[PC] Battlefield: Heroes

This game will be the first of EA's new "play4free" (see: Korean grindan gaem) financial model. It's set to launch in Summer 2008.

Reading the premiere article in Games For Windows, EA stated that the sales for recent super high end games like Crysis just weren't enough to keep pursuing that model of PC game development. Instead, they've decided to take a page out of Korea's book (or perhaps the whole book) and make a free to play game that'll run well on pretty much any computer out there. They also stressed that their art design was determined before TF2's was revealed, and that they were most definitely not just ripping off Valve.

Of course, they'll make their money off this game by offering cash-only items for players to buy, but they have also stated that these items will simply be convenience items and clothing items to customize your character. They won't be abilities or weapons that give players willing to shell out some money an unfair advantage over the penny-pinchers.

In the article they announced 3 classes: covert, soldier, and heavy. No real specifics yet, but you can probably imagine what they do pretty well anyway.

One of the more interesting features they announced was the metagame aspect, where there will be set periods of time that are a "campaign" and during these campaigns players will align themselves with one army or the other, then whichever army wins more territory gains an exp and money bonus .

The game's website was pretty dead since they were holding all their info for the GFW article, but now they finally have a trailer video up, along with some dev blogs. Have a look for yourself:

Battlefield Heroes » Play 4 Free, Cartoon Shooter — Coming Summer 2008

I've never played any of the BF games before because they've always looked to be too ultra realistic, and getting shot once and dying has never been my idea of fun. After I read the article in GFW though, this definitely looks like a fun game to try, and I like how they're deviating from the hardcore BF model to make it a little more noob friendly for people like me who don't enjoy all of the ultra realistic FPS games that have come out in the past several years. Plus, it's coming out in the summer time which is usually a slow time for gaming, so hopefully it'll help me pass the time through the summer doldrums.

EDIT: Oh forgot to mention, that trailer is AWESOME

Agreed. That trailer is awesome! Can't wait to pilot a plane with two guys on the wings!

Now, I'm not normally a fan of army games or just FPS in general. But this seems really interesting due to the cartoon style. Plus . . . It's free. That's always a decent incentive. It'll give me something to do during work.

Because as fun as things like Rainbow Six or Black are, sometimes you need a fix of something a touch more lighthearted; this looks like it could fit the bill.
It helps that the dev team is aiming for reasonable hardware requirements... 'casual game' and 'Crysis-level resource needs' don't go well together.
I should note, according to previews up at IGN and other places, that aside from purchasable items, funding will come from ads on the website and perhaps in loading screens, but never in the game itself.
Now, a bit of speculation on my part: could the medals (such as we're seeing on that artwork provided) be reflective of a player's ingame accomplishments, much like how you can see which achievements a particular Live-connected 360 player has earned?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the two controversial aspects they've announced for the game.

#1: No going prone anymore. You can still crouch, but even that doesn't give you an accuracy bonus.

#2: Third-person view only. Although they have said that they might add first-person view later if enough people complain about it.

I have to admit, before seeing that trailer, I was really, really skeptical about this game. But after seeing this trailer, it looks really interesting. I wouldn't mind playing this game. I do hope they put in a First-Person-View mode though.

Totally going to give this a shot when it comes out. All I can hope is they actually deliver on what they're promising, and the gameplay mechanics themselves aren't totally out of whack.

The only thing I'm worried about is if it becomes too oriented at casual gamers I won't be able to get any good teamwork going, which is totally the most fun part of TF2/Battlefield/etc.