War, what is it good for? (Frontlines: Fuel of War Special Edition (Xbox 360))

Member Name: Stunt 101

Product:	Frontlines: Fuel of War Special Edition (Xbox 360)
Date:	11/03/08 (196 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Non-linear objectives, 50-player multiplayer, some great visual and sound moments, great weapons.

Disadvantages: Iffy A.I., you need Live to get the most out of Frontlines, uneven graphics, forgettable sound.

War isn't a nice subject to be honest. People die, money is wasted sending people to war and it can lead to trauma. But it's weird how many times War is used in videogames, whether it's World-War II, World War 3 or World War 50. Yes, Wars make for entertaining games, as the Call of Duty games, especially the latest edition CoD4, are quality. Now we get Frontlines: Fuel of War for the 360 and PC, a game which could hit close to home for Oil companies. Set when Oil costs 100 dollars and people are rioting, Frontlines has some nice twists on the genre including letting you take on objectives in any order and 50 player multiplayer. But is it enough?

-(The Story)-
The year is 2024, and it seems that oil prices kept going up. In summer of 2008, the oil prices were over 100 dollars per barrel. This would be enough to drive anyone crazy, so this causes a global catastrophe a few years after the event. Jobs were lost, people went bankrupt, and countries fought. This has caused Europe and the US to unite to form the Western Coalition, but Russia and China also united to form the Red Star Alliance. Both groups used defense systems to stop those launching nukes onto each other. Now, they must fight on foot and in vehicles to claim the last supplies of oil. You'll play on the side of the Western Coalition with a group called the Stray Dogs as a news reporter follows your group that fight for supplies. The story isn't much, but the cutscenes in between the chapters look decent and are slightly engaging.

-(The Controls)-
The game controls like your standard shooter, where you move and aim with the analog sticks. You can do a sprint by holding down the right bumper, which is helpful for getting to cover quickly. You can also jump (A button), crouch and go to prone (left analog stick) and use a parachute while in the air (A button again). You can interact with the environments by using the X button, reload or pick up weapons using the right bumper and use a melee attack with B. The movement is solid, the controls are great and comfortable for shooting fans, and other things like piloting vehicles and checking your map in multiplayer all work well.

-(The Gameplay)-
Frontlines has both a single-player and multiplayer component under its belt. The single player takes you through locations like Moscow. The single player is split up into seven chapters, each with a few sections with a few objectives in them. What's unique about the single player is the design of Frontlines, as the game is completely non-linear in terms of how you take on these levels. The game throws you into these large levels, each with a couple of objectives and as you complete them, you unlock more until the level is finished. You can take on objectives in any order, and take them on how you want if you think about it. If you can sneak around, you can take the objective from the behind of the enemies. It is a breath of fresh air in a genre filled with linear games like Clive Barker's Jericho. In fact, this is like the opposite of Jericho as the levels are large and open, whereas the levels in Jericho are cramped.

That said, the single player isn't perfect. The A.I. is on the side of iffy, as they can do some incredibly dumb things. To name one, I saw a comrade and a enemy crouching right next to each other, doing nothing at all as if they though no one was there. Then the enemy got taken out by me because they didn't notice me. Your team A.I. isn't much brighter, as they are lucky to take out enemies, struggle to keep up with you and fail to pilot vehicles well. But the enemies make up for their stupidity with numbers, as you will constantly be overwhelmed when you're getting shot at by a tank and three foot soldiers with machine guns. It's uneven to say the least. Plus, you can't issue squad commands to your team, which may take the hassle out of managing your team, but means that you can't order them ahead to do your dirty work or take out some of the enemies.

Another unique thing to Frontlines is its Deployment system. Basically, when you die it's not game over, as you can redeploy back into the level from one of the secured objectives. This might make the game sound easy, but you can't redeploy back into a level infinitely, as you only have a certain amount of lives. Once they all run out, you must restart the section of the chapter you are on. Frontlines is another game to use the recharging health setup from other games like Rainbow Six: Vegas and CoD4. Unfortunately, you get hurt way too easily, as one shot and you'll need to get to cover. Plus, this doesn't mesh well with the redeployment system as because dying is too easy, you'll constantly have to redeploy and once you lose all your redeployments, you'll have to start the section again, even if you were close to the final objective.

The biggest issue, however, with Fuel of War's single player is that the objectives you are required to complete are dull and repetitive. There are a couple of levels which stray from the standard objectives, like kill an evil terrorist or defend an area, but a lot of the time the objectives follow one of three things. Secure a position, where you kill everyone and wait near the flare until it's secure, push a switch to do something like open a gate to the next level by holding down a button or place C4 onto something dangerous or stopping you getting contact to your group. The objectives can repeat during a single level, and they get repetitive during the course of the game. It's a shame, as the levels that required you to do special tasks like kill someone was near the end. It means the single player is only decent and a diversion from the real part of the game-the multiplayer.

The biggest part of Frontlines is its online play, which supports up to 50 players on a dedicated server or 16 players on Client Side-Hosting. Either way, Frontlines' multiplayer is huge, and the maps have been created well to support that. There is only one game mode in the multiplayer, which is where you must take over every objective in the level, like the single-player, except now the other team can take over your objectives too. You can play as a certain role for your team too, including being able to disable vehicles with an EMP, calling in air strikes and more. It adds depth to the proceedings, which means there is something for everyone. Obviously, the multiplayer can be pretty overwhelming at first, considering there are 49 other people with you, though this isn't much of an issue if you're use to the likes of Battlefield. The lag, despite the large number of players, isn't much of an issue and Frontlines multiplayer makes this worth the price of admission.

There are over 60 weapons and vehicles to use in Frontlines, which is quite a large number. You have your standard issue assault rifle, pistol, shotgun and sniper rifle. But there are also some unique weapons, like turrets you can plant onto the ground, some of which shoot rockets, a pair of goggles which can call in Air Strikes and more. On the vehicle side, you'll be using buggies with a guy sat in the turret, tanks, helicopters and more. All the vehicles control smoothly, and as a whole, the weapons in Frontlines are great. They pack power, have a good amount of ammo and are satisfying to use. Around each level there are ammo crates which will give you ammo should you need it. You can use these weapons in both single player and multiplayer, which significantly improves both.

There are lots of great moments in Frontlines. In the last level, I was pinned down by a tank which if I went out of cover, would blow me up. So, I went down to ground, crawled under a shed, and blew it up with a rocket launcher. Great fun! Unfortunately, Frontlines isn't exactly original, as the shooting feels a bit like Ghost Recon in the first-person. Some objectives you can take by simply running to them and taking cover near the flare, and even on the normal setting I didn't die on the first few levels. The difficulty did ramp up where the enemies increased and the level design was harder to manoeuvre through though. As a whole, though, it feels like there is so much unrealised potential. Had the visuals improved, the fighting would have been more intense and if it had taken some cues from the CoD series in terms of action, this game could have been so much more.

There is a special edition of Frontlines: Fuel of War available and boy, there is lots of stuff crammed into the box. What you're getting here is the game itself, an Art book, filled with 24 pages of concept art for the game including vehicles, weapons and moments in the game. There is also a medium sized poster which has a member of the Stray Dogs on it, a 17 track CD with music from the game, and a large sized T-Shirt with the Stray Dogs emblem on the front, which if you aren't old enough to play the game probably won't fit. It definitely goes further than most special editions, as while it doesn't include a special DVD in it, you'll find yourself satisfied as you're playing multiplayer while wearing your Stray Dogs T-Shirt and listening to the soundtrack. There is so much stuff that it looks like the box is going to burst.

The game is rated 16+ for violence, which is about right. There is some blood as you shoot enemies, as well as swearing and other offensive content. But anyone could play Frontlines, thanks to its clear objectives and easy controls. I'd say this would be fine for anyone over the age of eleven or twelve, depending on how they can handle violence.

-(The Graphics)-
Graphically, Frontlines looks okay but could be better. There are some impressive visual moments, like the last level where you're in a war-torn city. The environments are breathtaking, with lots of destruction and lighting effects. Unfortunately, the rest of the environments are a little dull-with lots of brown and green colours. The draw-distance is a little poor at times, where objects suddenly pop into the background. Texture pop-in occurs too, which hurts the visuals a lot. Some of the textures look good, but some of them are blurry when looked at closely. The enemy character models are heavily recycled, though there are lots of them. The frame rate can chop up pretty badly at some points too. The vehicle designs, like the Tanks and Buggy, look nice and the explosion effects look good, but overall, the graphics fail to impress. It's a shame, as running on the Unreal Engine, the graphics engine of Gears of War and Mass Effect, you'd expect more.

-(The Sound)-
The sound is mostly forgettable. Like the graphics, there are some brilliant moments, like a couple of epic music tracks playing in perfect tandem to the game. Unfortunately, there isn't much else. The acting is decent, but you get the feeling they were trying to be too macho as if to rip off Gears of War. But it suits the game, so that's all that matters really. Some epic tracks are the stand out of what is mostly subtle music, as it's hard to hear when there are so many explosions. Speaking of which, the effects are quality in Frontlines. The guns sound powerful and varied, the explosions ring your ears and the

-(The Replay Value)-
The value really depends whether you have Xbox Live or not. If you do, you'll get the six hour single player as well as a great 50 player online mode, which could last you months if you let it. But if you are only a single-player, then chances are you will only get the six hours of gameplay from Frontlines: Fuel of War. The single-player doesn't last long, but the achievements could encourage replay value. There are thirty in total, and most of them are rewarded from the single player. You get achievements for finishing a level on at least the normal difficulty, completing a level without dying and completing a level in a certain amount of time. It's a shame there weren't more achievements revolved around gameplay in the single player, like get four head shots in a row, but it's nice that there is some incentive to replay. Plus, thanks to the games non-linear design, every time you play a level it's almost always different. Still, it would have been nice if there was more meat to the single player experience of Frontlines.

-(The Score)-
Controls=10-Excellent movement and controls.
Gameplay=8-Cool non-linear design, great weapons and huge multiplayer battles.
Graphics=7-Some great moments marred by technical issues.
Sound=7-Again, some great moments but lots of forgettable ones.
Replay Value=7-Depends if you have Xbox Live.
Overall Score=7.8

-(The Ending Comments)-
Frontlines: Fuel of War is a decent FPS that is unique thanks to its non-linear gameplay, large levels and 50 player multiplayer. It is going to be heaven for people like me who hated the confined levels of a shooter like Jericho, but a nightmare for anyone who is a casual lead-head. It definitely punishes mistakes in the single-player, and playing in a match with 49 other people will be overwhelming unless you've experienced the likes of Battlefield. But the biggest crime here is that the game could have been so much more. The visuals are only okay, but some moments show off true brilliance in terms of visual designs. There are some excellent music tracks, but the rest of the sound is forgettable and the game's single player is both short and won't compare to the multiplayer. If you're bored with CoD4's multiplayer, this is the next step. But if you're looking for a single player experience, you could do better.

-(The Extra Info)-
This was published by THQ and developed by Kaos Studios.
This was released on February 29th, and is also on PC.
This is available from Amazon for £32.98 or £29.99 in special edition.

Summary: Great potential here, slightly untapped-would like to see a sequel!