Red's Box

If you hadn't heard, with the soft launch EA pulled I wouldn't blame you, Electronic Arts has launched a new web based free to play First Person Shooter called Battlefield Heroes. This is a cartoony shooter with a visual style reminiscent of Team Fortress 2 and a fun, light hearted stab (damn Commandos) at the competitive Battlefield formula.

Visually the game is pretty nice, lots of bright colors and great animations. The two different sides are different enough to typically be able to tell them apart from a distance with the Royals looking similar to the "high school jocks" and the Nationals looking like those punk greasers. The over done cartoon style will also help the game keep its graphical appeal well into the future, something that the gritty realistic games have tend to have trouble with.

The gameplay is simple, but not boring. There are three hero types: the Gunner, Soldier and Commando. The gunner is your heavy weapons specialist carying a light machine gun, anti-tank bazooka and shotgun. The soldier is your everyday middleman with his submachine guns, pistols (or shotgun) and anti-infantry grenades and the commando is your typical sniper that carries a knife. Both sides have the same classes which lends balancing to be a little simpler for the development team. All three classes are fun to play, but you can't change at will. One you create a hero he is the class you chose forever and experience (and clothing, weapon upgrades, etc) are tied to that particular hero for ever. So if you have a level 10 gunner you will need to create a new level 1 commando if you want to snipe.

The UI is a little weird, there is no server browser which tends to frustrate me when the game keeps dumping me into a server that is poorly balanced and not fun to play. But I'm not complaining too loud since the game is entirely free - you can purchase clothes and other customizations - and a ton of fun to play. Hop online and fire up an account, if you do look me up (Player name RedeyeLE) and add me to your friends list (so we can join each others' games!) and we'll frag some Nationals!