EA's Battlefield Heroes, a free FPS - US & Europe only :(

[Drac]

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Update: 24th January

Australia & Others Will Miss Out On Battlefield Heroes | Kotaku Australia

Sigh.


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Original Post: 22nd January

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This has been plastered all over Digg and various news sites today, looks to be in the same visual style as Team Fortress 2, which is all kinds of awesome as far as I'm concerned.

Battlefield Heroes™

• Battlefield Heroes™ is a brand new Play 4 Free™ game from the people that brought you the multi-million selling Battlefield 1942™ and Battlefield 2™
• It's a fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all skill levels – easy to pick up and play, but with deep character development
• It will be released for the PC as a free download in Summer 2008

Featured in next the next ( March 2008 ) Games for Windows magazine (US Only, I think)

[Vulcan21]

Since when did EA/DICE and 'free' co-exist in the same sentence.

[Mecha-Wombat]

There has got to be a catch there is always a catch

[Spectre8]

I just love that they refer to it as a "Unique cartoon shooter" heheh... TF2 anyone??

More of the article here.

Also... they take healthy credit for BF1942 and BF2... seems they aren't too proud of 2142!!

[Drac]

I think this being free is in part an experiment for EA/Dice and also a sign of how mainstream gaming has become. It could be they feel gaming has hit the critical mass required to support such an endeavour thought adds and micro-transactions (most likely for in-game avatar details and access to special content/maps/classes). The whole "casual" claim also seems to support this.

There are already a handful of well established free MMOs around, and now it seems FPSs are joining in on the band-wagon too. Looks to me as if gaming is becoming more like other forms of media such as TV. Weather this is a good or bad direction for the industry to take, or if other developers will follow suit, who knows.

[Vlad the Inhaler]

Expect it to be full of adverts, like they trialled and use in 2142.

It takes them ages to patch the games you pay for, wonder what customer service will be like on a freebie?

[Vulcan21]

Originally Posted by Spectre8

I just love that they refer to it as a "Unique cartoon shooter" heheh... TF2 anyone??

More of the article here.

Also... they take healthy credit for BF1942 and BF2... seems they aren't too proud of 2142!!

Can't understand why...it's by far the best of the lot in terms of gameplay.

[Spectre8]

Mate by not taking credit for it, the way I see it, they've now officially recognised it as a Mod!

Which we all knew anyway!

[Vulcan21]

By definition it could be classed as a Total Conversion Mod, but then again so could many other games. I'm perplexed as to why many BF2'ers have all the hate for a game that surpasses BF2 in every aspect of gameplay and flexibility, based on an enhanced and more stable version of the same game engine.

...or is it that many try it, get owned, and then run away back to BF2 saying how bad it is ? J/K

[Spectre8]

Nah mate, just diggin. Old gag with Battlescoob really.

Personally, it came at a bad time for me. I had been playing the BF series exclusively for too long, and was trying to find something new in it, and the mods were looking ever more promising. I've been a massive fan and promoter of the modding community, and often think they improve on games and gameplay. Take a look at Desert Combat for example.

I'm also a jaded BF2 player from way back, and it's just not even half the game that DC was. EA seem to have a particular "style" of gameplay they like, and it's often too user friendly. I've not got anything to guage my dislike of 2142 on other than the demo, so it really is a pathetic joke that I just can't seem to drop. I know full well that it's a better game than BF2, but that wont stop me either!