Frontlines: Fuel of War

I remember when Frontlines was first announced it was my most anticipated shooter (before COD4 existed in any form) and I have had high hopes for the game ever since. Sadly I can't really say many good things about the game. I can say that it has a lot of potential, but I wouldn't take that as much of a compliment. The single-player campaign is fun, but it does have its issues. There is a "story" to the game and it's not horrible like Battlefield, but not great like COD4; it’s good enough to move you along from mission to mission. The story takes place in the near future and is focused around an oil crisis. The story is interesting because it's actually something that could conceivably happen.

The single-player experience was actually more enjoyable than I expected, though a few issues really took away from the experience. The thing that bothered me the most was that while attacking a position and having a good shootout; I suddenly die from a huge explosion! How does this happen you ask? Well it seems that the game likes to sneak enemy tanks on your position. Maybe it's just me, but I don't really like having something that big sneak up behind me. I think in some states that's actually called rape, but I can't be sure. The AI isn't always too bright either; on a few occasions I found one of my teammates, as well as an enemy soldier, just standing near each without shooting or doing anything. That didn't happen too much, but the times that it did happen really did take me out of the experience. I also have to say that the controls are pretty bad in my eyes. They just seem “old” to me, but some people may prefer them that way.

The game is pretty much average on the graphical side. I wouldn't call it a great looking game in the likes of COD4, but it holds it's own. Actually I would say that it looks extremely similar to the 2007 shooter Blacksite: Area 51. Even though the game looks fine, I really hope that the Unreal engine is capable of more otherwise we may find ourselves in a market of shooters that not only play alike, but look alike as well. That's a whole other discussion on its own and I won't go into it here. The sound is fine, you hear bullets whizzing by and explosions all over the place; it's all well done and keeps you immersed in the game. Even though the single-player experience has it's flaws (and is a bit short), I still enjoyed myself which is something I can't say about the multi-player.

The multi-player is a mess, both on a technical level and some of the design choices. The game can supposedly handle up to 50 players on the 360, but I have trouble finding games with just 32 players. This is an issue because some maps are absolutely huge and thus unplayable with a small group of players. The maps are a mixed bag as well; they range in size from small to massive and it gives the game a bit of a schizophrenic feeling. There is also an issue with hit detection (which may be related to lag), but this makes certain things difficult. When I was playing as a sniper I couldn't seem to hit anything, but up close this didn't seem to be as big of a problem. I don’t know if they are going to fix these issues, but I can’t say I’ll care enough in a few months to come back. If they had more time to work out the kinks there could be a really fun game under all of it, but now were just stuck with another generic shooter.

I wanted to love this game and after playing the game I can’t even say that I really even like it that much. It ends up just being an “ok” shooter and in a time where we already have plenty of decent shooters; we don’t really need more shooters to add to the already over-populated genre.

Pixelated Sausage
Kush