Game Review: Frontlines Fuel of War (Xbox 360 / PC)

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Bored. Review.

Frontlines: Fuel of War
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Kaos Studios
Players: 1-50 (good lord)
Genre: Tactical FPS

Frontlines: Fuel of War bases around the idea of a third World War that is caused by a lack of oil and gasoline around the world. (sound familiar?) 2 major factions and four countries are included in this war: U.S. and Britain vs. China and Russia, the Western Coalition and the Red Star Alliance respectively. You are in the shoes of a soldier who, like many others, is caught in this war and speculates on all areas of the war, including the idea that the entire war is based on a conspiracy theory. Who knows...

Oil the Glorious
The entire story for this game is base on the idea that soon (in 2008) the world will erupt into a full scale war over the few remaining deposits of oil left on earth. The best part about this story is the possibility that this could happen. The idea of (in todays world) people fighting over oil in a global war isn't totally unforeseeable. Anyway, the story centers on oil, and the two factions (the RSA and WC) are warring over this. Overall, the story is basically another war story, except slightly futuristic and with a small amount of character development. (most of your teamates die fairly quickly) Honestly, there isn't that much to story. Menus work fine, but loading times are sometimes a little long. Multiplayer is glorious. 50 player online matches in massive arena based warfare. The connections for online? So far so good, I haven't ever noticed any connection errors, even in massive battles. A little bit of lag though when the going gets insanely large. Respawning is a pain in the a**.....


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All of them soldiers, all of them lifeless


War doesn't look all too bad...
Frontlines certainly does look good sometimes. Explosions are gloriously, well, explosive, and they work nice. The main problem with this game graphically is that in the massive outside arenas seem to actually have no textures on them until you get very close up. In other words, the textures pop up AFTER you get close, which diminishes the spectacular view of massive war greatly. Pop in for buildings and models happen, but the game cleverly disguises this as saying the its due to the fog and the players (apparent) bad eyesight. Character models, while not exactly Call of Duty 4, work fine, but look very bland close up. Rainbow Six vegas this ain't. Bullet effects and fire seem both primitive and well done at the same time. (don't ask how, just watch it.)


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Frontlines does have its moments, but for the most part it falls flat


Sorry sir, lip sync is not a-go.
Sound. Dialog among the characters is well done, if a bit choppy in campaign mode. A good bit of the dialog focuses on the characters thoughts about the war and the missions they are doing. but to be honest, none of it is memorable, and lip sync could have been much better. Sound effects are well presented, from bullet firing to explosions. The whir of a sentry coming in for a kill is sometimes a bit annoying, as you hear them as being a good for meters away, then boom. Your suddenly dead. You can't so much trust you ears when it comes to remote controlled vehicles in the game. I don't even remember whether or not there was music in the game (which should tell you something about the soundtrack.)


50 player online battles? GOOD ****!
While story mode is rather unimpressive, multiplayer makes up for it rather well. First off the bat you'll notice the MASSIVE battles of 50 players in equally massive battlefields. Theres so much strategy behind team work in this game that people don't even see. For instance, a Special Ops guy could load your vehicle up with C4 to have you bail out of the vehicle right as it collides into another tank and tell the guy to detonate his C4. Or for a less strategic note, get two of your friends into a well-known hiding spot as close combatants, and basically herd your enemies into the area where your friends do the rest. Now speaking of vehicles. The controls for the vehicles are bad, even worse then GTA IV. other then that, vehicles are also insanely overpowered. If your enemy is in a tank, it doesn't matter if you can get a rocket off on his tank. At best it'll only take a third of his health down and by that time you'll be blown to Jupiter. Same goes for all vehicles. The class system works. The only thing is that you'll almost never see ANYONE playing as close combat, i.e. the shotgun class. People who play as the sniper class are doomed too. The Sniper takes at least 2 HEADSHOTS to kill someone, where as the assault rifle (the machine gun class) has the same accuracy as the sniper rifle with the same damage. Still, all these work in the hands of decent players. Multiplayer is the best part of the game, easily.

1 game mode? Honestly?
As far as replay value goes, it all depends on you love for the multiplayer. As you won't play through single player twice, will the 6-10 maps hold you with only a single online mode? Well, that all depends on you, and Frontlines mode really isn't to be messed with.

Lets get to it then! (Watch above your head!)

Presentation: 3.5/5
Intelligent story combined with meh execution equals meh-ness. Connection is great and menus are fine.

Graphics: 4/5
Texture pop up aside, this game can look pretty stunning at times. Explosive times especially.

Sound: 3/5
Sound and gunfires works, voices are alright, but none of it is really spectacular at all.

Gameplay: 4/5
While singleplayer is alright, multiplayer takes a crown for the thing in this game most worthy of your time. If you can get into it, it may be hard to get out of.

Replay Value: 3.5/5
Do you like the multiplayer? Then you have good replay Value...

Overall: 3.5/5
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Frontlines offers some pretty nice war-based ideas for online multiplayer. pitty the storyline is only so-so, but it reminds me of CoD4 in this way...