With so many things going up in price (rent, stamps, gasoline), it's good to see Electronic Arts giving back to the gaming community with its upcoming free to play online shooter, Battlefield Heroes. Set during World War II, the game pits two factions, the Royal and National Armies, against each other, as gamers drive vehicles and fire weapons to win the war. You'll need to put up with some ads during load screens, but that's a very small price to pay for hours of multiplayer goodness.

Similar to most online shooters, Heroes lets you choose a faction and then customize your character, altering his or her face, skin tone and hair. You can also select from three very different classes: Soldier, Gunner and Commando, each featuring special abilities such as enhanced speed or stealth. From there, the game drops you onto one of two maps and you get busy fragging your enemies any way you see fit, whether that involves running and gunning, sneaking up behind them or hopping into one of the game's vehicles (tanks, jeeps, planes) and blasting them with rockets or machine gun fire.

Matches are fast-paced and brutal affairs with plenty of over the top shenanigans. Players will get into explosive tank battles, aerial fights hundreds of feet in the air and even pick up teammates by swooping down in their general direction. In fact, soldiers can hitch a ride on fighter planes by sitting on their wings. They can even fire their weapons.

With that being said, Battlefield Heroes doesn't offer a very realistic experience, at least not as much as other games in the series. This is due in large part to the game's cell shaded visuals, which give Heroes a cartoon appearance. Furthermore, the concept of someone sitting on the wing of a plane and firing a machine gun sans pilot is way over the top. Yet at the same time, you're able to account for trajectory when firing a tank's gun, so despite the fantasy graphics, the game still retains a realistic edge, despite needing multiple hits from a sniper rifle or knife to kill someone.

Unlike previous Battlefield games, you view the action from a third person perspective, allowing you to see your character on screen. And to give you a better view of the map, EA centered the characters instead of copying Resident Evil 4's over the shoulder view.

In addition, the game uses pre-set responses in place of microphone support, so if you want to talk a little trash, all you can do is press Q to bring up a menu of nine putdowns. It's not the most personalized system, but it does eliminate having to listen to whiny gamers or idiots going on racist tirades.

Heroes has Capture the Flag, but it works a bit differently. In fact, you don't even need to capture all of the enemy's flags to win. Instead, each side's players can die up to 49 times. Hit 50 and the game ends. In an interesting twist, snagging flags removes kills from your total.

At this point, EA has the game running on 1 GHz computers (PC only) with a minimum 512MB of RAM, so the game should work just fine on modern machines. Furthermore, it drops you into 16 player matches (EA may increase that number) with people of your own skill level.

It's not the most revolutionary of games, and we could see ourselves growing tired of it quickly. But since EA plans to release additional maps and items, that'll add some depth. As for overall quality, Heroes looks like a very solid online shooter, and the fact that it's free makes it very appealing.

Related Links

Battlefield Heroes Game Guide

Battlefield Heroes Official Site