Amazon.com: Frontlines: Fuel of War: Xbox 360: Video Games

38 Reviews

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
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3.8 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)

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20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars WW3 fought over oil?, March 31, 2008

By	Chris Van Deelen "Chris Van Deelen" (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

We live in a country where energy is almost as important to us as oxygen, and taken for granted just as much.

But, the big question is what if? What if our abundant energy resources suddenly became more and more scarce?

Would other countries start to eye us (here in Alberta) for our Oil reserves? Would wars be fought over the dwindling reserves?

Frontlines: Fuel of War is about that very topic. What if the reserves were all but gone? The major superpowers would end up going to war over the few resources that are left. Of course the game is set many years into the future, but with the way we're consuming our natural resources, it's a frightening glimpse into a very real possible future for mankind.

In the game you play a member of the Stray Dogs, a heavily armed and well trained squad whose job it is to secure strategic locations throughout the game in order to help the Western Collation defeat the Red Star.

Ok, let's get down to the meat of the review.

It's your typical Xbox 360 first person shooter game, with all the usual bells and whistles that you've come to expect from this type of game. Instead of the regular health meter, your screen turns red, your heartbeat speeds up and your breathing becomes laboured the closer you come to dying.

Unlike the other games I played, the controls were somewhat different from what I've grown used to. So, better check your game manual before you dive in or you might find yourself dying a few times before you get the hang of the controls.

Speaking of dying, don't let it happen too often. You only get a limited number of re-spawns per level. I never used them all, but I did come close a couple of times as I played. I don't know what would happen if I used them all, but I am making an educated guess here that you'd probably have to restart the entire level.

Now, with many of the first person shooters that I've played recently, you've typically been quite limited to the number of weapons you could carry and use at any one time.

Frontlines steer away from this trend. Instead of the usual two or three weapons, you could cycle through at least eight, if you had a chance to pick up various weapons that were left around on the battlefield.

The downside is that you couldn't pick up any of the weapons that the enemy dropped upon their untimely demise. That was one of the drawbacks of the game for me.

The second problem with weapons is, unlike many other games I've played, you couldn't pick up ammunition from fallen foes... instead you had to find ammunition caches that were infrequently scattered across the playing maps. Typically they were located in the various objectives that you had to secure.

You also had a fairly limited number of weapons of which to use. An assault rifle, the grenade launcher, an anti-tank weapon, sniper rifle, pistol, grenades and demolition charges.

However, the one thing that set it aside from the other games I've played over the past three months is the fact that you could get various types of remotely controlled drones to use.

These weapons typically came in two types: airborne and land based. Of course it broke down even further than that. Some of the airborne mini-helicopters could be used on strictly suicidal missions, where you flew them into place and detonated them with devastating results, while others were armed with missiles that you could use to soften up the enemy resistance.

Likewise with the ground based drones. One type was nothing more than a bomb on wheels which could be used with truly devastating results, while another was armed with a powerful machine gun.

Of course the enemy could fire at and destroy your weapons, and you have to keep an eye on signal strength... if you let the drone get too far from you, you'd lose control and the enemy would have some nice target practice.

Sorry, I totally forgot about the sentry guns that you could place and they'd work wonders on any hapless foe that happened to wander too close to them. But, once again, these weapons could be taken out by enemy fire, so choose where you place them wisely.

The other feature that was used in this game, but poorly handled in this reviewer's opinion, was vehicles. Many times throughout the game you have the opportunity to pilot APC's, Tanks and even a helicopter.

The problem I had was controlling the vehicles! The controls were poorly done in my opinion, and if you weren't careful to keep your vehicles main body (such as when you were driving the tanks) pointed in the direction you wanted to go, when you moved you could very well find yourself driving sideways, or even in the opposite direction you were planning on moving!

This was quite frustrating, and I found more often than not my vehicle was getting shot out from underneath me because of this.

By the way, the controls for the drone's works on this very same principal so you have been warned.

On a final note when it comes to combat... the old adage is true. A head shot will take out your enemy with a minimum expenditure of ammunition. And besides, when you see their helmet go flying through the air, it's a lot of fun!

The maps were large and varied, but mostly consisted of ruins. Very few times throughout the game you found yourself in an open area, and those times you were, typically you were at the controls of a tank, battling against Red Star tanks.

On the maps however, you had plenty of places to hide and use for cover, but this worked very well in the enemies favour as well.

Graphically, the game had some of the most beautifully rendered images that I've witnessed to date. Only Call of Duty 4 and Mass Effect were on par, if not superior in my view. Excellent use of not only shading, but colours and texture as well.

As I said, you typically always fought in ruins, be it refineries, small towns, or outposts. Some of the most visually impressive maps though were of the ruined launch facilities, the underground bunker labyrinth, and of course the city of Moscow itself.

Every single map had a bleak, hopeless feel to it, just as it should if you read the history or followed the cut scenes at the beginning of the game.

Speaking of cut scenes, they were incredible! The interaction between the characters, the events that took place, it was like watching a movie. I didn't find the movement of the characters to be clunky or un-natural at all, unlike say - Turning Point: the fall of liberty. Even the animated facial expressions conveyed the way the characters were feeling and reacting to what was happening around them.

Then there is the music. Heavy, industrial type rock, something that I really enjoy. Now only if I could find the soundtrack for the game... Of course if you're not into metal or rock, you won't enjoy it, but even the music composed for the game was a delight to listen to as you played.

As is the case, I didn't bother with the multiplayer mode. Although I guess you can play with up to thirty two other players in this mode, and you can choose from different types of classes. What you choose is the type of weapons load you get to play with.

Lastly, there are the achievements. I only managed to unlock 7 while I played the game, out of a possible thirty, for a score of 105 out of a possible 1000. Some of the achievements you could unlock involved beating each mission in a certain amount of time, of course multiplayer, and accuracy.

Pro's
- Excellent graphics and huge maps.
- The ability to carry more than two or three weapons at once.
- Drones!
- Cut scenes and music, top notch.
- Intense firefights.

Con's
- Say it with me... too damned short!
- Poor vehicle controls (including the drones, even though they were fun).

I eagerly await the sequel, as it was left wide open.

4 out of 5

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very fun, very deep multiplayer..., March 10, 2008

By	Deeperdarker (Montrose, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

I should say at the outset that I have only played a few missions on the Single Player aspect of this game, and found them to be dull and very cut and paste from virtually every other shooter out there. That being said, Frontlines: Fuel of War brings one of the most challenging, deepest and expansive multiplayer experiences you will find on the Xbox 360 this year. Where other popular FPS games offer maps that are at most a mile wide at most (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4), the maps in Fuel of War get as big as ten miles across, with flyable jets and helicopters, Tanks, Light Tanks, Anti Aircraft Artillary, Humvees, and more. You can have 50 people playing on the same map and still have room to breath, room to tactically manuever and flank with your squad. What makes this game truly fun for me is that there is no "God weapon" that lets a single player dominates the match. Like a chess-game, Fuel of War offers players a mixture of player classes and equipment that allows them to counter any other player's kit or vehicle. Snipers, tankers, and helicopter pilots are unkillable in other games, but not in Fuel of War. A smart player working with their dquad can take any objective or silence any threat on the map, if they play their cards right. This is a great game and a very fun game. Highly recommended!

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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Game with a few issues, February 27, 2008

By	Jeremy Willia (Santa Clara, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

This game appears to pretty much be focused on the multiplayer with xbox live. Don't get me wrong, the single player is fun, story line is so so, but again the multiplayer is its "bread and butter." That being said, one would think that it would be near perfection in the multiplayer mode. It's not. '

1. City of Lag
It can be difficult to find a room without lag, even with their dedicated servers specifically for this Frontlines. If you get in a room with lag, you can shoot a rocket, and see it actually take off after about three seconds. Another player and I played "ring around the rosie" unloading about three clips and trying quite a few melee attacks, until finally one blow connected. You may think I am just a horrible shot, but find me on xbox live and we'll see! =) Once I switched around to a few different rooms, I found a good one. This room cleared up most of the issues of warfare.

2. Team Communication
This is a game based on teamwork, however the only team members that you can hear on the headset, are the members of your squad. Your squad can be no more than four people. That is a bit of an issue trying to coordinate with the rest of you other team.

3. Soldier to Soldier Combat
There are many vehicles, which are a blast! However, I wish the hand to hand combat was a bit more enjoyable. The aiming system is not so hot and sometimes it's just difficult to connect your bullets with the opponents body!

There are a few other little glitches that I have noticed, and I hope a patch will be soon to follow. If you can find a good room (a good connection) and get use to some of the odd controls, this can be a very enjoyable title. I have found the use of vehicles to be a whole lot of fun, and has really been the reason I even play this game.