Thoughts on Battlefield Heroes

Battlefield Heroes is basically in Open Beta status at the moment, with everyone under the sun able to get beta keys. I’ve probably put about 10 hours into the game, which is enough to form opinions about it.  I know it’s still in “beta”, but since it is open beta; it is highly-unlikely that there will be any large changes to the core gameplay that these statements are about.

1. Battlefield Heroes is fun.  A simple enough statement, but it’s true.  The menu music is peppy (and bore-into-your-brain catchy) and the characters are almost- dare I say- cute.  Even the evil guys are likable.  The pace of combat is quick, but it takes a solid 5 seconds to kill anybody (unless you’re a sniper) which makes combat exciting.
2. Battlefield Heroes can be frustrating.  There will be times where you will be killed in one shot by a guy who’s played the game for hundreds of hours and spent tons of money upgrading their character.  When you’re playing against have a dramatically higher level character than you, they will be able to kill you fairly easily.  This can be frustrating, but see point 1 about how it will soothe you.
3. Battlefield Heroes is Battlefield.  And if you don’t like capturing control points and ticket-life systems, you may not like it.
4. Battlefield Heroes is not for casual players.  Unfortunately there is no Xbox Live-like trueskill system that will keep the experienced shooter player away from the casual gamer.  This means that there will be jerkfaces like myself that will not hesitate to slaughter the poor casual players.  In reality, Halo 3 is a better shooter for casual players than Battlefield Heroes.  The reason that it might be called casual is:
5. Battlefield Heroes can be played in small chunks.  In fact, this might be one of the things that it is the best at.  The Play Now button puts you in a game normally inside 20 seconds, and the rounds themselves last only five to fifteen minutes.  It also makes the game dangerous by having the “just one more” factor.
6. Battlefield Heroes is not for playing with friends.  Last night a friend and I attempted to play, but found that it was extremely difficult to get into the same game.  While you can join a game that a friend is in, it’s difficult because the game your friend is in will normally be full thanks to the matchmaking system.  Basically, the game desperately needs some kind of social network integration.

Without question, it is a game you should play if you like shooters.  Luckily, nearly any computer can run it, including my nearly five year old PC I’m running the Windows 7 beta on.  So have you picked up your key yet?

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~ by teirdome on May 1, 2009.