Last night, Brendon Zeidler and I had a chance to have a Zoom call with David Riordan, one of the creators of the laserdisc arcade game Freedom Fighter. The call was recorded, but I am not sure if it will be published so I am recording some notes from memory so that I don't forget.
The lead (only?) programmer of the game was Dick Huston.
The reason the prototype units were made from converted Star Rider hardware was that Millennium Games purchased old unused Star Rider hardware from Williams under the understanding that about 150 working units would be provided. In the end, less, maybe 50, units ended up working from that batch.
The modifications to the Star Rider hardware were done by an employee from Los Angeles who was better with electronics than with people. He also was responsible for designing the custom PIF board that replaces Star Rider's PIF board. David did not get along with this individual.
The Philips 22VP931 laserdisc player was chosen because of its amazing skipping ability without dropping video. Philips offered to sell their remaining batch of these players, but would not provide support in case something went wrong (which I found shocking). Philips also said it would not make any more of these players which meant that Freedom Fighter could have never been scaled up to mass production. I have still not been able to find any official documentation on how to control these players and don't expect to.
The joystick for the game was custom made. (Matt's notes follow in this paragraph) It relied on using Star Rider's existing inputs, which included the steering handlebar inputs for left/right movement and the acceleration throttle for up/down. Inputs unused by Star Rider, such as start1/start2, were used for fire and perhaps something else.
The laserdisc video that was split up into very short segments was created by a high-end machine made by Ampex. The machine was programmed (by a human) ahead of time and fed film reels of the unedited footage and it will chop the film up according to the program. The film was then reassembled to create the master that was used to manufacture the disc. (Matt's note: I may have misunderstood this process so my description may not be entirely accurate)
Millennium Games was a company formed by Malibu who owned 30-40 major entertainment venues across the country. Therefore, Freedom Fighter was a Malibu exclusive title.
Probably less than 50 prototype units were ever produced.
Steven Spielberg was a huge fan of the game and had one in his office at Amblin Entertainment in the 80's.
The animation to Freedom Fighter was done by a Japanese company called TOEI who had made a movie called Galaxy Express 999 and wanted to see their work featured in a video game. Therefore, they were willing to work for very cheap to create the additional animation needed for the game. Apparently 90% of the video in Freedom Fighter was created by scratch for this purpose. On the disc if you can see the main character, it may have been movie footage. If you are seeing through the main character's eyes, it was new content created specifically for the game. Voices done for the game were done by Millennium Games.
The attract mode, including the saxophone music, was envisioned by Millennium Games, not TOEI.
The name, Freedom Fighter, was chosen since the alternative, 999, would be too confusing for audiences.
When the game worked, it was a big hit with crowds. As expected, the laserdisc players tended to fail (due to dust problems) and this spelled the doom of the game from have a longer lifespan.
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