“Frontlines: Fuel of War” Verdict
March 19, 2008 12:02 am Games for Fun, GamingOkay, so the game wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t awesome either.
Really, the best part for me was one mission where you start with a Barret, and later gain access to the various remote control death toys. The level ends with a defend sequence that went too long, but you also get to set up some rail guns which are pretty meaty. One problem though, is that there are some wacky sequences, like where the enemy uses nukes in your immediate vicinity (it’s okay, they’re tactical) and because you’re in a tank, it’s all gravy. However, you can’t get out because you’ll die of radiation! I hope those tanks you’re in are lined with 10 feet of lead. But later, you can get out once you’ve gotten closer to where the nukes went off. Maybe the nukes wore off? That’s some halflife on those radioactive isotopes.
One of the later (maybe the last?) levels has an equally silly sequence where you’re rolling into a destroyed Russian city and there’s like 50 nukes going off all around you. I guess in the future, we make nukes less radioactive, or something. No one really seems freaked out or cares, but I don’t think the game takes itself that seriously anyway.
So, single player was okay. Crazy ragdoll, contrived situations, 50 bullets to damage a guy, but cool toys.
Multiplayer was decent, but in general I’m not a big fan of vehicles in multiplayer. I think they have their places in some games (even this one), but I generally don’t like to use them or have to fight them. Luckily, once you get the hang of the remote control choppers and whatnot, things get way more fun. It’s shit loads of fun to get a rocket chopper up on a rooftop, pummel snipers, and watch them freak out and jump to their death to escape. I haven’t laughed that much during an MP game in a long time.
One complaint I have, just in general with multiplayer games, is when they make it difficult to play with friends. Frontlines is about as old-school as it gets when it comes to group play. To play with your friends, you have to be invited or join their game, which is all good. However, theres no lobby system like Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4, so you end up joining their match. However, you might be on the wrong team so now you have to wait to switch. It’s a huge pain in the ass. I want to just join with my friends and never be separated unless we all go together. It’s a must have feature for any MP game as far as I’m concerned.
Okay, then there’s server browsers. Those are pretty much dead these days, and playlists rule. Once again, the top MP games these days have them and so should you. It’s worse when you join a server through the browser and you get some cryptic error message about the host no longer being active or some shit, which could mean 15 different things (server is full, server is down, blockage in your firewall, etc). So, I was put off playing MP on multiple occasions because I couldn’t join my friends, and when I did, I would end up on the wrong team.
Overall, the game has some decent qualities and some fun features, but there’s a lot of nice features I’m used to now that exist in other games which this one is missing. Frontlines just feels sort of generic which makes the game feel dated already.