When it comes to shoot-'em-ups, players don't expect too much. Adopt an established style, get the shooting mechanics right, provide a challenge, and being fair means that genre fans will give it a chance. As long as you don't put any effort into messing up things, everything should play out fine. Freedom Finger becomes an interesting case, since this is a shooter daring to do something a little different in the space, and the end result is quite good.

The story is somewhat atypical of a shooter. You play as a trusted airman who's piloting the latest in American spacecraft technology, and you're sent on a secret operation. Chinese terrorists have taken over the American base on the moon, and they're demanding that the country surrender the facility within 24 hours, or they'll blow up the place. Your mission is to rescue the scientists on the base, including the daughter of Major Cigar, and determine if the terrorists are capable of destroying the base before wiping them out.

The best way to describe the story is that it is essentially "Team America: World Police" in video game form. You have overblown patriotism running amok and military officials going with an "act first, think later" attitude. The loading screens are filled with quotes from politicians to either accentuate the absurdity of the situation or show how clueless they can be. The fact that your ship is essentially a giant fist sticking out a middle finger should be a clue that this isn't a serious game. The absurdity is achieved with jokes that may vary in comic quality, they justify the many cut scenes that bookend each of the 30+ stages.

The shooting mechanics are akin to the classics, with only a hint of "bullet hell" during boss fights. There are a ton of flying enemies that try to shoot you down instead of being cannon fodder, and every encounter has specific flight patterns that you'll need to recognize quickly if you want high scores. As another reference to shooters of yesteryear, the levels aren't wide-open horizontal spaces; you have different pathways to take, with some paths activated by switches and other sections acting like tiny mazes or obstacle courses. You're less worried about the enemy and more worried about not crashing your ship. As expected, you have infinite ammo for your laser, but pick-ups are woefully sparse, except for a shield and the ability to refill your health meter.

To make up for that shortcoming, Freedom Finger makes good use of your ship's fist shape. One button simply thrusts your ship forward a short distance to bash things, and that is great for activating switches, destroying ships, and propelling mines and space debris into ships. Mashing on this attack produces a two-jab combo followed by an uppercut, which, depending on the environment, is a pretty decent way to create some space if you're panicking. The other attack is a grab, which lets you use enemy ships as your laser replacement. Aside from enabling things like a wave shot or a spread shot, it's a method to disarm a few enemies, drastically reducing their methods of attack. Unlike most shooters, getting hit while holding an enemy ship causes you to lose that ship.

With these advantages comes some design decisions that make the game even more interesting. Each level lasts the length of a song, so expect an eclectic mix of tunes with the likes of Aesop Rock, The Mall, and Ty Segall as part of the soundtrack, and expect the songs to be a decent length, so the regular levels can be longer those in classic shooters. The flipside is that boss fights also last the length of a song, and since they appear in their own dedicated stage, you can't enter a level with an enemy ship or shields in tow. Unlike the regular levels, letting the song end with the boss still alive results in a game over, so there's some pressure to finish each boss quickly.

The other interesting mechanic is what they call stealth, but it isn't what you think it is. Instead of being a pacifist and trying to sneak by enemy ships, you have to shoot everyone before they leave the screen. Every enemy that doesn't get killed will fill up your stealth meter, and just like letting a boss live at the end of a song, the full meter results in an instant game over. The good news is that the game is quite generous about this in the early stages, but by the time you hit the back half, you'll start to stress about figuring out when to risk damage or death to kill everyone and if you can take the hit to the stealth meter when you're near the end of a stage.

With all of this combined, it makes for a shooting experience that's both frantic and exciting. The return of mazes makes this one more of a thinking shooter instead of the bullet hell bonanzas we've been getting over the years, and the overall length is enough that it feels longer and more involving than other shoot-'em-ups. About the only complaint you can levy against the title is that it only has one other mode: arcade. Even then, with less emphasis on big boss fights and more on deftly dealing with foes, the lack of other modes isn't an issue.

The presentation is top-notch all around. Aside from the aforementioned all-star soundtrack, the voice acting is pitch-perfect thanks to a small cast of big hitters in the industry, like John DiMaggio and Nolan North. Graphically, the hand-drawn art style makes the game look like an Adult Swim show, and everything is clean enough that you aren't going to have trouble figuring out what can and can't be shot. Even when compared to most big-budget titles, Freedom Finger is a real looker.

Freedom Finger is awesome, especially if you're a shoot-'em-up fan. Even if you're the type to skip over cut scenes or aren't moved by the graphical style, the shooting mechanics are enough to sway you, since it plays around with the formula enough to feel different from everything else. Mix it in with a truly electric soundtrack, and you have a pleasant surprise of a game, and its only weakness is that it was released this year, which has had some really outstanding indie titles.

Score: 9.0/10