PC Games: Frontlines: Fuel of War Review/Impression

Frontlines: Fuel of War is an FPS (First Person Shooter) game that puts you as a member of Western Alliance (the good guys) against Red Star (a combination of Chinese and Russian forces a.k.a the bad guys). It actually covers one of the biggest crisis today, which is oil supply. The main story is that world oil supplies are running out and the last ones are in Middle East. Both sides will be fighting desperately for this.

Frontlines: Fuel of War is kinda similar like Battlefield’s gameplay style (a big open-ended battle where you can hop onto vehicles and choppers). It also introduces classes in the game (Sniper, Assault, etc).

The game doesn’t offer anything new, though, apart from being able to remote-control drones on the battlefield.

Single Player Campaign

Please note that all screenshots on this post are merely taken from Frontlines’ official site.

Unlike the Battlefield series, Frontlines: Fuel of War offers a single player campaign. However, it’s fairly short (probably as short as Call of Duty 4, which is around 5-7 hours of gameplay). It does offer some cut scenes using the in-game engine and also some drawn arts. Each chapter on the campaign usually asks you to kill all and/or destroy all. After a few chapters, I got bored of blowing the same people and the same thing.

The story line is not bad, though, but can’t beat Call of Duty 4 or World in Conflict story lines. However, the story is quite linear and pretty much predictable. The good guys always win at the end. Whoops, did I spoil it for you?

Graphics, Sounds, Music

They are pretty much quite mediocre. Graphics are nice (from trailers and screenshots) but unfortunately I have to set it as a mix of Low and Medium on my GeForce 7600 GT I can’t wait to upgrade to 8800GT.

When the battle starts, the sound effects help to further enhance the atmosphere. All of your weapons have satisfying sound effects, too.

Gameplay

The worst thing that I can think of is the recoil rate. There’s no way you can burst your weapon in this game and be able to hit anything. If you play Counterstrike, the recoil rate in this game is like your AK-47 * 3. It’s that bad. Although it won’t really frustrate you, it certainly removes some elements of fun in the game with realism, I guess.

Riding vehicles and choppers can be fun, but I was having a hard time controlling the chopper at some point in the game. Being the foot soldier is probably the best option, as tanks and choppers are easy targets in this game (and you’ll meet lots of enemies with anti-tank/aircraft weapons).

The bots are quite smart, but unfortunately your teammates are not. Most often you’ll get killed, even though you have 3 of your mates shooting at the enemy at point blank range.

Also, why is it so hard to kill an enemy through an explosion? When you are in a tank, a good FPS player will shoot at the ground near the target to kill it. Don’t expect it to work as effective as other FPS games here. Sometimes it’s better if you just shoot your shell straight to your target!

MultiPlayer

Unfortunately I haven’t tried the multiplayer yet (I guess this “blogging business” really takes too much of my time o_O). The single player is actually a “tutorial” for the multi-player, I might say. It gradually covers all you need to know for the online battle. It’ll be interesting though to see a grand scale battle with that kind of recoil rate

Conclusion

Frontlines: Fuel of War doesn’t really offer anything new. The multiplayer can be fun, though, but I’ve heard that people are still having problems with connecting and stuffs. Hopefully the recent patch will fix it. If you have played the multiplayer, feel free to add your own comments here.