Battlefield Heroes

Imagine Battlefield 1942.

Now throw that mental image right out the nearest window, because this is a bit... sillier.

A (mostly) free-to-play Third-Person Shooter of the Battlefield series which is started up from your Web browser here... which already makes it different from the original series. It does have Battlefunds, in-game money bought with real money, to generate profit. It's a multiplayer-only game. Battlefield Heroes uses a World War II-esque aesthetic, then dances away from it with the Rule Of Fun.

Battlefield games to make it easier to survive, the third-person' allows you to look at your character, everyone has some capability of fighting tanks on their own, you are still awarded experience points based off your efforts instead of actual kills or point captures, you can ride on a plane's wing...
 * Affectionate Parody: Of old gun-ho-hurray WWII movies and the Theme Park Version of WWII in general. Expect quite a few hidden Shout Outs...
 * Generally, the Not-EA Hero Clothing of-the-Day is visibly based off a recent movie. Take the Summer of Heroes campaign, for instance. The Wizards come from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2, the Barbarians come from Conan the Barbarian, the Superheroes come from Captain America and X Men First Class, and the Pirates come from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
 * Alliterative Name: Every map is named in this way.
 * Certain weapons (i.e., virtually all of them save the Modern ones) are, too. For instance, Rudolf's Rescue, Tommy's Typewriter. One of the very few exceptions is the Royal Knife, which they clearly couldn't think of anything for. The National counterpart, Konrad's Knife, is a bit of a stretch, too.
 * AKA-47: The game's weapons are clearly modeled off real ones, usually named in some silly way.
 * Averted with the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Massive Multiplayer Crossover's weapons, who are given their real designation numbers.
 * Further averted with just about every weapon released post-Tier 2 weapons. They all use their real life designation (for instance, Scoped M16, Micro-Uzi, M32, etc.)
 * Anachronism Stew: With the addition of the Medal of Honor and Dead Space weapons and clothing, this is game has everything from WWII-ish to modern times to futuristic mixed into one. At the get-go, though, it still had pirates and ninjas.
 * Blown Across the Room: Explosives and tank shells will frequently throw infantry around, but the Soldier class' Blasting Strike will throw everything that's not the environment around -- in fact, it's a Soldier's only real defense against tanks.
 * The Amassing Force widgets from the Wizard sets are... something like this. Both fire balls of magic; one repels infantry and vehicles, the other sucks them in.
 * Bottomless Magazines: While you do need to reload everything, you always have ammunition for it.
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory: While Battlefunds do allow you to level up faster and gain more Valor Points from playing, they are otherwise used for strictly cosmetic items. Indeed, a couple of topics appeared on the forums about whether such items ends up attracting you to shoot at them...
 * Not to mention, Uber/Super weapons, which are buffed versions of the regular guns available for extremely high VP costs, or slightly more expensive than the Regular guns if you use real money.
 * Battlefunds also allow you to purchase special combat oriented widgets, but most of them are virtually identical to certain class abilities.
 * Call a German A Smeerp: The Nationals are clearly World War II Nazis in terms of appearance: Their flag is essentially the same as that of Nazi Germany, just with a blackened skull-and-crossbones instead of a swastika. The Royals are a bit less clear, having some aesthetics borrowed from British forces of both World Wars, as well as World War II American forces.
 * If one also looks closely, you can see some World War One influences in the sides (The National's Spike Helmet, for instance.)
 * The Royals and Nationals are simply thinly-veiled Fantasy Counterpart Culture versions of the Western Allies and Germany from the world wars.
 * Car Fu: Once they get up to a certain speed, jeeps will instantly kill any enemy player they hit dead on, making this a popular tactic on certain maps.
 * Chewing the Scenery: Now with the new Barbarian emotes, you can SCREAM with bloodlust and ham with your arms spread wide and your mouth agape!
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: The Nationals and Royals clothing are all distinctly different, with Royal clothing having a larger portion of lighter greens and tans, and other "Good Guy" colors, while the Nationals have colder blacks, greys and blues - which likely contributed to the removal of National clothing that was forest green.
 * The accessory store has (very expensive) peacocks on sale, both for Royals and Nationals. The Royal variety looks like your typical Real Life peacock, whereas the National one is cyan, with blood-red tail feathers.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Frowned upon. One of the most Egregious instances of this is called Spawn Camping, which, as the name suggests, involves shooting down a player who has just spawned.
 * Also AFK killing. Killing a player who is standing idle while the person is away to do something for a minute.
 * And Noob Bashing. High-leveled players killing lower-leveled players.
 * Continuity Nod: Incidentally, to prior Battlefield games. Long before Heroes was even on the drawing board, players in BF 1942 could be seen (if rarely) standing on the back of jeeps and tanks (the shape of the tank's turret also granting cover), and riding on the wings of airplanes (though, you'd fall off if the plane turned over.)
 * Cool Guns: While the Thompson is a perfectly common gun inside the WW 2 setting of the game, the better level 10 version adds the rarely-used drum magazine with a grip on the front.
 * Composite Character: After a fashion -- the three classes are each an amalgamation of the standardized classes from other Battlefield games.
 * Crippling Overspecialization: If you don't aim down the telescopic sight of a Sniper Rifle (which forces you to slow down), it seems to be capable of hitting anyway on your screen. Even if that part of the screen is behind your character's rifle's barrel.
 * Critical Hit: The damage multiplier of them varies, they appear in orange numbers and chances of them happening is pretty slim in a single firefight - unless you use Poisoned Blade for knives...
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: The National Army...let's see...their flag is red, with a black skull and crossbones, they wear collared, buttoned jackets, and they have a red armband on their left arm in the concept art. Well?
 * Do Not Run With a Gun: SniperRifles require aiming down the telescopic sight (and, as a result, slow your character's movement speed), otherwise it is so inaccurate a bullet it fires can hit on your screen behind the rifle's barrel. On the other hand, there's little reason not to move while shooting with other weapons - in fact, there is little reason TO stand still to fire, as it makes you a sitting duck.
 * Expy: There is an advert of the game which has four unknown characters who look suspiciously like The Squad in Battlefield Bad Company series...
 * Feather Boa Constrictor: National heroes can purchase a king cobra that rides, coiled, on their shoulder. The pet doesn't do anything, it's just pure Rule of Cool.
 * Fur Against Fang: Clearly intended by clothing to make the Royals into werewolves, and the Nationals into vampires.
 * Grenade Launcher: Available to all classes after the Punk Heroes update. It's mostly used for long-range covering fire, being almost completely useless in close range encounters.
 * Hurricane of Puns / Just for Pun
 * Historical In-Joke: The 'Winter Armistice' is a clear one to the Christmas Truce.
 * In Name Only: Debatable... the game goes have rather different gameplay from the the original series, but retains some elements. The game also isn't headed by DICE, either.
 * Lean and Mean: While not actually evil or villains of the game, the Nationals' characters are sharp and thin - to contrast, the Royals are more rounded, muscular and larger.
 * Leaning On the Fourth Wall: 'The Ballad of The Dedicated Servers' explicitly use the term dedicated server, while, per the trope, not Breaking the Fourth Wall. It also mentions "Is this the modern way of making warfare?".
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Of a sorts. Weapons and clothing themed from Battlefield Bad Company 2 have been released.
 * Military Maverick: The description of the Royal "Leet Hero" set spells it out quite nicely.
 * More Dakka: All the classes have some means to acquire an automatic (or burst fire) weapon for close quarters combat. This ranges from a pistol that's basically the Mauser C96 in Luger, Colt or Revolver form (unless it's the National version, which IS a Mauser C96), to machine guns that sound an odd amount like a minigun, with several variants of SMG sitting between them.
 * Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: There are a variety of types of clothing to buy with real money, and nothing is stopping you from combining them.
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: According to one of the loading screens, each class was based on a particular movie star. While it doesn't give details, the game encourages you to guess.
 * The Burly Bruce (Bruce Willis) and Savage Sly (Sylvester Stallone) sets are obvious enough that guessing isn't necessary.
 * The Smooth and Thuggin' sets are both based on Michael Jackson; specifically, his appearance in the "Smooth Criminal" and "Beat It" videos. Their original run as Valor Points clothing likely solidifies that they were to commemorate Micheal Jackson's death.
 * The Royal Scientist set is obviously inspired by Albert Einstein, including his famous Einstein Hair
 * One-Hit Kill: Deliberately avoided as much as possible, though running over people with vehicles or shooting Commandos in the head with the most damaging SniperRifles while using the Piercing Shot ability may do so.
 * Parrot Pet Position: There are pets purchaseable in the store that ride on the player's shoulder. (Royals get a monkey, eagle, and snapping turtle, Nationals get a king cobra, parrot, robot monkey and snapping turtle. Both factions get peacocks.)
 * PVP-Balanced: Shooting a sniper rifle without aiming using its scope is incredibly inaccurate - it can somehow shoot a bullet behind your character. Most weapons also have an effective range which do less damage out of that range, whether too close or too far.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The "evil" army, the Nationals, have king cobras as pets, while the "heroic" army has a bald eagle.
 * Revolvers Are Just Better: The lvl-10 versions of pistols which have a better chance to critically hit and a larger magazine.
 * That's only the Royals. The Nationals get the completely different, stripper-clip fed Mauser C96 'Broomhandle' - which, if you think about it, is basically a Nazi Revolver.
 * RPG Elements: You have a set amount of characters you can make per account, you choose one to play with at a time, with their own persistance - they level up and choose the abilities they use and their effectiveness. It's like an MMO with no NPCs, though the game's currency is counted for your account rather then individual characters.
 * Rule of Fun / Rule of Cool : More or less the entire game - your Hit Points are far greater than in other
 * Rummage Sale Reject: This is a fairly commonplace among the players who shell out the BF necessary to completely customize a character's appearance. "Fashion Victim Awards" are held periodically to "honor" the most garishly clad Heroes, with their ridiculous get-ups going on sale at the Hot Deals section of the site.
 * One update added a "randomize" button to the Appearance section of the in-game store, which randomly selects items from each field for your character to wear. More often than not you end up with an at best laughable ensemble.
 * Scratch Damage: Averted with tanks, who require specific weaponry to damage them. Played straight with the prospect of using a gun out of its specialized zone (using the Long Range SMG close up, for instance), in that you'll do 1-6 damage per hit. Unless we're talking about Sniper Rifles, which do fairly good damage at all ranges.
 * Selective Historical Armoury: As one might expect from such a game, 'cooler' weapons are used, and rifles are only utilized with scopes - there are no guns that would have been more standardized in terms of being issued in WW 2. No M1 Garands with only iron sights, M1 Carbines. Browning Automatic Rifles, Kar98s, M3 'grease guns', MG 42 s...
 * And then the Modern weapons come along and complicate matters even further. A Micro-Uzi?!
 * Serious Business: The Silly Reason for War in this game is the Royals accusing the Nationals for cheating during the cycling event of the Olympics.
 * Shades of Conflict: The game's plot is a farce on its own.
 * Short-Range Shotgun: This game is slightly better about this than other games, but the shotguns never One-Hit Kill anyway.
 * The only problem is that most players are in agreement about the "long range" shotgun being a pile of crap.
 * Silly Reason for War: The Nationals took the gold at the Olympic cycling event, so the Royals accused them of cheating (and claimed their mocked the king's mustache during peace talks). Of course you realise, dis means whar.
 * Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness : Soooo far to the silly side that it breaks the scale.
 * Sniper Pistol: Soldiers and Commandos may use a pistol which is one, but does less damage at a closer distance and the other pistols, made for closer ranges, are not. In fact, Soldiers' submachineguns are generally capable of hitting things from far away with reasonable accuracy, they just deal much less damage.
 * Speaking Simlish : The player characters don't actually speak all that much ingame, except for a muffled "Hello" (spoken with a stereotypical accent). For the most part, they just express themselves with overexaggerated interjections and gestures.
 * You can even use your hard-earned experience points to buy them new additional gestures. These are used either to suggest a new combat tactic to the others, call for help/backup, or taunt the enemy -- especially immediately after you've killed one.
 * Spiritual Successor: Battlefield Play 4 Free, which is an updated version of Battlefield 2 with elements of Heroes and Bad Company 2. It's considerably less humorous than Heroes, but incorporates many of the same elements.
 * Stop Being Stereotypical : Averted, but justified, since it's all Played for Laughs. Seriously, "Corporal Tommy Chester" ? "Kommandant Heinrich von Schnitzel" ?
 * Take That: 'The Ballad of The Dedicated Servers' asks of "phasing out dedicated servers" - "Is this the modern way of making warfare?". (If you want to know, the developpers made their stance pretty clear before taking that.)
 * War Has Never Been So Much Fun: The game has generally bright environments, looks cel-shaded and has soldiers which hop around firing weapons with silly names, making muffled noises and exaggerated expressions while potentially dressed like werewolves, ninjas, zombies, paratroopers, something like Michael Jackson in a music video of his, knights, or everything in between.
 * White And White Morality: Neither faction actually seems to be bad. Nationals are generally more sinister in appearance, but that's about it.
 * Wronski Feint: It's possible to pull this off with a plane, though tricky. Usually, however, it is done not to trick your opponent into crashing their plane but to perform wingclips.

Tropes used by the classes:

 * Heal Thyself: All classes can buy and use bandages to heal themselves. Counts as a Regeneration Status Buff, which may be canceled by taking damage. It can also be used to remove poison or fire. There's also the health tonic, which works instantly but heals considerably less than bandages.
 * Magic Tool: Wrenches can also be bought and repair a percentage of damage to a vehicle you are driving.
 * Made of Iron: Tanks shells are incapable of One Hit Kills, bullets take even more.
 * Standard Status Effects: Players low on health will have their health symbol flash red as a Critical effect, with further damage done against them to be seen as red numbers by the players who hit them.
 * Status Buff: Bandages Heal Thyself over time as a Regeneration effect, Wrenches does the same for the vehicle you're driving. Sarge's Stamina Boost is a static Max Health buff.

Soldiers
Soldiers use submachine guns, shotguns and pistols.


 * Aura Vision: The Sixth Sense ability allows you to see an outline of enemy players when you can't normally see them.
 * Blown Across the Room: The Blasting Strike ability knocks back and damages nearby enemies, even tanks or vehicles.
 * Combat Medic: Soldiers are the only class which can heal others and are no less capable at killing you.
 * Healing Hands: The Combat Medicine ability instantly heals you and nearby allies for a percentage of everyone's own maximum hitpoints.
 * Jack of All Stats: The Soldier class has a balanced amount of hitpoints and speed, and their skills are arguably best while working with groups and against groups.
 * Kill It With Fire: The Burning Bullets ability makes your submachinegun(s) fire Exactly What It Says On the Tin for a short time, doing a Burn effect that damages enemies hit by them over time.
 * Spam Attack: The Soldier class literally gets a Grenade Spam ability which causes you to throw up to 7 anti-personnel grenades at once.
 * The Medic: The Soldier class is the only one with the ability to heal other players.

Commandoes
Commandoes may use knives, sniper rifles and pistols.


 * Aura Vision: Using the Mark Target ability to... mark a target... causes your team to see that target as a white outline for the duration of the ability if they normally would be incapable of seeing it.
 * Booby Trap: The Troop Trap can be laid down to damage enemies and vehicles alike, but may be shot from a distance to avoid them. An unwary Commando hanging around his own Troop Traps can easily find himself literally Hoist By His Own Petard if enemy fire swings his way and sets them off (or if they go undetonated for too long, in which case they go off on their own) -- the explosion wouldn't do any damage in that case, but the fall might if he doesn't deploy his parachute.
 * Fragile Speedster: The Commando class can cause a lot of damage quickly, and moves the fastest out of all classes, but relies on its stealth ability and caution to stay alive. He becomes the Fragile Superspeedster when he uses his Elixir ability.
 * Katanas Are Just Better: Katanas were added in late November 2011 to complement the Heroes of the Rising Sun sets. They're the most powerful, longest-range melee weapons, though they swing much more slowly than the knife or the machete. And in case you were wondering, they're just as useless against tanks as any other non-explosive weapon.
 * Knife Nut: The knife is one of the signature weapons of the class and is actually pictured on the class insignia; very few Commandos go without one (or a machete at least)
 * Kukris Are Kool: The Halloween 2011 update featured the addition of machetes as a replacement for knives. The Royal machete is just that, but the National version is actually a kukri.
 * Status Buff: The Piercing Shot ability is a Strength one, but for sniper rifle shots. Elixir is a Speed one that increases movement speed (and provides a small shield that absorbs damage, effectively a Max Health boost much like Hero Shield). Poisoned Blade increases a knife's chance to Critical Hit by a considerable amount.
 * Standard Status Effects: The Poisoned Blade ability causes the wielder's knife to do extra poison damage over time. Troop Traps also have a poison effect on enemies.
 * Useless Useful Stealth: The Stealth ability is necessary to not get spotted and wiped out by the other classes if you play as Commando, with your low Hit Points...

Gunners
Gunners use machine guns, shotguns and rocket launchers.


 * BFG: The Gunner's schtick - running-and-gunning with what would be considered medium machine guns in real life (so, you wouldn't be able to do so in real life) and rocket launchers.
 * More Dakka: As redundant as it seems, Gunners, particularly those who build themselves around Double Machine gun builds, Generally using the accurate and rapid machine guns (The latter of which has names like the "Cheeser" or "Backscratcher").
 * Taken to extremes later on. The Super and Uber Machine Guns are a VICKERS and an M2 BROWNING, and the Super/Uber Rocket Launcher is SHIP CANNON.
 * And then they topped themselves again with the Drake's Fire/Dragon's Fire launchers, which actually fire huge cannonballs.
 * Exploding Barrels: Its own spin - instead of luring enemies toward one, or waiting until it's a really good time to shoot one, the Gunner class has a skill which allows them to throw explosive kegs that blow up after one shoots it. There are otherwise none in the game.
 * Extreme Omnivore: Any Gunner with the I Eat Grenades skill will eat any explosive while it's on, somehow healing them, even tanks shells FIRED AT THEM.
 * Lightning Bruiser: His only drawback is his speed...but that is remedied with the "Leg It" ability. Indeed, this is among the most-used of Gunner abilities.
 * Mighty Glacier: The Gunner class moves the slowest, but has the most hitpoints and is very dangerous via frontal attacks alone.
 * Status Buff: Leg It increases the Speed of you and nearby allies for a short time, and the Frenzy ability increases machine gun Accuracy and heals for every 4th hit while the ability is active (and damage at later levels, making it also a Strength buff). The Explosive Keg ability does the opposite of the Status Buff Speed effect to those hit by it (It slows them down). Hero Shield is a Health buff in that it creates a shield that effectively increases the Gunner's maximum health.