Fuel
Description
Fuel is a sports game developed by Asobo Studios and published by Codemasters (Colin McRae: DiRT and Race Driver: GRID). It was released on 2 June 2009. It is a multi-terrain racing game featuring big racing environments. The game is built on Asobo Studios’ proprietary engine, A.C.E. (Asobo Conception Engine), Fuel’s playfield stretches over 5,000 square miles of America’s landscapes, delivering competitive go-anywhere racing experience. Players compete across different terrains, from deep snow to forests and deserts, executing stunts as they race and explore. Whether off-road, with an ATV or personal watercraft, the objective of the game is to make it the finish line first. The game features ten characters from around the world and 35 vehicles to choose from. The game has an ESRB: E (Everyone) rating for comic mischief.
Review
FUEL features on and off-road racing two and four-wheeled vehicles in landscapes across America. With over 5,000 square miles of wildly different terrain, players race an array of vehicles and battle elements to pull off stunts. The game spans a draw distance of 40 km, and provides players with a game world to explore in free-roam as well as a environment for Fuel’s race events. The game is set in an environmentally damaged fictional future, complete with full day / night cycle and real-time weather that include rainstorms, lightening strikes, and tornados. The game allows players to race a range of vehicles, as they speed across diverse terrain and create their own routes on the go to take the chequered flag. Either speeding on asphalt by roadsters, steam-rolling monster trucks through forest or scrambling down mountainsides on dirt-bikes, gamers take on short-cuts, death-defying jumps and clatter through cross-over points in FUEL’s go-anywhere at anytime world. The game also features more than 5,000 square miles of America’s landscape, from the Utah salt-plains, to the Grand Canyon and snow-capped Mount Rainier, which are all modeled from satellite data and rendered by the A.C.E. game engine. Players explore and race around the remains of devastated towns, cities and villages and the on-going effects of accelerated global warming – from sandstorms, blizzards and brush fires to tsunamis and tornados. The game also features an online multiplayer mode with preset challenges and locations where players can explore and race together. FUEL allows gamers to create their own races with the route editor and share them with friends online.
Fuel is an expansive racing game that aims to be ambitious, and it is that vast expanse that also works to its disadvantage. While it provides a vast array of challenges and career races, a huge environment for gamers to run through and does provide some satisfying races, it is an open world game that gives gamers too little to do and does come in times lacking thrills to keep it engaging. It also does not help that the AI on the game seem to either be too complacent that you are almost running a perfect game, which basically eliminates that sense of urgency and accomplishment with a well challenged race. At times too the AI seem to ‘cheat’. You would think that you are delivering a perfect race, yet still manage to lose. This come in part because the AI expects perfection at a few check point and timed challenges, which basically punishes the player for being anything less than that. The requirement to ALWAYS finish first can be frustrating, and slows down progression.
The 5,000 square miles game world is a lonely place to roam in offline mode, so you’re more often to find it more engaging when roaming online in multiplayer mode, where you may encounter other players who are also wandering about in the game world. While it can prove to be just a tad bit more enjoyable to group up with friends or strangers-yet-to-be-friends and hunt for AI drivers, the enjoyment pretty much ends it there. There just simply isn’t much to do. Trying to find consolation in its driving model hasn’t helped either. You may be zipping in at 90 miles an hour but from the way the AI vehicles bounce and drift around, you just don’t feel like you’re going that fast at all. Perhaps you can say that one of the saving graces on Fuel is the weather effects. It is the environmental effect that makes certain races enjoyable. The landscape is also great to look at and at some points impressive. Not much can be said about the vehicle model though, nor the progression from day to night. For a game that aims to give authenticity to its environment, Fuel runs short on some aspect while excelling at others. If you’re just interested in racing and nothing more than to drive around, you may want to pick this game up. But if you’re in for some excitement, you may want to give this a pass and check out other options available.
