Frontlines: Fuel of War

 

 

Frontlines Fuel of War looked like a typical run of the mill mid 2008s fps campaign game, and since i always find those fun to blast through in a day or two I picked this up for like $5

The premise and story is simple. Its just a war over oil and resources. Americans and russians one reason or another fighting for territory and resources. It's all extremely cliche formula, the characters esepcially are the most cookie cutter dudebro military guys imaginable.

Theres really not much to say about Frontlines. It plops you into some battlefield, and the first impression isn't amazing. The graphics are not good, even for the standards of 2008. I've seen games from 2003 look more visually impressive with better shadows, shaders, and color pallettes than this game. It's not much to look at.  So you are dropped into these missions where you just look around and follow the objective markers in a big Battlefield (game series) open map type level. Usually you have multiple objectives to complete, and you can do them in any order you want. Most of the objectives in the game comprise of "Go to this area and stand in this spot and capture the area"   or  "Blow this up"  or "Defend this area"   thats basically really all there is for objectives. Every level looks the same, I cant really remember or tell them apart. One level is at night time with a sniper that was kind of fun. Another level starts you off in a helicoptor, but the controls were so abysmal i crashed the heli then just ignored using it and continued on as usual. So there is a degree of freedom in how to approach the missions atleast.

The shooting mechanics really arent that great either. The default assault rifle is downright terrible and next to useless. The accuracy system works in a way that you have to stand still for a moment then wait for the crosshair to get tightened up so youre more accurate, so it does attempt to have some nuanced gun mechanics and accuracy system. Its just not that fun to use and just way too generic. And  the guns themselves kind of suck and arent satisfying. There game handles death and loadouts strangely. When you die, it will say "Deployments remaining" so it basically has a lives system, and you just respawn somewhere - never actually losing any progress its like you respawn in a multiplayer match. I've never actually ran out of lives and 'game'd over' so i dont know what happens there. But even weirder, is the game actually does have a Loadout system, where you can change what weapon you get - BUT only after you've died. It doesnt ask you what loadout you want at the start of a mission, and you can only check to see what guns you can get after you die , as each mission has different avalible loadouts.

I mostly used the sniper/shotgun the whole game, the shotgun is actually kind of satisfying as it has a chunky sound effect and the enemies ragdoll away dramatically. There are frequent times where you have to blow up tanks or helicoptors so it becomes nessesary to either pickup a rocket launcher, or spawn with one by first dying and choosing the anti-tank loadout.

Theres also quite a bit of driving and vehicles in this game, if you choose to. One mission is entirely dedicated to tanks, but other than that it is like a multiplayer match of Battlefield where you can just run around this big map and enter vehicles if you want. Mostly just tanks. But the tank controls and especially the enemy tank AI is kind of annoying where the enemy tanks will be able to aim at you inhumanly fast and you just end up exchanging rockets and it kind of sucks.

Theres always some random squad NPC's following you around. But they dont really follow you around, its more like they just randomly spawn next to you sometimes. They can be a good distraction and bullet sponge thankfully. The game tries to put a lot of emphesis on drones and gadgets as I guess some way to prove to the audience that they have some gimmick about the game and its doing something different? But I never really cared, its just a dumb novelty that is just really like another rocket launcher in disguise to blow up tanks.

The enemy AI is really stupid and unchallenging and not very fun, you can just sprint past them and take cover slightly ahead of them and they will rarely not even chase after you or flank you or anything, this is another game with the example of enemies that arent actual threats, but more like minor annoyances like mosquitos or something.

It has a regenerating health system and playing games like this in 2022 really is just showing the triviality of such a system. You take damage and you just find some object that exploits the enemy AI long enough until you can regain health, then you just sprint past all the enemies and onto the next objective.
Infact the enemies in this game arent so much challenging threats, its more like that typical badly designed game thing where you can really just sprint past all the enemies and go straight for the objective, which is what I did for most of the game.

Not sure what else to say except its REALLY short. Howlongtobeat.com said it was 5-6 hours long, well I beat it in 2 sessions at a total of 3 hours!  since its so short it wasnt like an awful or boring experience or anything, but the gameplay just really is not a great example of an amazing fps campaign or anything. And because of the poor graphics, medicore weapons, and forgettable levels its a very average/medicore game. The ending was really underwhelming you just defend some square for a minute then it rolls end credits, its funny how they try to imply that "its not over yet" as if there will be a sequel, like they really expected people to be clamouring for a sequel to this thing. Still an alright action game to mindlessly play over the weekend though.

5/10