Frontlines: Fuel of War is one of the most addicting games that I have played in some time. The last several nights of my life have been spent playing "just one more round" of this killer Kaos/THQ title.
First, the bad stuff though. The matchmaking has a few issues, that prevent you from joining the Official Multiplayer servers, which by the way, can accomodate up to 50 players on XBL. Ya. 50.
The array of vehicles and weaponry, expansive maps, and truly vertical freedom combine to make this a must-own for fans of vehicle-centric shooters. It's Battlefield 2 taken to a whole new level. Balanced, diverse, and just plain fun.
You give up some graphics for some of these perks, but in the midst of all of the action, you won't notice.
The single player campaign is a little on the short side, but forgiveable since you can easily tell that Frontlines is a game meant to played online.
Rather than restrict players to the tight corridors and assigned lines through a particular level, the player is shown a huge battle map and is given full discretion where they would like to go and when. You play the single player the way YOU want to play it.
The weapons in this game surprised me. They have a really nice feel when combined with the 360's rumble. It really seems like they spent extra time making sure that the rumble matched up perfectly to the game, and it shows.
The sound in the game is extremely accurate. When I say accurate, I mean that on more than one occasion I have used the surround sound in my living room to make a kill online, despite smoke screens and explosions. I literally listened my way to a kill. Now that's what I call a good shot.
Each class of player in Frontlines, be it a sniper, heavy assault, specOps, whatever, also gets to deck out their player in any of 5 different SPECIALTIES. You can be a sniper who is also an engineer. A SpecOps guy who plays with R/C drones. There are dozens of combinations which basically yield more than 40 different types of loadouts that you can try.
Flight in the game, particularly in the Helos, rivals anything I have seen thus far for the 360. Without being over-the-top complicated, the machines feel and behave quite intuitively.
I love this game.
