(This review was my first for geeks.co.uk and was published exactly one year ago today. This is the original with some additional new comments below the line on what has changed since release) Publisher: EA Developer: DICE Year of Release: 2009 Platforms: PC Everyone likes free stuff. More people like free stuff that’s useful, and even more people than that like getting stuff that you should be paying for, for free. Koreans especially. In Korea, most games are not sold in stores, but are downloaded for free and then kept alive by microtransactions, often for items that can be done without. This system hasn’t work particularly well in the west,  probably because we are all a bunch of traditionalists but also because we expect a lot more from our games. This situation, however, is going to change and EA must be able to smell the money making opportunity. They plan to release a Need for Speed game next year using this payment model, but in June they released a game that has been a long time coming: Battlefield Heroes. Battlefield Heroes is a cartoon style shooter using the battlefield system from other games in the series (such as Battlefield 2 or Bad Company). Compared to the other games though, it feels a lot simpler. There are only 3 classes on each side and most maps are small scale with no more than 4 flags. It feels more casual and silly. The art style is similar to TF2 and the camera is in the third person, but more important is the change to the class system. As said before there are three classes on each side. However, unlike previous games where classes and sides would change from battle to battle, you choose your side and class when you create your hero. This is a persistent character, whose abilities and appearance are carried over between games. Each class (Commando, Soldier and Gunner) can use certain unique abilities. Many of these are skits on annoyances in other games (such as the soldiers’ grenade spam). This carries on the sense of humour running through the game. Various clothing options add to the comedy.  For Battlefunds, paid for with real hard cash, you can upgrade your character with either proper military attire, as a participant in the eternal “Pirate vs Ninja” war or in other humorous clothing like an “I’m with stupid shirt”. The main problem with the clothing options is the fact they cost money.  Worse, the payed stuff has a limited life on it and the free original options are rubbish. This was a problem I also had in the beta version, which annoyed me enough to make me blog about it. Thankfully, EA has managed to fix it slightly. Some clothing options can be bought with Valor Points which are earned ingame and can now be bought permanently for a premium.  It does make the game look a lot better; the craziness of the clothing just adds to the overall bedlam. And bedlam it is. In the last game, I saw a man in a sombrero knock a jeep into the air by clapping his hands, before waving to the jeep he’d just crashed. I saw a spitfire with a sniper and a gunner riding on the wings with all three doing chicken noises. The game is just fun to play, in a way COD or even BF2 just can’t be. The feel from it is just one of happy mayhem. Still, there are some problems. There are only four maps at the moment, which is typical for a free game. Also there is a slight imbalance between the two sides. It seems to be much easier to join a game as a National (fake German look-alike) than as a Royal (fake British trooper…with Kilt!). Not much of an issue as there are still plenty of players now, but after people lose interest it might be much harder to find games at your level. Finally, the number of items in the store is somewhat lacking. At the moment there are too few items for some sections and many of them are not actually very useful. But, this is a free game, and it seems to be something that EA is more than happy to put money into so we can expect development to last for a long time with the promise of new items and maps down the line. At the moment the game is still great. It’s a free version of Battlefield which is fun to play and can be quite addictive due to its persistent character system. And it’s free. Did I mention that? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what is it like today? Well there have been a few major changes. The store has been filled up with items of varying prices from new costume parts to weapons to funny emotes to the new widgets such as rocket fuel or footballs. There have been several themed set, from ninjas to knights to characters from Battlefield Bad Company 2. In December of 2009, they changed the price system by devaluing Valour Points and limiting to buy time limited item while the Battle Funds had their worth increased by dropping the price in the real money and making them permanent. This was slightly controversial as many players saw it forcing players to spend real money on their game by cutting the usefulness of the free currency In the actual game, there has also been a change. The number of National players compared to Royals has now flipped and there are a lot more of the fake Germans running around the maps. The number of maps has been increased up to seven and a new game mode, which is a king of the hill variant, has been added so the battles are now slightly more mixed up with a greater variety of both settings and tactics. There are over 3 million players who have signed up for the game so it is still doing well. And why shouldn’t it be? Its the battlefield formula but for free. Even better most people are willing to pay for parts of it to keep it in constant development – by a month after release it had made $30 million dollars with each player spending on average $20. I think it has been a success both finically and as a game.

(This review was my first for geeks.co.uk and was published exactly one year ago today. This is the original with some additional new comments below the line on what has changed since release)

Publisher: EA
Developer: DICE
Year of Release: 2009
Platforms: PC

Everyone likes free stuff. More people like free stuff that’s useful, and even more people than that like getting stuff that you should be paying for, for free. Koreans especially.

In Korea, most games are not sold in stores, but are downloaded for free and then kept alive by microtransactions, often for items that can be done without. This system hasn’t work particularly well in the west,  probably because we are all a bunch of traditionalists but also because we expect a lot more from our games.

This situation, however, is going to change and EA must be able to smell the money making opportunity. They plan to release a Need for Speed game next year using this payment model, but in June they released a game that has been a long time coming: Battlefield Heroes.

Battlefield Heroes is a cartoon style shooter using the battlefield system from other games in the series (such as Battlefield 2 or Bad Company). Compared to the other games though, it feels a lot simpler. There are only 3 classes on each side and most maps are small scale with no more than 4 flags. It feels more casual and silly. The art style is similar to TF2 and the camera is in the third person, but more important is the change to the class system.

As said before there are three classes on each side. However, unlike previous games where classes and sides would change from battle to battle, you choose your side and class when you create your hero. This is a persistent character, whose abilities and appearance are carried over between games. Each class (Commando, Soldier and Gunner) can use certain unique abilities. Many of these are skits on annoyances in other games (such as the soldiers’ grenade spam). This carries on the sense of humour running through the game. Various clothing options add to the comedy.  For Battlefunds, paid for with real hard cash, you can upgrade your character with either proper military attire, as a participant in the eternal “Pirate vs Ninja” war or in other humorous clothing like an “I’m with stupid shirt”.

The main problem with the clothing options is the fact they cost money.  Worse, the payed stuff has a limited life on it and the free original options are rubbish. This was a problem I also had in the beta version, which annoyed me enough to make me blog about it. Thankfully, EA has managed to fix it slightly. Some clothing options can be bought with Valor Points which are earned ingame and can now be bought permanently for a premium.  It does make the game look a lot better; the craziness of the clothing just adds to the overall bedlam.

And bedlam it is. In the last game, I saw a man in a sombrero knock a jeep into the air by clapping his hands, before waving to the jeep he’d just crashed. I saw a spitfire with a sniper and a gunner riding on the wings with all three doing chicken noises. The game is just fun to play, in a way COD or even BF2 just can’t be. The feel from it is just one of happy mayhem.

Still, there are some problems. There are only four maps at the moment, which is typical for a free game. Also there is a slight imbalance between the two sides. It seems to be much easier to join a game as a National (fake German look-alike) than as a Royal (fake British trooper…with Kilt!). Not much of an issue as there are still plenty of players now, but after people lose interest it might be much harder to find games at your level. Finally, the number of items in the store is somewhat lacking. At the moment there are too few items for some sections and many of them are not actually very useful.

But, this is a free game, and it seems to be something that EA is more than happy to put money into so we can expect development to last for a long time with the promise of new items and maps down the line. At the moment the game is still great. It’s a free version of Battlefield which is fun to play and can be quite addictive due to its persistent character system. And it’s free. Did I mention that?

———————————————————————————————————————————-

So what is it like today? Well there have been a few major changes. The store has been filled up with items of varying prices from new costume parts to weapons to funny emotes to the new widgets such as rocket fuel or footballs. There have been several themed set, from ninjas to knights to characters from Battlefield Bad Company 2. In December of 2009, they changed the price system by devaluing Valour Points and limiting to buy time limited item while the Battle Funds had their worth increased by dropping the price in the real money and making them permanent. This was slightly controversial as many players saw it forcing players to spend real money on their game by cutting the usefulness of the free currency

In the actual game, there has also been a change. The number of National players compared to Royals has now flipped and there are a lot more of the fake Germans running around the maps. The number of maps has been increased up to seven and a new game mode, which is a king of the hill variant, has been added so the battles are now slightly more mixed up with a greater variety of both settings and tactics.

There are over 3 million players who have signed up for the game so it is still doing well. And why shouldn’t it be? Its the battlefield formula but for free. Even better most people are willing to pay for parts of it to keep it in constant development – by a month after release it had made $30 million dollars with each player spending on average $20. I think it has been a success both finically and as a game.