A lot of what makes Freedom Fighters such a superb game is its cohesiveness. The game's different elements come together and expertly craft a game that is better than the sum of its parts. And a huge part of the connective tissue that ties Freedom Fighters together is its fantastic, original musical score, composed and produced by Jesper Kyd and performed by the Hungarian Radio Choir.

Freedom Fighters, a game about a Russian invasion of New York and the average joe plumber who rises up to lead an organized resistance movement, comes off as a very cinematic game. Part of that can be attributed to the game's good use of cutscenes, but what really drives the point home is the music that plays throughout the game's story. The sweeping themes found in the news broadcasts and other cutscenes contain great symphonic and choral parts that suitably reflect the power and intimidation of Cold War-era Russia. More importantly, these are some outstandingly good compositions.

The in-game music doesn't play very loudly, but the quiet music that plays while you're creeping around Russian-controlled territory works to give the game some real cinematic strength. The game also uses this music in a somewhat interactive fashion. While you'll get mostly silence at the start of a level, as the action picks up, the music swells, reaching a crescendo. The music really gets going during serious firefights and other plot sequences, and the whole thing rounds out to really have the sort of sound and music that you'd expect from a more-thoughtful action movie. The way it all comes together is absolutely fantastic, and it's for this reason that Freedom Fighters has the best original music of 2003.