Free Persistant Cartoons and other Anomalies

I just learned about Battlefield: Heroes today while I was reading Penny Arcade and I have to say that I'm thrilled to death that games of all types are moving towards persistence, that is to say, that you create a character and the character can advance in ranks or levels and acquire items and skills in the process.

I've played Battlefield 2142, and Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 so I'm no stranger to the genre. What they've done with Battlefield: Heroes, is taken all the good things and added more good things to help entice the average user and casual gamer. Some things they've added is a 3rd person perspective, a chase cam, anyone who knows me well will tell you that I'm absolutely in love with 3rd person, the ability to see my character gives me warm fuzzies, probably the artist in me.

The chase camera comes in handy specifically because B:H allows you customization that I would imagine is on a similar level with Rainbow Six Vegas, you can most likely customize facial appearance, equipment, clothes, weapons, etc... we won't know until we play it, but these things seem to be implied. Any game that lets me customize my character to a decent extent already has my support.

One other thing that's certainly a vast departure from other Battlefield games is the fact that they are opting for a more "cartoon" style, rather than their typical ultra-realistic setting. Some may find this annoying, but I honestly am learning to appreciate simple graphics, for a few reasons, it opens up the game to more players on low end systems, and it really gives the game a distinctness that is hard to come by in modern war games.

There's been no concrete info yet as to where they will offer female avatars, but there have been reports of a female character in advertising pieces seen around the web, I myself have a vested interest in seeing female avatars, my wife is rather addicted to the gameplay of SW: Battlefront, partially I would imagine because it's a Star Wars game, and partially because of the vehicles and the Battlefield gameplay.

Did I mention that the game is free to download and free to play? It is, the game thus far will be supported by advertisements on the game's website, which you must navigate to in order to launch the game. They're planning on having ads on the website, then again on the login screen, and again on the loading screens. Thus saving us from having to see billboards in-game offering us viagra at discount prices.

While not quite an MMO, Battlefield: Heroes seems to have many familiar features, the developers have slated it for release in Summer 2008. I'll be keeping a personal eye on this product since I think it will certainly be a fun distraction from normal MMO drudgery