Battlefield Heroes, much like Quake Live, is based out of a web-interface that links into a browser plug-in. In this case, the web-interface is the absolute bare minimum. You can create your character, buy some microtransaction points (more on those later), and start the game. That's about all there is to this, and while it would have been nice to see some of the features in the client make their way into the browser frontend, it's not high on the priority list. As far as creaitng a character goes, there isn't much there. Your standard MMO features such as distinctive features and skin tone can be changed, and you have to choose your class and faction upon creation, but you can't change anything such as clothes until you actually get into the game.

Upon starting the game, you are greated with a pop-up splash page which acts as your portal to the game of Battlefield Heroes. This portal includes many of the things you must configure, as the actual game itself does not include anything of the sort. Make sure you tweak your video and control settings before actually entering the game, as the default video settings (800x600) does not look all that great and the controls may need to be changed around to fit your play style.

In the starter screen, you have several different tabs. The two most important tabs are the Store and My Stuff. My Stuff is divided into several screen, each of which is fairly unique, so let's focus on the Store first. The Store is where you buy things such as weapons, clothes, and emotes. You have two currencies: Valor Ppoints (VP), which are recieved from completing games after accomplishing objectives, and BattleFunds (BF) which are received through purchase.Most of the gameplay items can be purchased with VP, but the customization stuff is almost all BF.

Microtransactions are the name of the game here, and the store is full of them. Everything from permenant weapons to clothes to customize your character are all available. There is not much in the realm of necessities for microtransactions, as weapons can be purchased through VP and they are the only thing that matters. However, you can't get weapons forever through VP, only BF, which is some incentive to participate in the system. You can also get items, or widgits, from the Store, which consist of repair or healing items for your hard-earned VP, and VP or XP boost items for your microtransaction BF.

Along with the Store comes Hero Points, or HP. HP are spent on the abilities screen much like you spend VP in the Store itself.; Every hero has a stable of abilities that can be improved through use of hero points, and these abilities range from cloaking to armoring yourself to clusters of grenades. Remember that any bought abilities are there permenantly, you can't get them through transactions (only by leveling up), and that you must drag them to the bar in order to use them.

The final thing, and perhaps the most important, are missions. A mission is your goal within the game itself beyond actually winning. For example, a mission might be something like destroy 10 vehicles without dying 10 times under the treads of a vehicle. Missions reward you greatly, as they send more VP and XP your way than what would normally be possible. You can slot a total of three missions into your character at any particular time, and once they finish, you can change them out. If you change them out before they are done, you will lose all progress.

The actual gameplay of Battlefield Heroes starts as soon as you press Play Now. You will notice that as soon as you start, you have no option as to which server you are playing on. This is perhaps the biggest flaw of Battlefield Heroes. You can not actually choose your server unless you have it added to your favorites. Rather, you are automatically matched to a pre-made server. PC users demand a little more, so it is disappointing to see the lack of a true server browser.

Upon starting the game and dropping into a server, you will be spawned either at a pre-determined spot on the battlefield or at one of your captured flags. The game only has one mode and a limited number of maps. This mode is the Battlefield classic known as Conquest, and it's plenty fun. The only disappointment is the lack of variety in maps. They are continaully rolling out new content, so this will be alleviated in the future, but at the moment, you have a very limited selection. Once you spawn, you can begin playing.

Battlefield Heroes plays like a mix between a third-person shooter and an MMO. You have all your abilities on the bottom bar as well as your weapons. You have infinite ammo, but you do have to reload, and abilities are based strictly on a timer, not mana or energy or any nonsense like that. Selecting a weapon switches to it, but selecting a power immediately toggles it, so it is a good idea to set your weapons to the first few hotkeys and the abilities to the later ones so that you do not accidentally toggle them.

To re-use the comparison at the beginning of this article, Battlefield Heroes is quite a bit similar to Quake Live. It's a simplistic re-interpretation of a classic game and a classic franchise. It has a few faults, but these are rapidly overcome by the pure addictiveness of browser-based FPS-MMO fun. You can give Battlefield Heroes a try on the official site. Note that it requires a plug-in install, and that this plug-in is safe.