Battlefield Heroes

Let's be clear about one thing, because there's only one thing we can be clear about. Battlefield Heroes is outrageously, deliciously, hilariously pretty. DICE's knockabout multiplayer shooter single-handedly destroys the reputation of free-to-play casual PC gaming for low production values. This is one of 2008's best-looking games, hands-down - and what's more, it will run on an old laptop from the office.

With its clean cartoon style, vivid colours, exuberantly simple animations and economical effects, Battlefield Heroes doesn't so much pop off the screen as explode off it - and does so in a shower of pink confetti, accompanied by a marching band composed entirely of kazoos and swanee whistles. Only LittleBigPlanet has more infectious, joyous and downright daft charm, and that game has nothing on Battlefield Heroes when it comes to something that has seldom been explored by deathmatch shooters before - high camp.

You might question whether the market's ready for it, and assume that, with the extensive character customisation on offer, most players will cast themselves as straight-laced, burly macho-men. And yet here we are in the Battlefield Heroes beta test, getting repeatedly gunned down by a barrel-chested machine-gunner in a Napoleonic hat and a red frock coat that hangs open to reveal nothing but his underpants. Never fear, salvation is here - in the form of a team-mate, dressed as a top-hatted, monocle-wearing, Afro-Caribbean biker-Nazi with a peg leg and a riding crop.

"A little bit YMCA" is how lead designer James Salt described it to us the last time we previewed the game, and this could only be more true if there was an Indian head-dress in the costuming options (presumably it's being kept back for the item store - although it will mostly be supported by advertising, EA would be fools if they didn't branch out into item sales too). Going by the bare-chested, moustachioed muscle-men in braces, trucker caps and aviator shades swarming all over the beta's two maps, it seems there's a little bit of Village Person in all of us. So much the better. The game's spirit is so infectious and funny you can't help but join in - DICE's commandants haff vays off mayking you dress up.

Battlefield Heroes' visual charm isn't just about the avatars that make it resemble a capture-the-flag version of one of Ellie's house parties. The maps are gorgeous too: Seaside Skirmish is all open cornfields, chocolate-box villages and swooping Messerschmitts, while Victory Village is a secluded, sunset Mediterranean retreat with snipers hiding in the church tower. Elegant depth-of-field effects, textures with a hand-painted look, and a creamy crayon colour palette make these far more atmospheric little idylls than their basic geometry should allow.

Don't let the happy campers and holiday-resort maps fool you into thinking this game is about anything other than killing, though. Although the pace has been slowed, and the pin-sharp, headshot-critical precision of previous Battlefields deliberately smudged to make it more accessible, Battlefield Heroes is still a take-no-prisoners respawn riot.

Both maps are based on the Conquest game type, with the National (Nazi) and Royal (Allied) Armies vying to keep their flags flying over four bases, and erode the other side's score first. Seaside Skirmish is very vehicle-biased; it's dominated by the game's chunky tanks, although jeeps offer fast transit around its rolling fields, and fighter planes strafe from the sky (pretty ineptly - few players have mastered their wildly exaggerated banking and rolling yet, but everyone's having fun trying).

Victory Village contains a couple of jeeps, but it's largely focused on threading your way on foot through a maze of alleyways and attempting to spring surprise ambushes on the enemy. Both maps, as you'd expect from a veteran of multiplayer FPS like DICE, are exquisitely designed. Lines of sight have been considered from every single vantage point and sandbag bunker, and the balance is perfect - including the balance between free-form freedom and carefully channelled encounters. Spawn-camping is a bit of a problem, but nobody said this comic-book war was about fair play; the game (and its players) have a cruel streak under all that jollity.