Battlefield Heroes

Probably a lesser known instalment in the Battlefield series, Battlefield Hereos is an multiplayer online third person shooter.  Unlike the other games, Heroes takes a more cartoonish style look which turns out to be less violent and keep the rating at Teen.  However, much like the other titles, this game features the typical capture the flag, king of the hill, and control point gameplay objectives.  Being a Free to Play game, the developers' main source of income ultimately comes from the customization options that you can purchase more of with real money.

Since it's release in 2009, Heroes has certainly changed its selling point on the game.  Its first purpose was to point out that the game is easily free to play and a novice player won't get "shot in the face repeatedly by a swearing, ultra-skilled 15 year old boy who plays the game every day for 8 hours." (trailer) I personally played the game for about two years when it was released I've witnessed much of its development.  I've noticed that after the major bugs were fixed with the core mechanics, the developers had nothing left to add.  Nothing, that is, except customization content.

Just like every other free to play game, I'm afaid that Battlefield Heroes has fallen into the same groove of this money-driven shmoozefest.  Free to play games have turned customization into a cheap tool to make money.  How ironic.

I enjoy customization.  It gives the player control over the personality of thier character.  It creates a bond between them that not very much else can.  It allows you to change the color of thier mustache.  Customiztion is a powerful gameplay element that should not be taken lightly.  If free to play games keep using customization to try to bring every 12 year old to thier website, then I'm afraid that its dignity will be lost.  To customize is to insert a part of the player into the game.

After analyzing some games, I have found that I get a little upset with how some games have tried to use mechanics.  This one in particular was rather disappointing.  Battlefield Heroes used to be a really great game to just relax and shoot people in.  Now the shoot-you-in-the-face-repeatedly 15 year olds have come and EA is too concerned with fitting the model of some rabbit ears onto the player models.  I believe that some people are missing the target and customization hasn't been hit by F2Ps for quite some time.  This field has some work to do before things get too bad...

LEGO Star Wars

Over the break, my brother and I whipped up a bit of nostalgia when we decided to play this game for the first time in years.  Since LEGO Star Wars came out, I have played several other LEGO games.  I can tell you right now that they are all the same.  It would seem that LEGO thinks that they can fall into the same groove that Call of Duty and Mario have in the past: using the same basic structure but changing minor elements.  The LEGO games are just another series who copy the mechanics of its previous titles.  LEGO Star Wars happens to be the very first of these games.

I'm not interested in talking about copy-cats though.  I want to talk about what I think the most important mechanic in this game is: the studs.  If you've played a LEGO game before, then you know that the studs are the form of currency.  You would also know that in every level of the game there is a plethora of studs to collect and it would be nearly impossible to collect them all.  To get studs, the player must break LEGO objects which usually explode fantastically into a shower of smaller bricks and studs.  There are many objects to break and you can break them with just about any character.

The entire process appears to be very juicy to me.  Not only is it satisfying to break make the objects explode with the simply press of a B button, but picking up all of the little shiney coins from the aftermath also stikes a note in my brain that stimulates a ceratain pleasure.  It feels good.  I also noticed something else about this process.  When I first picked up the game, I had no idea what the studs were for.  However, I knew that they must have some purpose because I was collecting a lot of them and the total was becoming very large.  Surely these little studs meant something later on in the game.

And they did.  You can use the studs to buy characters and collectables that you can use when you replay the levels in the game.  The point is that I could have guessed what these collectables would be used for before I was even told.  This reigns true for collectibles in every game that implements them properly.  Who would want to play Mario casually and not collect the coins?  The collectables make a bigger number appear on the screen and we all know that bigger is better.

I don't know the exact reason behind the pleasure of collecting collectables but I do know that it is pleasurable.  The earliest of games include this mechanic and it still reigns today.  Should all games have it?  Probably not.  It's only really applicable with games that require currency.  However, I think I should put out a warning.

Collectables should NOT be used as a last resort for adding extra entertainment value to your game to make it better.  It shouldn't be something to fall on when you realize the core game mechanics aren't going to cut it.  Collectables should be another incentive, but it should also serve a core purpose.  Most of the time it's going to be currency but that doesn't always have to be the case.  Just give it some sort of meaning.