When you’re loading up a map for the 300th time, it’s nice to have a carrot or two dangling in view. Unlocking new abilities will be one of the game’s steady incentives. In the beta, Leg It let us sprint to the frontline with a temporary speed boost; we set a proximity explosive to capture points with Troop Trap; and Stealth, ideal for quick retreats, cloaked our commando until it was time to fire. Abilities aren’t the centerpiece of combat, but they reflect DICE’s desire to avoid making its three character classes too concrete. My gunner, for example, soaked up more damage than my nimble, sniper rifle-toting commando, but their loadouts can be tweaked as you level up.

 

As Grondal suggests, “You can choose to make a gunner even better at defense by investing points into his Shield ability, or you could choose to invest points into your Sprint and Frenzy Fire abilities - a far more offensive gunner altogether. The core role of the class is basically just a starting point for your character.” The beta didn’t provide a fully populated space to see how a hero might develop, but Heroes was steeped in moments of fast satisfaction - five-second respawn times are barely enough to catch your breath, and if you’re not commandeering a tank or hopping on a plane’s wing (while a teammate pilots) to strafe foes below, you’re lobbing dynamite sticks at passing armor or aimlessly arcing rockets.

Like Team Fortress 2, the absence of gritty graphical realism is refreshing, and plays up the simple interface and level design. The sum lends itself to less intense sessions; 15 minutes on your lunch break or an hour and a half before bed seem like ideal stints for Heroes. Our concerns rest mostly on EA’s ability to consistently support the game/service hybrid to potentially millions of players - free-to-play gaming’s a new frontier for many devs, but it’s one we’re looking forward to charting.

+ Not just a casual-friendly reskinning, but a fundamentally accessible experience that could set a high bar for what gamers get for free.
– Hitting ability hotkeys every few moments made the otherwise-simple combat feel awkward in the beta, but programmable controls helped a little. No voice chat, either?

Sep 22, 2008