Battlefield Heroes (PC) Preview
Posted by Drew Robbins on 09.25.2008
Hands-on Load up your guns and tie up those boots. It's time to hit the battlefield one more time.
Battlefield Heroes Publisher - EA Developer - DICE Release Date - Fall/Winter 2008
Though EA has certainly earned quite a reputation as the money hungry company controlling the gaming world, sometimes they have moments of generosity. In this particular instant, EA has decided to put into development a completely free Battlefield game. Just absorb that for a few moments…EA, free, Battlefield online game. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right? Of course it is a good deal, with the $0.00 price tag, but gameplay speaking, this game has quite a ways to go.
Once you sign up for an EA account, the game tasks you with creating your own soldier. Much like in MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Warhammer, you must choose which side you will represent. Maybe you want to defend all that is right with the National army, or maybe you are a douchebag who chooses to play for the villainous Royal Army. Being a renowned douche, I chose the Royal army and immediately began picking away in the character creator. To be quite honest, the character creator is probably the second best feature of this game, behind only the graphics (more on that later). You start out with Mr. Generic soldier, and can transform him with many different clothes and accessories. Just to show you how awesome the creator is, I will explain, in great detail, the soldier I made. He was a skinny man, black vest with bullets strapped around him, strange pants that were bigger towards the top, a five-o-clock shadow, and an eyepatch. Heck yeah, that is what I'm talking about.
It is important to note that not all characters are alike. No, not in appearance, but also not in style. Battlefield Heroes has three different classes. The Commando is extremely quick (see: Scout from Team Fortress 2), the Gunner is balanced in speed and weaponry, and the Gunner is a slowed down heavy-gunner (see: Heavy from Team Fortress 2). Unfortunately, you won't feel too much of a difference when you play as different classes. To make matters worse, the Gunner has extreme balance issues, as he pretty much demolishes everything in his path, and killing him takes forever, even though he has no medic!
The next step is to actually install the game onto your computer, but hold on there! Though this might be fixed with the release, right now this game only supports a few different browsers. As of this moment, only Mozilla Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 can download the game. My complaint here is that the game doesn't support the latest version of Firefox, so in order to play, I had to use Microsoft's slow…plodding browser. Luckily the slow-ness of Internet Explorer doesn't ooze into the actual game, as it runs rather smooth once you get it working. While the game runs smooth, the actions are slow, much like Internet explorer. Shots with my machine gun seemed pretty slow, and encounters boiled down into a strafing fight.
An important part of the gameplay is the vehicles, which are pretty solid. The tanks control a bit funny, but are extremely useful for battle and can tear right through the enemy frontlines. Battlefield Heroes other vehicle, the plane, is possibly the most awesome thing ever created. I've never played Ace Combat, so maybe this wouldn't be as impressive to most, but the flight was extremely immersive. Every little shift of the mouse makes the plane react, so barrel rolls are definitely a part of the game. Sure, they aren't as cool as the barrel rolls in Star Fox, but come on, what is?
The main highlight so far is the outstanding graphics in the game's many (well, right now, 2) environments. One of the levels available for play looks like a beautiful countryside resort, and watching the grass sway is quite a sight. The other stage available is a city under siege, which while less impressive than the other, still looks pretty great. So far, the only lowlight of the game's graphics is the character models, which could use some polishing. Especially on their blank, emotionless faces.
With the beta nearing its close, one can only hope that EA will fix this game up and make it something truly great. A lot of things can happen in a few months, so who knows? Maybe the characters will gain character akin to Team Fortress 2, maybe the classes will be balanced, and maybe the action will speed up. One can hope, because if that were to happen, Battlefield Heroes would be a no-doubter for anyone to install 200 megabytes on their PC.
Once you sign up for an EA account, the game tasks you with creating your own soldier. Much like in MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Warhammer, you must choose which side you will represent. Maybe you want to defend all that is right with the National army, or maybe you are a douchebag who chooses to play for the villainous Royal Army. Being a renowned douche, I chose the Royal army and immediately began picking away in the character creator. To be quite honest, the character creator is probably the second best feature of this game, behind only the graphics (more on that later). You start out with Mr. Generic soldier, and can transform him with many different clothes and accessories. Just to show you how awesome the creator is, I will explain, in great detail, the soldier I made. He was a skinny man, black vest with bullets strapped around him, strange pants that were bigger towards the top, a five-o-clock shadow, and an eyepatch. Heck yeah, that is what I'm talking about.
An important part of the gameplay is the vehicles, which are pretty solid. The tanks control a bit funny, but are extremely useful for battle and can tear right through the enemy frontlines. Battlefield Heroes other vehicle, the plane, is possibly the most awesome thing ever created. I've never played Ace Combat, so maybe this wouldn't be as impressive to most, but the flight was extremely immersive. Every little shift of the mouse makes the plane react, so barrel rolls are definitely a part of the game. Sure, they aren't as cool as the barrel rolls in Star Fox, but come on, what is?
