Customer Reviews

Frontlines: Fuel of War

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I think re-reading Orwell's 1984 right about now would be a great idea. Because in a true Orwellian fashion FRONTLINES:FUEL OF WAR envisions yet a...newer world order where the US and the EU (Western Coalition, aka "Oceania"?) face off Russia and China (Red Star Alliance, aka "Eastasia"?). It is set in (the no so near I hope) future so new weapons and front-line tactical technology are employed.

This is a fast-paced First Person Shooter built around capturing points and getting territory rewards. It bears great similarities to BATTLEFIELD, yet I felt more like playing COMPANY OF HEROES from a FPS perspective. Various objectives are to be completed in order for the entire battlefield territory to be captured.

The graphics are good, although, not exceptional: CoD4 is much more impressive. The sound was nothing to complain about: your usual battlefield whizzing bullets, staccato automatics and loud explosions.

I really liked the feature which allows soldier and weapons customization - which, in an RPG twist, can get upgraded (up to level 3) as the game progresses. This is a game with a lot going for it. Unfortunately, the story does not end here.

The first star was withheld because of the short duration. FPS games keep getting shorter and shorter but 6-7 hours is way too short even for an expansion, let alone a standalone game! At this rate, in a couple of years, games will not run longer than a movie and will cost ten times a movie ticket.
The second star was withheld because of the weak Single player campaign. The missions were rudimentary designed and, even if there are challenging moments, it was painfully obvious that FRONTLINES is a game designed mainly as a multiplayer. Now, this is a risky way to set up a game since it depends on the number of onLine participants. If UT3 failed to attract a crowd, I cannot see FRONTLINES fairing any better. By the way, if THQ wants to boost onLine participation, they should offer more than the 8 maps currently available.

All in all, FRONTLINES is a good game that will leave Single player gamers with a mild unsatisfied aftertaste, whereas multiplayer gamers will enjoy more, provided they find enough companions to make it interesting.

A good game that has some interesting features.

I purchased this game from 'Steam' and after a long, sporadic download (off and on over 24+ hours) and then some difficulty getting it to load, I FINALLY got to play this game. (I suggest, before buying, that you visit the forums to see some of the troubles people are having.)

I initially played this game on 'normal' difficulty and found that it was fairly easy; the enemy were not that strong, my buddies although useful at times, didn't seem to do much, and my character seemed to be able to take a pounding before getting killed. However, playing on 'hardcore' difficulty, gave this game a entirely new dimension; it was a real challenge (but a doable challenge).

Some comments on what I liked and didn't like: (played on single player)

1.)Excellent smooth flowing graphics, good audio (even a good 'heroic-type' music tract [usually I turn the music off in games as I find it annoying]) that was pleasant to listen to. Also, some interesting 'cut-scenes' (which you can skip).

2.)There are the usual large variety of weapons; rifle, explosives, rocket launcher etc., but there are some interesting new remote controlled 'drone' robots (both ground and airborne) that do add a new twist to the FPS concept. These units can be used either as 1st or 3rd person and once you get the hang of manipulating these robots skillfully, they are exceptional pieces of weaponry.

3.)Although specific objectives must be obtained to complete a game segment, there is no order in which tasks have to be done and furthermore you usually have several ways of approaching a target, giving the game a certain amount of non-linear play to it.

4.)You get to operate a number of vehicles (both ground and air) and their weapons. Most of these vehicles can be played in either 1st person or 3rd person with a toggle key; obviously 1st person is the most realistic, but the 3rd person is extremely useful for looking around to get your bearings and to see where the danger is.

5.)There are no quick F5/F9 game save/loads; you must reach a game check point to autosave (which basically means completing a specific objective). If you died you can 'redeploy' (up to 5 times) somewhere near where you died. This feature seemed to work well and checkpoints were reasonably spaced apart.

On the negative side;

1.)Learning to fly and control a helicopter was an exercise in perseverance and frustration; I'm not sure the time I spent on this was worth the mediocre results.

2.)This game had a LONG load time from icon click to actual playing, however the restarts after dying (redeploys), were fairly fast.

3.)With the 'Steam' download there were two concerns;

A.)there was no manual available; this would have been very useful for general info and also for the different key combos that the different modes (infantry, driving, flying etc.) required . (these keys designations are available in options>controls but are inconvenient to look up in the middle of battle)
B.)there was no key code to unlock the 'extras' which apparently contained some extra levels and cheat codes.

4.)This is a fairly short game; only 8 campaigns (that have 4-5 sections each). I finished this game in two days of intermittent play. Not much playing time for $50 US.

Conclusions:
A short game, that graphically was well done, and it does have some interesting scenarios and ideas. And although it doesn't quite have that visceral intensity of Call of Duty 4, it is still an interesting and complex FPS. This game, played on 'easy' or 'normal' difficulty resulted in just a so-so rating, BUT on 'hardcore' it required some thinking and planning (and using your fellow soldiers), and thus making it intriguing FPS to play! 3 1/2 - 4 Stars

Sys Specs; Played on Vista with a Dual core processor, P5K motherboard, 2 GB RAM and nVidia 8800 GTS card

Look, this game is a multiplayer on-line game first. All the other reviewers are focused on the single player. It is a 6-8 hour tutorial and that is it !! Battlefield 2 or 2142 anyone? It takes the Battlefield experience and expands on it, health regenerates. The single player campaign is short, but good and like a tutorial to learn the advanced weapons. Drones are sweet (control 3 at once is crazy fun) (they even act like UAV), so are air strikes (best described as fireworks), and so are the mounted shieleded guns the infantry role can build at any location (deadly, try a grenade launcher 8 stories up). C4 and special ops are included but now quite long in the tooth, when compared to the new toys of FFOW!!

Play in a squad of up to 4 to achieve map domination. Move the front line forward to win the game, there is a ticket system if you cannot advance the line. Spawn to any owned base or your squad leader. Do you want to defend or be agressive. Work together with customizable load outs to achieve your group goals. Also the rocket launch can take down the copters, no problem (2 required). Large variety of destructible environments, big and small, vehicles and infantry maps.

If you do not have friends, play COD4 the "one man war" game that has amazing graphics and strong solid feel, but does not focus on team work. I have done all I can in COD4 and am ready for good teamplay.

This game did launch with issues, but if you are reading this, they have all been corrected. 8800GT is amazing with this game.

I picked this game up at a bargain price and it was well worth it! I had read many subpar reviews about this title so I wasn't expecting much when I finally got around to playing it. I was happy to find that the game was quite a fun run and gun. Here are my thoughts;

Pros

+ Respectable graphics. Absolutely no framerate issues at all no matter how much was going on on screen.

+ Amazingly fun remote vehicles/weapons. The helicopter drones with rockets and machine guns were a blast to use.

+ Fast paced action

+ Abundance of enemies with repectable AI.

+ Straight forward and unlinear gameplay. There's no question as to what your objectives are but the maps generally (see Cons below) give you enough freedom to approach the mission how you want.

+ Decent amount of vehicles to drive, most of which have great handling.

+ Respectable soundtrack that lends to the futuristic action feel of the game. Only a few cheesy guitar rock riffs thrown in. A few of the tracks are almost exact rip offs of John Powell's scores for the Bourne films, not necessarily a bad thing.

+ Guns have a great sound and feel. I play a lot of FPS games and I tend to notice when the development team actually put time into using authentic sounds for the weapons. I noticed immediately a difference in this game vs other FPS'. There was also a wide variety of weapons to use throughout the game. My only complaint was that you didn't carry weapons over from mission to mission.

Cons

- Forgettable story

- Single player campaign is too short. I finished the game in less than a weekend.

- Helicopters are a lesson in frustration to fly

- Terribly annoying messages for "leaving the battlefield/abandoning your mission" that really limit your freedom of movement while trying to accomplish your mission objectives. I remember a few maps where I was literally forced into the open amidst dozens of enemies versus flanking and using cover to eliminate them. Quite frustrating.

- Narrator/Reporter is pretty much non-existant during gameplay yet he's supposed to be travelling with your company of soldiers.


All in all I was very pleased with this title and found it a ton of fun to play through. I would definitely recommend it to fellow FPS fans. Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.

I agree that there seem to be issues with the online part of the game, and patches are needed. However, I just finished playing through the single-player (offline) campaign, and I had a blast. In fact, I probably had a better time playing through this game than any other military first person shooter I ever played.

I am not sure why I liked it so much, but it just seemed to flow well and have a good pace. I also like that they have those remote controled vehicles (drones) that add a nice twist to the game. I haven't seen that done anywhere else.

Graphics are very good. The overall production values seem to be good. The whole "frontlines" concept with multiple next targets yet still some structure works very well and I really like it.

I am sure I will spend time playing this game online, but even if there was no online component at all (or if they never patched it properly), I'd still give this game 5 stars just for the offline experience.

Negatives
-Small Maps (less strategy)
-Frontlines system detracts from gameplay
-Underslung Grenade Launcher (cheapens play)
-Incredibly frustrating multiplayer
-VERY glitchy

Positive
-Sometimes exciting

The single player (as many people have previously pointed out) is not that long or challenging although it is fun. However, this game is not an improvement from Battlefield 2142 or just 2 even from a multiplayer standpoint. The main reason is the new "frontlines" system, which allows for less running time but on the whole makes the game less fun.
The system works much like the point capture version does in Battlefield (stand by a point for a period of time without dying) except, instead of being all uncontrolled by teams, they are split evenly between the two, with only the front set of the opposing team's points being able to be captured. This is a problem for three reasons-
1. All fighting is done within a very closed area, making for exciting gameplay, but not as much thought as the Battlefield 2142 titan play (for the non-nerds, giant flying ship that needs to be assaulted then destroyed)
2. Often you will die the second you spawn
3. Incredibly frustrating for new players

Another gripe I have is with the weapon loadouts and the glitchiness of the game.

Mostly the loadout that is problematic is Assault. Normally, this is my favorite class to play, but with the addition of a fast-reloading, high ammo capacity underslung grenade launcher (a mouthful I know, for future reference- the noob-tube) that leaves many maps annoying to play in. This is because many players use the noob tube excessively, making any sort of attack-defense dynamic that the Frontlines game system would normally excel at void. This makes many maps seem like one giant explosion.

The glitchiness of the game is incredibly annoying. Mostly these glitches involve loading screens (will load infinitely) or will not let you join multiplayer games for little to no reason (this is talking just post- 1.01 patch by the way). Also, rockets can get stuck on objects, making a player capable of firing his rocket launcher and hitting a target without the normal graphic that would normally indicate said players location.

My last gripe is that the maps (even the largest ones) are tiny. This takes a huge chunk out of any strategy aspect that would normally be incorporated.

On the plus side, the game can be exciting, if you live long enough for it not to be frustrating.

Kinda a lame title if you ask me. Any way i would say this is a pretty good game (At least if you cant play M Rated games like myself.) First of all DO NOT PLAN ON BEING ABLE TO PLAY IT AT FIRST! Don't get all "Yay yay yay my new games here!" and think you can just pop it in your computer and play it, No sir that just is not how it works, Once you get it you need to load about 10 patches (They will take about 3 hours) then you get mad at the multiplayer and you think GOSH THIS THING IS A PEACE OF CRAP! But don't throw it out yet, This game uses "Punkbuster" for its multiplayer, Punkbuster is a (In my Opinion) very lame and has so meny bugs i cant believe so meny games use this for there multiplayer, Any problems you have with the multiplayer just type in Punkbuster on google and you should find there site, They have a FAQ that has most of the errors in it, and let me tell you there is alot, That just about covers it, I Do not recomend this for PC, if you have a XBOX 360 Buy that verson, And if you can play M games don't waist your time and money on this game.

Game seems good and has good reviews. The only problem is that it will not run on any PC in my house, It won't run on Windows 7 x64, Windows 7 32bit (laggy and buggy), or Vista. Haven't tried as I no longer own an XP PC. In the future,I have decided not to buy PC software online. I only game it 1 star because it doesn't run, not because it is a bad game. Had I gotten the 360 version, I might have liked the game. Will not return because return shipping is likely going to cost me more than I spent on the game.

This is a top class shooter game with magnificent graphics and game play. Great variety of weapons and they all feel meaty and solid with good sound effects and destructive power. Lots of different types of levels ranging from open heavy warfare battle fields with tanks to close in room to room levels to sniper stealthy play outdoor levels. Its a challenging game where you may die many times before completing the level. The story is decent and keeps the game going with interest. A highlight is the drone robotic weapons which are a lot fun to control and they have different varieties of these, from assault drones to anti-vehicle drones to mini attack helicopter drones, all of them are well imagined and realistic and very useful in the game.

Some negative aspects - your fellow soldiers are hopeless and don't help you much, they rarely kill any enemy soldiers and often get in the way of your shots. The assault rifle seems weak, an enemy soldier can take many shots from this gun before they go down and its unrealistic. The biggest beef I had with the game was the enemy attack helicopters, these have awesome firepower and can kill you quickly but are difficult to take down with the rocket launcher, and it can get tedious trying to shoot these down, which you have to do right away because they have such killing power. Any first person shooter fans should pick this game up and its a steal for the low price they are selling it here at Amazon.

Ease of playability
Good graphics, not as good as Crysis but its fair enough for a FPS.
Excellent sound effects
Fun multi-player
plenty of new tech was brought in, ie. bots
no lag no bs

overall 4 star game.