Frontlines: Fuel of War - hands-on

Dec 10, 2007

20 years in the future there will be a global energy crisis that will result in hundreds of thousands of deaths, a possible WWIII and some sweet multiplayer matches with dedicated servers available for games with more than 16 players (up to a max of 32). At least, that's how it will be if Frontlines: Fuel of War is in any way an accurate prediction of the future. It's just a videogame, of course, but what's scary is that under the flashy respawning facade of the game is a well researched story set in the near future, where plausibility is a serious consideration.

The story is told through two graphic novel style narrations and cutscenes that play throughout the game. They're almost always at the beginning or end of an objective because the game doesn't know where you're going to go for the time in-between. It's not entirely open-ended gameplay because there are certainly objectives to be captured, artillery to explode and, of course, frontlines that need to be moved forward. The maps are large enough that you can huff it, ride or fly just about anywhere you want and tackle the objectives in whatever order you decide to. At the same time, they're small enough that you won't get lost or lose a sense of direction. You'll usually have between 2 and 10 objectives and - at least for the four long levels we played -the system allowed us to make tactical decisions without forcing us to make the correct ones.