Frontlines: Fuel of War: Xbox 360

...

count your extra lives. This is a convention that went extinct with Wolfenstein 3D!

Vehicle controls are awful. Tank control is not entirely bad, except that a real-world M1A2 could out-perform your allegedly futuristic vehicles. The jeep controls are completely baffling, because you will always drive in the direction your turret is facing. The tanks don't suffer this handicap. Why the vehicles needed such different control schemes is beyond me.

Friendly AI is completely useless. After playing the entire single player campaign I can only recall a single instance of my allied troops killing an enemy soldier. Although you usually have half a dozen troops around you, trust me, you'll be the one doing all the work. I noticed more than one occasion in which my men seemed to magically teleport into enemy lines ahead of me. On the other hand, there were several major battles in which my supporting soldiers completely vanished, leaving me alone against dozens of enemies. (Not that they would have helped)

Level storytelling is nonexistent. In each level you are pitted against 50-100 enemy soldiers coming at you from every direction. They run around apparently at random, and have no sense of higher organization (such as squads). There is no problem-solving to be done and no deeper story beyond killing everything you see. After playing the virtuoso "Orange Box," this was a major letdown.

The cut scenes are skillfully animated, but I couldn't stand to watch them. Almost every character is a swaggering, testosterone-laden body builder attempting to look as comically macho as possible. I am convinced that anyone who watches these scenes will actually be dumber for having seen them.

There is one saving grace to "Frontlines." It is pretty to look at. Unfortunately, it takes more than that to impress me.

Frontlines: Fuel of War: Xbox 360

...

first person shooter game, with all the usual bells and whistles that you've come to expect from this type of game. Instead of the regular health meter, your screen turns red, your heartbeat speeds up and your breathing becomes laboured the closer you come to dying.

Unlike the other games I played, the controls were somewhat different from what I've grown used to. So, better check your game manual before you dive in or you might find yourself dying a few times before you get the hang of the controls.

Speaking of dying, don't let it happen too often. You only get a limited number of re-spawns per level. I never used them all, but I did come close a couple of times as I played. I don't know what would happen if I used them all, but I am making an educated guess here that you'd probably have to restart the entire level.

Now, with many of the first person shooters that I've played recently, you've typically been quite limited to the number of weapons you could carry and use at any one time.

Frontlines steer away from this trend. Instead of the usual two or three weapons, you could cycle through at least eight, if you had a chance to pick up various weapons that were left around on the battlefield.

The downside is that you couldn't pick up any of the weapons that the enemy dropped upon their untimely demise. That was one of the drawbacks of the game for me.

The second problem with weapons is, unlike many other games I've played, you couldn't pick up ammunition from fallen foes... instead you had to find ammunition caches that were infrequently scattered across the playing maps. Typically they were located in the various objectives that you had to secure.

You also had a fairly limited number of weapons of which to use. An assault rifle, the grenade launcher, an anti-tank weapon, sniper rifle, pistol, grenades and demolition charges.

However, the one thing that set it aside from the other games I've played over the past three months is the fact that you could get various types of remotely controlled drones to use.

These weapons typically came in two types: airborne and land based. Of course it broke down even further than that. Some of the airborne mini-helicopters could be used on strictly suicidal missions, where you flew them into place and detonated them with devastating results, while others were armed with missiles that you could use to soften up the enemy resistance.

Likewise with the ground based drones. One type was nothing more than a bomb on wheels which could be used with truly devastating results, while another was armed with a powerful machine gun.

Of course the enemy could fire at and destroy your weapons, and you have to keep an eye on signal strength... if you let the drone get too far from you, you'd lose control and the enemy would have some nice target practice.

Sorry, I totally forgot about the sentry guns that you could place and they'd work wonders on any hapless foe that happened to wander too close to them. But, once again, these weapons could be taken out by enemy fire, so choose where you place them wisely.

The other feature that was used in this game, but poorly handled in this reviewer's opinion, was vehicles. Many times throughout the game you have the opportunity to pilot APC's, Tanks and even a helicopter.

The problem I had was controlling the vehicles! The controls were poorly done in my opinion, and if you weren't careful to keep your vehicles main body (such as when you were driving the tanks) pointed in the direction you wanted to go, when you moved you could very well find yourself driving sideways, or even in the opposite direction you were planning on moving!

This was quite frustrating, and I found more often than not my vehicle was getting shot out from underneath me because of this.

By the way, the controls for the drone's works on this very same principal so you have been warned.

On a final note when it comes to combat... the old adage is true. A head shot will take out your enemy with a minimum expenditure of ammunition. And besides, when you see their helmet go flying through the air, it's a lot of fun!

The maps were large and varied, but mostly consisted of ruins. Very few times throughout the game you found yourself in an open area, and those times you were, typically you were at the controls of a tank, battling against Red Star tanks.

On the maps however, you had plenty of places to hide and use for cover, but this worked very well in the enemies favour as well.

Graphically, the game had some of the most beautifully rendered images that I've witnessed to date. Only Call of Duty 4 and Mass Effect were on par, if not superior in my view. Excellent use of not only shading, but colours and texture as well.

As I said, you typically always fought in ruins, be it refineries, small towns, or outposts. Some of the most visually impressive maps though were of the ruined launch facilities, the underground bunker labyrinth, and of course the city of Moscow itself.

Every single map had a bleak, hopeless feel to it, just as it should if you read the history or followed the cut scenes at the beginning of the game.

Speaking of cut scenes, they were incredible! The interaction between the characters, the events that took place, it was like watching a movie. I didn't find the movement of the characters to be clunky or un-natural at all, unlike say - Turning Point: the fall of liberty. Even the animated facial expressions conveyed the way the characters were feeling and reacting to what was happening around them.

Then there is the music. Heavy, industrial type rock, something that I really enjoy. Now only if I could find the soundtrack for the game... Of course if you're not into metal or rock, you won't enjoy it, but even the music composed for the game was a delight to listen to as you played.

As is the case, I didn't bother with the multiplayer mode. Although I guess you can play with up to thirty two other players in this mode, and you can choose from different types of classes. What you choose is the type of weapons load you get to play with.

Lastly, there are the achievements. I only managed to unlock 7 while I played the game, out of a possible thirty, for a score of 105 out of a possible 1000. Some of the achievements you could unlock involved beating each mission in a certain amount of time, of course multiplayer, and accuracy.

Pro's
- Excellent graphics and huge maps.
- The ability to carry more than two or three weapons at once.
- Drones!
- Cut scenes and music, top notch.
- Intense firefights.

Con's
- Say it with me... too damned short!
- Poor vehicle controls (including the drones, even though they were fun).

I eagerly await the sequel, as it was left wide open.

4 out of 5

Frontlines: Fuel of War: Xbox 360

...

other player's kit or vehicle. Snipers, tankers, and helicopter pilots are unkillable in other games, but not in Fuel of War. A smart player working with their dquad can take any objective or silence any threat on the map, if they play their cards right. This is a great game and a very fun game. Highly recommended!