|
Fuel
When
first hit with the press release regarding Codemasters take on an arcade
post apocalyptic cross vehicle rally game, it was easy to be sceptical.
It appears as though they are taking many popular games and trying to
jam them all into one disk. Now that we have our hands on said disk, we
can take a look and see just how they did.
As
before, Fuel is a off road racer, based in a fictional United States,
one where global warming effects have left enormous areas of the land
abandoned. From this has grown a racers playground, were people from all
over the country come to tear up some death defying environment on
various vehicles and in a series of different races.
The
key element to the game is it's open ended environment that has you
exploring over 5,000 square miles of terrain, from forests, desert, snow
and suburban areas, all littered with various jumps, obstacles and
scattered roads. From here you can drive around to various icons on your
GPS map, revealing new paint liveries, fresh races and some intense
challenges. With these races you will unlock stars depending on your
performance, when you get enough stars you can unlock 'camps', which are
basically a series of challenges that allow you to actually progress
through the game. Each challenge or race will have a certain type of
vehicle limitation, you may have to thrash a ATV, or bash in a Buggy, or
even rip around forest chaos in a mad max style sedan. Each vehicle has
its own style and will differ greatly on the lines and approaches you
can take around the runs.
The
open ended environment is a brilliant playground, with unlimited little
nooks and corners, containing any number of jumps or hidden tracks for
you to discover when not racing. The issue is that it's a little too
big, it's so big that due to the fact that the game has a day/night
cycle ala GTA, you can go for days and nights without running into a
challenge or race which takes a massive chunk out of the entertainment
value of the title due to roaming these environments somewhat aimlessly.
When
you do eventually come across a race though, the action is fairly
intense. Codemasters have used a very similar style to the already
immensely popular Motorstorm series, but they've given it a shot of red
bull. The racing is frantic and fast, with trees flying at you as you
bullet down a hill and dodge other racers, you really are on the edge of
your seat for the majority of the race. There is also quiet a selection
of game modes, from point to point racing to lapped, from helicopter
chases to seek'n'destroys. It's a good amount of variety without
stretching for ridiculous races for the sake of having them. The AI is
also a little on the week side in the early difficulty settings and you
can easily win races by minutes, it isn't until you get to the mid range
that the opposition racers begin to follow the correct track patterns
and are able to match your speed at all. If your game enough to go to
the harder settings than it's a great free for all battle that will
surely match your wit. Each of the difficulty settings will also change
the number of stars you collect per race win, so the lower you go, the
slower your career goes.
Starting out in the game is a touch on the disorientating side, as you
are thrown in the deep end of the game with onscreen hints that really
don't explain what each of the modes or even aims are. So diving right
in appears to be the best strategy, luckily the game has a short
learning curve. The control system is as is expected on rally games of
the PS3 console. With the analog stick taking up much of the slack and a
pretty standard movement system, you practically know all the controls
without even using the manual. As has already been covered, the
environments are something to behold and the graphics stand up to this
task, with beautiful weathering effects such as electrical and sand
storms, as well as the always entertaining screen mud splatters, both of
which contain some fairly epic sound detailing of sweeping winds and
toppling bass. Again, this isn't without it's flaw as there are a number
of very noticeable frame rate issues when tearing through some of the
larger environments in a full race scenario which continually lag and
pull the title down.
It was
a very ambitious step by Codemasters to take on this title, and there
are a massive list of pro's and con's for this title, on first play you
will be impressed and disappointed at the same time. It's not a game
that will make you fall in love with it straight away, but the more you
play it, the more you will enjoy it. Certainly not the most polished
racing game to hit the PS3, but it's certainly has some of the most fun
and exciting racing action, worth the purchase. |
