Frontlines-Okay
Frontlines: Fuel of War is a near future after-oil FPS, based upon a combat system centered on Frontlines.
It has a myriad of combinations available to any player, with 6 weapons and 4 classes, with each class having abilities unlockable while in-game. It features many vehicles, varying from tanks, jeeps, anti air, and APC's to jets and helicopters (transports included). There were about 10 maps with the release, and 5 more are on the way along with 4 new vehicles and 3 new infantry weapons.
The major premise of the game is to capture certain points on a "Frontline", forcing it to move forward once all the points on the line are captured. You win by either capturing the enemies' HQ or by depleting the other team's reinforcement count. This is a new style of gameplay, forcing people to charge into combat rather than sneak behind an enemy line and capture a rear spawn point. Also included is a basic TDM mode that no servers use (lol) and an intuitive, easy to access and use squad system. And a new 'Conquer' mode similar to standard CTF is on the way: a FREE downloadable feature.
Upon release, the game featured some graphical glitches, an OP grenade launcher, one-hit kill 10 foot kill radius melee, and a buggy server browser. It lacked a VOIP function, a sore due to its squad mechanics, and joystick support (yes that's right flyboys). It even had issues with Windows Vista, where most players couldn't even get the game to start (due to a faulty link on the 2nd disk). You had to insert disk 1, wait for the autoplay to pop up, then insert disk two and hit play on the autoplay pop-up. It didn't work properly out of the box for Vista users, but then again, what does?
However, after patch 1.01, the grenade launcher's power has been fixed, and the game features a great server browser. More maps, weapons, and vehicles are on the way as well, leading many to hope the game can make a comeback (which it very well could, with proper word of mouth). They fixed the 'dolphin/worming' of most large battlefield FPS's, the difficult-to-fly helicopters and jets were edited with their response to your control input, making them easier to fly, and Punkbuster was also added. Joystick support hasn't been added via game menu yet, but you can do it yourself by editing a few game files (follow the instructions on their forums). They even included a few second spawn protection to prevent spawn camping. The melee is also being addressed in a hotfix coming up for version 1.01.
The game's single player campaign had some very nice cutscenes, with believable voice-acting. It creates a believable backstory for the current situation, and leaves you wanting to beat the missions in order to advance the storyline. Some of the events depicted in the cutscenes are truly eye opening. It had difficult to beat AI that hunt you down and are far more accurate and smarter than you are. Overall, a average SP experience with a few nice high points :SPOILER ALERT: (Nukes bein dropped on your buddies, anyone?)
Graphically and hardware wise, the game requires a little less hardware to run. On my modest system, it runs crisp at medium or high quality, and i have a very cheap machine. However, don't let this fool you into thinking the game is in fact a bad looking one. It is very well detailed, even at the lower resolutions, and deserves some props for its graphics that require less performance.
In all, Frontlines: Fuel of War is worth a purchase, but mainly due to its newly released patch. Further promised support leaves it with a higher score than what would have occured if they had refused to patch it. It introduces some interesting new ideas to the first person shooter genre, and is more playable and fun than getting raped in COD4 every couple of seconds (not due to me being a newb lol). It shouldn't require much hardware, but make sure you machine meets the specs before buying it and being disappointed.
Final Verdict: 8.0/10
Good, but not amazing. I'm surprised that it didn't get more publicity...
