Frontlines: Fuel of War Review
Call us ‘Cold War babies’, but we really like the idea of a huge ‘East vs West’ World War Conflict. It’s not our fault, images of evil Soviet hordes sweeping Europe were burned into our brains from a young age, so they’ve always seemed the most realistic bad guys to us. (Damn Commies! –Ed) That’s why Frontlines: Fuel of War's portrayal of the apocalyptic final battle of Western forces against the Russians and Chinese gave us a such a tingle of nostalgia, it gives the game a great atmosphere and at least it’s different from the increasingly dreary ‘anti-terrorist’ narrative that’s currently in vogue.
But rather than setting its story in the past over the conflicting Capitalist and Communist ideologies of yesteryear, Frontlines is set in the near future, and the war is over rapidly dwindling oil resources. (Even if the game’s tale of 2008 being the year the world crippling fuel crisis starts does seem a little far fetched, I filled my tank fine this morning-Ed) It’s a theme that has strong echoes in real events happening around the world today; making a good basis for the game's objective based first person shooter combat, which will remind you a lot of EA’s Battlefield series.
Fuel of War sees you playing as a nameless member of the Stray Dogs Company, a band of ‘Western Coalition’ soldiers thrust into the centre of the conflict in central Asia, battling it out with the armies of the Russian and Chinese ‘Red Star Alliance’ for control of the last few oil fields in the world. While you don’t get an individual character to play, the presentation of each mission is interesting, coming from the perspective of an embedded journalist reporting on the war. In some ways that Hollywood approach to presentation, despite some great music and decent voice work, falls a little flat because the story isn’t about you- it’s about the struggles of the company. You get to know the Stray Dogs quite well in various cut scenes as they go from mission to mission; you just never appear yourself, which is fair enough given that when you die you effectively re-spawn as another soldier. But that does make it hard to form an emotional attachment to your character in the game.
While Frontlines isn’tthe most amazing-looking game out there the graphics are decent enough. Troops and vechicles are detailed and well animated, with the game running fairly smoothly on the 360, barring the odd graphical hitch when things get too hectic. It's a competent, if not terribly inspiring, showing of the Unreal Engine and the scale of stages is certainly impressive. There are plenty of ominous orange skies and barren landscapes to evoke the feeling of the end of the world. Frontlines' audio works well, and the various sounds of vehicles, weapons of war and explosions all help to sell the game's big battle atmosphere. It’s no COD4 or Halo 3 on the graphical or presentation front, but Frontlines depends more on its game play to keep you immersed and for the most part succeeds.
There aren’t that many Battlefield style games out on the next generation consoles at the moment, so Frontlines at least has the distinction of feeling a little different to every other recent first person shooter on the 360. Rather than just fighting your way through the enemy, battlefields in Frontlines are riddled with capture points that must be taken for your army to advance. The aim, of course, is to capture all of those points, like supply depots, vehicle centres and other bases, until your side controls the entire map. To that end, you’ll find yourself fighting not just on foot, but in tanks, jeeps and helicopters. The game's controls, both for your soldier and the various vehicles are natural and intuitive, so anyone with FPS experience can just pick it up and play quite happily. While this style of play has been done elsewhere plenty of times before, it’ll be new to many console only gamers.
It’s all about combat on a gloriously large scale and there are times when Frontlines shines with this approach;you get a sense of being part of a massive battle with war raging all around you. Struggling to breach an enemy base and plant C4 charges on artillery ,wiping out squads of Tower-entrenched rocket men or leading tank charges across deadly irradiated plains are just some of the things you’ll find your self doing as par for the course in Frontlines- it’s loads of fun when it works.
Irritatingly, there are times when it doesn't, and the single player game is marred by weak AI. Some sections of combat can make you feel like you’re just in a giant series of ‘bot battles. Such as when the game AI cheats and does things like knowing exactly where you are, tracking you even when you’re out of sight. Some of the turret emplacements, snipers and tanks were particularly guilty of that - pulling you out of the moment and forcing you learn and take out enemy positions by rote. It can make the game plod, despite all the chaos around you. General troop AI isn’t too bad, although soldiers tend to charge at you, depending on their sheer numbers and willingness to expend their nation's GDP worth of ammo to keep you on your toes. The troops on your own side mostly do a good job of maintaining the illusion of fighting with you, but occasionally you’ll feel lonely when you realise they don’t actually do much. That problem is partially solved when you go into the games multi-player, which can support up to 50 players and fight real people, but better AI would have helped the single player game stand out that much more, and be worth replaying.
Thankfully, particularly for the previously mentioned multiplayer, weapons and combat are quite solid in Frontlines, with the wide variety of weapons packing a decent punch. Both prior to battles, and when you die, you’ll get to choose your role and weapon types you’ll carry. Six ‘classes’ with support roles determine, what weapons you carry- Assault, Sniper, Heavy-assault, Special Ops, Close Quarter and Anti-vehicle- with weapons ranging from sub machine guns and assault rifles to heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. Support roles let you call in air support, fix vehicles, disable enemy technology and deploy combat drones.
Each class has their part to play, but honestly you’ll find yourself depending on just one or two continuously- it would have been better if you were just able to pick up more guns on the battlefield. The combat drones, however, are easily one of our favourite things in Frontlines -remote controlled robots that eerily reminded us of the small killer robots in that old Tom Sellick movie, ‘Run Away’. (Gee, it’s a regular 80’s fest in here today!-Ed) Some can fly and attack with missiles; others blow themselves up or run on treads with chain guns which just chew up the enemy. They’re deadly little buggers and a joy to use in both single and multiplayer. It’s hilarious to watch huge tanks blow to bits by what look like tiny radio controlled cars or sit safely hidden, chuckling as your drones wreak havoc on the enemy.
While it is fun in single player, for most the lure of huge multiplayer battles is what will keep you coming back to Frontlines. With up to 25 players on each side and troops, tanks, helicopters and various drones fighting it out on some pretty massive maps, multiplayer battles are a blast. The game is great fun online, especially for console owners who rarely get this kind of big scale, fast paced fun. Your friend's list will fill up so fast it’ll make your head spin.
Frontlines: Fuel of war is a solid shooter that gets most of the mechanics right and is a little different from most FPS currently out there, but just fails to reach the top tier. There's always a lot going on with the game's large cache of weapons, vehicles and drones but niggles with the AI and plodding pace of some sections, hold the game back.
The atmosphere is well crafted too, but you never feel terribly emotionally engaged beyond feeling the concept is pretty cool, despite the efforts of the story. The game's ending, which we liked a lot, clearly points to a sequel, which we’d be more than happy to snap up on the back of this game. Frontlines: Fuel of War is still well worth getting hold of if you like FPS games, especially for its multiplayer component, just don’t expect to play the single player for too long.
UKMusic.com Rating: 3.5 out of 5- A solid, fun objective based FPS with great atmosphere and multiplayer.
Frontlines: Fuel of War is available now on Xbox 360
Written by Sam Bandah
