Eurogamer has had a chance to go a few rounds with Battlefield Heroes, the upcoming free title from DICE and the rest of the Battlefield crew. The team certainly talked up the unique visuals quite a bit, but how does the game play?
The preview article isn't all doom and gloom, thankfully.
If you'd like to check out the two page preview, head directly over to Eurogamer.
Matches are invariably a brisk five to fifteen minutes, and seldom descend into stalemate. Once you're rolling, you can happily and seamlessly run from one into the next without stopping, and get showered in XP to level up your hero while doing so. Despite its limitations, Battlefield Heroes is an addictive romp already - but it's very far from being ready.
Most of the things that make the game unusual aren't in it yet. The website it's launched from is basic and slow, and doesn't feature the campaign-map meta-game DICE has talked about, or any of the social functions you might expect either. Even the character creation tool is very simple, leaving costume customisation to be done within the game client. There's no friends or lobby system to speak of, and matchmaking is haphazard at best.
More seriously, the game's levelling system hasn't been fully implemented yet, and remains something of a mystery. Battlefield Heroes' three classes - Soldier (sub machine guns, healing), Gunner (machine guns, shields and lots of health) and Commando (stealth, traps and sniping) - can all gain XP as they play, and also spend Hero Points to power up abilities and buy new ones. Missions - achievement-style challenges to destroy a certain number of tanks in one round, for example - can be picked up after level 5 in the current version of the game, and award Hero Points.
Most of the things that make the game unusual aren't in it yet. The website it's launched from is basic and slow, and doesn't feature the campaign-map meta-game DICE has talked about, or any of the social functions you might expect either. Even the character creation tool is very simple, leaving costume customisation to be done within the game client. There's no friends or lobby system to speak of, and matchmaking is haphazard at best.
More seriously, the game's levelling system hasn't been fully implemented yet, and remains something of a mystery. Battlefield Heroes' three classes - Soldier (sub machine guns, healing), Gunner (machine guns, shields and lots of health) and Commando (stealth, traps and sniping) - can all gain XP as they play, and also spend Hero Points to power up abilities and buy new ones. Missions - achievement-style challenges to destroy a certain number of tanks in one round, for example - can be picked up after level 5 in the current version of the game, and award Hero Points.
The preview article isn't all doom and gloom, thankfully.
Don't let the happy campers and holiday-resort maps fool you into thinking this game is about anything other than killing, though. Although the pace has been slowed, and the pin-sharp, headshot-critical precision of previous Battlefields deliberately smudged to make it more accessible, Battlefield Heroes is still a take-no-prisoners respawn riot.
Both maps are based on the Conquest game type, with the National (Nazi) and Royal (Allied) Armies vying to keep their flags flying over four bases, and erode the other side's score first. Seaside Skirmish is very vehicle-biased; it's dominated by the game's chunky tanks, although jeeps offer fast transit around its rolling fields, and fighter planes strafe from the sky (pretty ineptly - few players have mastered their wildly exaggerated banking and rolling yet, but everyone's having fun trying).
Both maps are based on the Conquest game type, with the National (Nazi) and Royal (Allied) Armies vying to keep their flags flying over four bases, and erode the other side's score first. Seaside Skirmish is very vehicle-biased; it's dominated by the game's chunky tanks, although jeeps offer fast transit around its rolling fields, and fighter planes strafe from the sky (pretty ineptly - few players have mastered their wildly exaggerated banking and rolling yet, but everyone's having fun trying).
If you'd like to check out the two page preview, head directly over to Eurogamer.
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