' "Free to play." Do those words strike fear in your heart, as if playing the game in question means struggling with poor production values, unfriendly communities, and buggy gameplay?

　　It's time to dismiss such notions.

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　　War Inc. Battle Zone Official Trailer

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　　More and more online shooters are embracing the free-to-play model, and why shouldn't they? Some massively multiplayer online role-playing games became greater financial successes when their publishers embraced the model, and the landscape is only going to grow. War Inc. Battle Zone leaves its open beta phase on April 19 and joins the recently released Tribes: Ascend and Blacklight: Retribution in the free-to-play space.

　　We've been playing some War Inc. the last few days in advance of the launch, and there are a few things that stand out about it straight away. Most notably, you can play from both first-person and third-person views. The first-person view is much as you'd expect in a shooter, but the third-person camera is equally enjoyable--perhaps even more so, given the nice sense of heft to the movement. (Hopefully, the jumping animations will be fixed so you don't see your legs treading air as you leap.)

　　The other perk to playing in third-person is that you can see your customizations onscreen. There are thousands of different combinations, as each weapon has somewhere from 6 to 10 upgrade slots in eight different categories. Want a silencer? A muzzle flash? Barrel and stock upgrades? You got it. You can even test out these upgrades before you forge ahead using War Inc. Battle Zone's handy firing range.

　　Of course, a successful online shooter does more than give you nice clothes to wear: it provides intense action. Our experience has been entertaining thus far. Matches support up to 64 players in three different modes of play. At launch, War Inc. Battle Zone will introduce clan warfare, which will include clan ranks, team colors and emblems, clan-on-clan battle scheduling, and more.

　　In an increasingly crowded free-to-play world, it remains to be seen whether War Inc. Battle Zone can keep pace with the competition, but it's certainly going into its launch well-armed. Support for 3D displays, extensive customization options, big maps with lots of combatants: War Inc. Battle Zone is off to a good start, and with luck and ongoing support, the best is hopefully yet to come.

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