Battlefield Heroes
- February 29, 2008 00:00 AM PST
Battlefield Heroes: Better than Team Fortress 2?
Although it was in development for what seemed like forever, Team Fortress 2 managed to charm gamers with its quirky visual style and fast-paced action. It offered a nice change of pace from the super serious Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 type games that currently dominate the online space. Though they made their mark developing realistic war games, D.I.C.E. is taking a stab at the sillier side of full scale conflict with Battlefield Heroes, a game that follows in TF2's rather sizable footsteps. GamePro was on hand at a recent GDC event where we got to see the game in action, and early indications are, it may have what it takes to carve out its own cartoony niche.
Prepare to blow holes in your friends, without blowing a hole in your pocket.
Pay to Play?
First things first: Battlefield Heroes is free to play. You simply download the client, register on the website and you're good to go. It's supported by ads and microtransactions but thankfully, as far as we know, there are no plans to bring ads into the game itself. We were also intrigued by one other aspect of the game: you can't change sides at will. When you register, you have to swear allegiance to one of the game's two factions, the National Army and the Royal Army. It's an interesting twist and one that hopefully gives rise to an actual feeling of loyalty and community amongst the players.
The developers also made an interesting game design decision on the battlefield itself: instead of the customary 1st-person viewpoint, Heroes plays out in a 3rd-person perspective. We'll reserve judgment as to whether this is a good thing or not until we've played the game for ourselves (our guess is you could make an argument for both sides of the equation) but it certainly does help it stand out from the crowd.
War Games
Aside from that, Heroes is shaping up to be your run of the mill online shooter. You pick from three individual classes-commando (weak but fast), soldier (balanced), and gunner (strong but slow)-and jump into the map to lay waste to your opponents. There's a scoring system in place involving "tickets" which basically equal life points; kill an enemy and reduce their ticket count accordingly. There are also multipliers you can earn from capturing and holding flag points. It's not revolutionary but it should make for the same sort of online mayhem that we're all accustomed to seeing now.
Beyond that, the one thing that really jumped out at us was the sense of humor that DICE is trying to instill in the overall game design. Your characters have, well, character: there are pre-programmed taunts and gestures that you can activate at any time, to razz your opponents or to thank your teammates. The cartoonish vibe also translates to the game's vehicles-hitch a ride on one of the airplanes and you'll find yourself strapped into the plane's wing; how's that for flying the friendly skies?
The Price Is Right
We won't know whether or not DICE has succeeded in its mission to bring a little levity to the otherwise staid online shooter genre but Heroes does have a lot of potential. We're hoping the developers find a way to mix up the gameplay and bring something new to the table and that they continue to refine the game's visual style. But one thing's for sure-come summer, when they release the game, it's sure to draw quite a crowd. After all, everybody loves getting something for nothing, especially if that something was produced by one of the more talented FPS design teams around.
