Ok so I am a little late with this game. I realize it’s been out a couple of months, but I am poor. I have like no money so getting games is tough. Anyway I finally got a chance to play this game and I have to say it surprised me. I saw this game first about a year or so ago in a Game Informer. And I was very interested. But because of GTA4 and my overwhelming love for Call of Duty this kind of fell of my radar.

Frontlines: Fuel of War is a first person shooter set in 2024. You have tons of vehicles and weapons to use. The basic gist of the game is that there is this war over a shortage of fuel. Which I think we can all agree isn’t to far off from happening in the real world. Anyway, so you are the member or members, I couldn’t tell which, of a top notch military squadron for the Western Coalition. The Western Coalition is a military alliance of the US and the European Union. The Coalition was created to combat the Red Star Alliance formed by Russia and China. Moving on, the last oil fields are running dry and the two conglomerates (WC & RSA) are trying to capture this remaining oil. Now the single player isn’t all that great. But the story line and voice acting is pretty good. It’s just that the objectives get a little repetitive. But they did a good job with the basic premises of the game and the artwork is nice.

There are 6 different 'Unit Classes’; these are basically your weapon sets. They are Sniper, Anti-Vehicle, Assault, Heavy Assault, Special Ops, and Close Combat. I think you can get what these classes consist of. More importantly are the ‘Roles’; these are basically your special abilities. There is Ground Support, which is technically an engineer. You can fix anything. Secondly theres EMP Tech, which allows you to avoid turrets and even lets you bring down choppers and stop tanks by disabling their electronics. Third, and my personal fave, is Drone Tech. With drone tech you have tiny choppers and little tanks that I think must shoot .50 cal bullets cause they literally mow people over. And lastly is Air Support, I think you know what that is.
Okay so how does the game play? Well pretty well. You find that the shooting is a little amateur, meaning that the gun doesn’t have any weight. You really can’t tell the difference between a sniper and a pistol. That raises another issue. The sniper is weak. You will find yourself just abandoning it all together, in single-player at least. There is one level where you’re given a shotgun and a sniper and you’re supposed to be stealthy. Well I gave that up once I realized that it took 4-5 shots in the head with a sniper to kill someone. And the shotty owns people from way far out. One thing id like to point out is how destructible the environment is in this game. You can blow up almost anything. I often found myself pitted against enemies who ran behind cover and I just blew it away with an RPG. Pretty sweet. Another thing that ought to raise your eyebrow is that occasionally you’ll have your reticule right on top of your enemy pull the trigger and you wont see that hes been shot. The indicator turns red when you hit someone. I mean this one time I had a guy right in front of me and I must have shot 5 or so assault bullets and I didn’t hit him!!! I was like what the motherFn WTFer!!!
That reminds me the AI can be retarded. Sometimes the opponent AI will just stroll right by you, I mean they are like a foot away from you. And other times they will whip out the tactical handbook and take you to school. The team AI isn’t great either. They really shouldn’t even give you a team. All they do I chase after you and occasionally yell stuff.
The graphics are good. They used the Unreal Engine for the game so they ought to be. But I feel that there are points where there’s not enough level design and they just left open spaces. But overall everything looks good.

The multiplayer is what most people got this game for. It’s very Battlefield-ish. Open environment, vast open environment and lots of stuff to do and blow up. With 32 players you can have a blast. But in smaller games like 12 and 16 on big maps you’ll sometimes get lost. Especially since on some maps vehicles are very spread out, so you might want to get out your walking boots. But the MP is great and their are a couple of very easy, high point achievements for the MP. One thing I thought id mention. When you start your search for a multiplayer game they have a thing that lets you choose your game type. But the only option in Frontlines... wtf?!?!? Why did they even put that there??? If you know please tell me.

So in conclusion Frontlines: Fuel of War is a fun game. But because of the ok single player you will find yourself mostly just going through the motions. I would rent this if you’re unsure about it. But if you love big MP matches and aren’t looking for much of a single player experience this might be the game for you.