1939 年,于 1961 年正式定名为 Marvel,旧译为"惊奇漫画",曾用名"时代漫画"(Timely Comics)、亚特拉斯漫画(Atlas Comics)。
4 译者注:DC 漫画公司(Detective Comics)与漫威漫画公司并称美国两大漫画巨头,创建于 1934 年。
5 译者注:《飞侠哥顿》,美国经典的冒险题材漫画,自二十世纪七十年代开始经常被改编成影视作品。

GameDB 相关游戏: 自由力量

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