Game Reviews

Play4free Battlefield Play4Free is a recently developed online first person shooter that is obviously free to play. The game is part of the continuation of the Battlefield franchise as to encourage gamers that wish to play a game that has levelling, intense action, and constant variation. The game has been developed to directly target a more traditional first person shooter market.The Battlefield Play4Free Closed Beta test has been an introduction into what we will be seeing early next year. The beta experience was somewhat troubling with the server browser being a "Play Now" option which automatically sends you to an American host that makes playing the game difficult. That being the least of the issues, the game was somewhat sluggish, no destructible environments and basically an emotional stunt to remind us of what we loved, hated and not going back to in Battlefield 2. A special note is there is yet again no prone and DICE's bad rego.The additional options and kits were a nice touch which allowed for character personalisation and specialisation for specific areas of the game similar to what was in Bad Company 2 with the Spec 1,2,3. The site of seeing aircraft in the option lifted my spirits on the game and what we will be expecting with the addition of air combat. Specialising in a specific class sees the idea of individuals being specialists in a certain area of the game and not changing their class every 5 seconds to best suite the situation. Each individual class needs to be levelled and "Trained"The beta map was the Strike at Karkand 8v8 equivalent, with 4 different points around the map allowing for somewhat Close-Quarters-Combat at the same time as having the addition of several vehicles which include tanks and humvee's. The classes consisted of the 4 Bad Company 2 options which consist of Engineer, Medic, Recon and Assault which all have their individual "Training Options" and Combat Expertise" adjustments which allow for more customisation and individuality. This creates specialising in different areas of the game, note there are also minute point trees in which to spend the points earned from levelling. An additional note was identification of the in-game credit shop which obviously is the addition of paying for items to improve or enhance the gameplay. We will only know what changes this will make when the game is releasedHopefully the game will be a reasonable gap-filler till we see the long anticipated Battlefield 3 which is rumoured to be revealed early next year.Thanks to "Syrim" for the review.