Title Frontlines: Fuel of War Date 03.21.2008 Genre FPS Platform PC Developer KAOS Studios Publisher THQ

Intro
Frontlines: Fuel of War is yet another take on the highly popular Battlefield-like conquest gametype; capturing objectives to secure over half of the map and secure victory for your team. To add some variation to this, Fuel of War implements a changing “frontline” throughout the course of the game, that advances or retreats depending on how much of the map you've captured. Basically this indicates how well you're doing, but instead of being able to capture any objective on the map at any given moment, you are limited to the next ones beyond your current frontline making the battle more focused. The other main component that makes Frontlines unique is the perks available to you independent of your weapons class, such as EMP, Drones and Airstrikes. These are what sets it apart from most shooters, as using these perks you can call in an airstrike, set up a turret, or control an RC helicopter drone to sneak up on and blow up an unfortunate unsuspecting enemy.

Singleplayer Experience
Singleplayer in Frontlines is fairly enjoyable, albeit very short at around 5-6 hours. But it's obvious this game was designed with multiplayer in mind, as even the main campaign is just a more fleshed-out variant on multiplayer with bots, and a vague storyline about the world running out of fuel supplies and the subsequent World War 3 that ensues. Its a welcome addition to the package but not something you should buy the game solely for. The missions have some variation, such as a tank battle on a battlefield hit by tactical nukes and infiltrating a bunker to avert the launch of a nuclear missile 30 times as powerful as the bomb that hit Hiroshima (yes, really!) There are some dull points however and because most missions just require capturing more objectives it starts to get repetitive by the end. Lastly, the AI is mostly generic and unintelligent cannon-fodder, frequently failing to notice you, and bravely ignoring saving their lives or taking cover. Overall, the singleplayer is worth a look because it's practice for the game mechanics and weapons ready for multiplayer combat, its just no Call of Duty 4.

Multiplayer Experience
The main meat and potatoes of the game. Most of the maps are decent, including a close combat infantry map on the streets, and a more vehicle-oriented map set in a huge solar farm in the middle of nowhere. One map called Invasion has an interesting premise; one team attack the enemy base at night by invading with helicopters, however it's hugely biased and the defending team can often easily hold them off.

The game has great potential for teamwork however this is completely ruined by the lack of communication possibilities. Text chat of course is slow, and your message is rarely seen before it just scrolls off screen. There is no quick-command function as seen in most shooters these days, for example in Battlefield 2 by holding Q you access a command wheel to offer basic but useful communication, alerting your teammates or sending them orders. Lastly, voice chat is limited to your squad only, and the squad mechanic is fairly basic, not giving any real incentive to join one. Another comparison to Battlefield where the teamwork falls short is that there are no medics or re-suppliers, as your soldier heals over time and can't be brought back to life, and you get ammo from points around the map. All of this adds up to make you feel very isolated within the game and makes it difficult to form a strategy; just everyone wanders around doing what they feel like.

However, the combat even alone is good fun. There are a lot of things to do and ways to kill your enemy thanks to the different classes and perks, and you can play the game in many different ways. For example, a Sniper with EMP is an effective combo; you are hidden on radar, can lay down an EMP to protect you from drones, and using an EMP launcher can disable enemy vehicles – they jump out frustrated and you can just shoot them in the head. With Special Ops and Drones, you are effective in close combat, can lay down C4 for approaching enemies, and can hide in a corner to deploy your remote controlled buddies. The drones are a big plus for the game, as driving them around the map is fun and lets you get kills without endangering yourself. To experiment with this, I found a good hiding spot and proceeded to get a score of 30 kills and 0 deaths in the round. Unbalanced you might say, but enjoyable at least.

The vehicles are what you would come to expect, tanks, jeeps and helicopters, these are implemented quite well and in some maps are vital for success. Crucially though, they're not as invincible as in other games, because not only is there an Anti-vehicle class but most of the perk classes can be used to take out vehicles as well. This is a good decision, and as a result amateurs can't roll around in tanks slaughtering the whole enemy team.

Overall, the multiplayer battles are usually fun but there are some more flaws. The weapons aren't too good, they're fairly generic but can be hard to use, and the pistols are quite useless. The game is also open to spawn-killing, “base-rape,” throwing grenades randomly to score lucky kills and just about anything of this nature you can think of. Some more problems with the game are discussed later. Don't get me wrong though, Frontlines is on a huge scale and can be very entertaining indeed. It's a good alternative to the battlefield series, and the perks system sets it apart from similar games.

Graphics
The graphics are a mixed bag. It uses the Unreal 3 engine and can look quite nice but has a lot of problems. Firstly because of the game engine used, no anti-aliasing can be enabled in the game options. This makes the game look very jagged and unappealing. Textures are of a reasonable quality but there are some flaws, such as some textures randomly disappearing and looking blurry. Even on maximum graphical settings the game doesn't look brilliant, but it's functional at least.

Technical Issues
Bottom line, this game needed more testing and working on. It's in dire need of patching and is arguably not in a totally finished state. When Frontlines first released, a lot of Vista users had to wait a few days before a hotfix was released and they could even start the game. The server browser is shockingly bad, often not displaying a server's ping, takes a long time to refresh and darts around while it loads making it very hard to select a server to play on. Hit detection when you're shooting at times can be appalling, completely ignoring the bullets you've just pumped into someone. The shooting controls in general need to be refined and tightened. On a singleplayer mission, the building around me went completely invisible and for a minute I had to navigate myself around without being able to see what was around me. Some computers handle it better than others, XP is usually better than Vista (no surprise there, and yes I'm a Vista user.) Many people even with excellent computers have had problems with the game stuttering and freezing, a temporary fix for this is to set Foliage in the options to “low.” Unfortunately, the list goes on. With more time to have worked on Frontlines, or if some good patches are released, this could become a brilliant game that rivals the Battlefield series but as it stands is terminally flawed.

Longevity
It may disappoint some people to learn that there are no persistent stats whatsoever of any kind, whether online or offline. There are also no weapons or items that are unlockable permanently, perks unlocked in-game are just temporary. Added to the short singleplayer campaign, one gametype and 8 multiplayer maps this raises some serious concerns about longevity. Luckily, there is a variety of things you can do during a battle, and with the different classes, vehicles and perks to try out it should keep you entertained for a while at least.

Conclusion
It may seem like I've spoke quite harshly of the game overall. This is because Frontlines desperately needs patching and generally sorting out because at the core, lies an immensely enjoyable game with tons of potential. The game needs saving before it falls by the way-side and is forgotten. As it is now, it's still entertaining but it could be much more. I recommend you try this before you buy, it's not going to appeal to everyone but Battlefield fans should lap it up, and it could attract some gamers new to the genre.

Pros
Huge scale battles
Great maps
Short but decent singleplayer
Good vehicles
Perks system

Cons
Technical problems
Limited content
Lackluster weaponry and shooting
Sub-par graphically
No persistent stats

Game Score

B+

Reviewed By: James Sheppard