• Xbox 360 ››
• Action ››
• Frontlines: Fuel of War

Frontlines: Fuel Of War

• By Casey Lynch
• February 25, 2008 17:03 PM PST
• Print
• Email this!
• Share
  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz!
  • FaceBook
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us

Frontlines: Fuel of War is predicated on an interesting and rather plausible scenario: in the near future, a shortage of fuel propels the world's superpowers into a global conflict.

• GamePro Score
• User Score
• Write your review!

Hop into a turret when you need to lay down some serious firepower

But while the game's storyline is focused on a far-reaching conflict, Frontlines ultimately succeeds because of all the attention that the developers paid to the small stuff.

Fuel For The (Gun)Fire

Almost everything in Frontlines, from the average single-player to the decadent multiplayer hinges on the same basic concept: advancing your "frontline" and capturing territory. In the single-player mode, this requires you to capture towers, refineries and other objectives; doing so expands your sphere of influence. It's the same deal for multiplayer but you do battle over eight maps that range in size from tight and cramped levels like Street to absurdly massive battle zones like Solar Farm; the latter is so big that there are playable fighter jets.

Graphically, the game looks decent enough running on the advanced Unreal Engine but there isn't any consistency to the visuals. Some of the environments are bland, while others are seriously dense and superbly realized. Overall, it won't raise the bar for Xbox 360 games but it gets the job done.

Bigger Is Better

Capturing objectives in the single-player mode will advance your frontlines and expand your territory

Of course, the game's main selling point lies in the massive multiplayer team battles. Frontlines allows for insane 50-player matches and after taking part in some 25 on 25 action, I'm convinced that it can work. Best of all, there was barely any lag. On the big maps there are a ton of available vehicles such as tanks, jeeps and helicopters that really let you cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time; one map even features a "partybus" which is basically an armored school bus with a mounted turret.

Similar to the class system of Call of Duty 4, you pick one of six weapon loadouts and one of four roles before you hit the battlefield. It's a really effective system and it translates well onto the online space. And really, that's all there is to say about Frontlines. It isn't the best shooter out there, but the team at Kaos obviously put a lot of thought into the role system and the balancing of the game's sole gametype. I do hope they offer new maps and modes soon, as gamers may quickly grow bored but for the time being, the large-scale multiplayer battles should be more than enough to keep a lot of trigger-happy gamers battling on the frontlines.

PROS: The biggest shooter on Xbox 360 to date; weapon loadouts and role system kick ass.
CONS: There's only one game mode, only 8 maps, and it's not really an open-world, non-linear shooter as advertised.

The battlefield can be a hectic place, especially when you're sharing it with forty-nine other people

The remote control UAV is an interesting weapon that packs a surprisingly powerful punch

Vehicles can let you cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time; this is a real time saver on the bigger maps

The weapons and class system are well developed

• Print
• Email this!
• Share
  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz!
  • FaceBook
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us