FUEL quick Review (progress: 2nd base unlocked)
VEHICLES: 8/10 The handling is good, but the motorcycles are the most responsive. The emergency brake is effective and useful. When the stats show a vehicle is meant for offroad or asphalt, it's true. A road vehicle will struggle offroad, but as soon as it hits the road, acceleration kicks in as well as better handling. As you continue to unlock and buy more vehicles with Fuel points, you'll notice faster, better handling vehicles start showing up compared to the slow ones at the start. Overall, responsive controls, nice enough physics and plenty of interaction with the environment with varying terrain and jumps. You start the game with a free ride choice of a buggie or a dirtbike, and can quickly earn an ATV and car on the first zone. Finish the first zone, and 21 vehicles or so will be available to buy with your Fuel dollars, including Monster trucks, new motorcycles, buggies, ATV's and cars. Very nice.
GAMEPLAY: 7/10 For the fastest progress, use the MENU and win the 3 races on Rookie, then jump into the Challenges and complete them. Each time you win first, you get Fuel Credits (and Fuel dollars). The credits offer access to the next Shack Base on the giant map. Unlocking new rides is a highlight of the game.
RACES: 8/10 So far, they're the most enjoyable part of the game. The competition does seem to get a fast start, but you'll catch up fairly quickly, where after that, you can take the lead. Rookie mode is very forgiving, Expert is average difficulty and Pro is tough. The guide arrows are a big help. The biggest complaint? You can't pick your ride (so far anyway).
CHALLENGES: 7/10 Chase the Helicopter is fun, along with a few others, except for the Blitz/CHECKPOINT race, which for whatever reason, they barely give you enough time to work with on the clock. Took plenty of retries to win. No option to change difficulty in Challenges.
GAMEWORLD MAP: 9/10 Enormous. If you're just going to explore, it will take a long time as the reviewer said it would. You can go anywhere in the entire game right from the start in free ride, but you won't be able to unlock any checkpoints or rewards really until you win races and challenges.
You can pick a dirtbike or Dune Buggie from the start of the game and just explore. The terrain to cover gradually changes as you progress, offering new visuals from deserts, waterfronts, mountains, snow, thick forests, wastelands, winding roads, plains and more. The game is seriously massive in scale.
REWARDS: 9/10 Winning races/challenges and reaching new checkpoints in your local zone that you've already unlocked will earn you Fuel points which are needed to unlock new base/shack zones with new races and challenges, Fuel Dollars, to buy new rides that are unlocked by winning enough times, and gear for your rider. The rider gear and paint for your rides is a nice touch that could've been overlooked, but wasn't. It's not very in-depth in customization like Midnight Club, but it's welcome nonetheless. The new rides are affordable and a noticeable improvement on the first set of rides.
CAMERAS: 7/10 Three cameras to click through while riding, the default being the most advantageous during racing, since it gives you a better view of the action. But for exploration, the up close 2nd camera is very nice, really showcasing the detail of your rider and vehicle, bringing you closer to the action. The third view is first person, which is solid and looks even better when you see your vehicle shadow, giving you the sense you're almost in the vehicle, but really, this game should have also included an INTERIOR DASH VIEW, to really get the sense you're inside a vehicle instead of looking at a remote control toy. Overall, good camera views to experience the game world with.
OPTIONS: 4/10 There needs to be more options. You can't map the layout of your controls, there's no way to adjust the day/night cycle or set the time of day in free ride, but thankfully, you can adjust the sound, HUD displays, and a few other minor options for the game.
DAY/NIGHT CYCLE: 5/10 Count 12 minutes of daytime, then realize the entire world takes well over 3 hours or so just to reach the other end. That means every 12 minutes you're riding in moonlight darkness, missing all the scenery during exploration. During races, it's automatically set, which is fine. There seriously needs to be a way to set Constant DAY TIME, Constant Night time, or DUSK/DAWN at the very least to really enjoy what scenery this game is offering. At night, all the details are neglected but for your headlight view.
MULTIPLAYER ONLINE: Unfortunately, I haven't played it online yet, but hear it's good.
GRAPHICS: 7/10 The first time I plugged the game in, the gritty look to the graphics, which appear a bit sharp with very high contrast, didn't appeal to me right away. Night time reminded me of a PS2 game at times, a bit oversaturated and flat looking, but the daytime graphics, once you get used to the high sharpness level, are pretty good for such a giant game world. Just don't expect the detail and realism of DIRT or GRID, which are really refined graphically. Good graphics during the daytime overall. The vehicles look nice, with mud building up if you hit the wet dirt. Characters really can be seen best when riding the motorcycle.
SOUND: 7/10 The vehicles each have a unique engine sound, but once you hit top speed, the constant tone seems a bit dull after awhile. Overall though, the engines sound realistic. Some wind can be heard, with crickets at night. Impacting the ground uses the same thud each time it seems, but I still have much more to discover.
OVERALL: 8/10 The racing isn't revolutionary, but it's fun in an ATV OFFROAD FURY kind of way and is enjoyable. The scale of the map world delivers and offers plenty of variety if you have the patience to explore it, but I suggest playing the races first to see what the game can offer in terms of gameplay and fun. I still have to find a city to explore, as the game is enormous. It was a bit dull before starting the races, but now that I'm finally making progress unlocking new rides, outfits and reaching new checkpoints to new races, the game is fun. Give it enough play time to unlock new rides and you may enjoy it despite the harsh reviews.
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From what was portrayed in the cinimatic teasers for fuel, was deception of what the game really possesses. Though the size of the play area is one for video game record books, it doesn't have the capability to carry this lackluster of a game. In my perspective, codemasters devoted entirely too much time in the shaping and molding the map, and not nearly as much time on the cars and sounds. There'S absolutely no phyics in driveabilty whats-so-ever. This is a dissapointment in following a great game like Grid. This make believe enviroment might have actually felt somewhat real, if the cars, buggy's, trucks, and bikes actually drove with just a little bit realism. I'm not asking for a complete simulation, but couldn't you have given codemaster fans something similar to grid?
Which brings me to my next point. The sounds on this game are so horrible that it will seriously remind you of a PS2 video game sound. There are no distintive sounds, and you will most definitely hear the same exact sound everytime your bike or car cathces some air. I was hoping the muscle cars would at least sound like "a muscle car", nope I was wrong and very let down. It's funny how ever single ride makes the same ticking sound when revving your engine. Also, all the rides just seem slow, it says your hitting a 100, but it feels like 40 miles per hour.
The weather was somewhat satisfying, I can't really complain about the day and night cycle with weather changes. But as it was shown in the trailer... I have yet to see a tornado swarn down on side of the road in the middle of a race. I have yet to see any explosions from cars flippig and blowing up. Also it seems to rain more than anything in this game, I was showing my girlfriend the free roam, and she tells me I hate who ever thought about the amount of rain that falls.
I was very impressed with the size of the map, the different roads, change of scenery, and most imporatantly... no loading times in-between areas. But again this pro can not make this a great game, I might have actually enjoyed my road trip from one end of the map to the other if I had a car that was believeable. I stress how unimpressed I was with the controls and handling of the cars, you would expect codemasters to take it to the next level after giving us grid, but now they decide to pull their punches on this one.
This game is definitely a renter and not a purchase for full retail price. No way, you will become very bored of not being able to crash, drive with a cockpit view inside the car, or run away from a chaotic tornado. I advise you rent first if you are still undecided, better to spend 8 bucks then 60 and be stuck with it.
Best Deals for Fuel - Xbox 360
I received this game several weeks back from a friend of mine who didn't want it -he hadn't even unwrapped the box due to his total disdain for any kind of game that doesn't allow the player to kill others.
So I took it off his hands and gave it a whirl. I had absolutely no idea how good or bad the game was, so I was as open to it as a very liberal teenaged political activist of some sort. Immediately I noticed early on the complete lack of any story per se. All you know is that global warming has somehow totally destroyed society, and has scorched the earth. Leaving the planet in a state of chaos with constantly shifting weather patterns, dried lake beds, and cities that have been nearly totally destroyed by the sheer awfulness of Al Gore's prophecies. Luckily for the off-road crowd, it left the planets supply of all-terrain vehicles intact, so let's go racing!
You begin the game with no money and only a small handful of slow, poorly-controllable vehicles. I noticed in my very first race how utterly bland the racing is. There are no turbo boosts, no powerups, nothing to modify or change the racing scheme. You glide to the end of the race with very little, if anything at all except trees and other trees to get in the way. And as the game went on, and I amassed more money, cars, and territory to race in, nothing really changed to any discernible degree. Sure, the vehicles I had were a wee bit faster, but they all retained the slimy controls. This game sits in this extremely awkward and weird gray area in between smooth arcade racing and complex racing sim, but it fits to neither very well and only feels slimy and unnatural to drive; like some mischeivious chef smeared cooking oil over everyones cars while they tasted his cupcakes.
Something I soon became aware of is the way the game works the crashes. When you crash, and you will crash plenty of times, the game immediately goes to a loading screen to re-process your car back onto the road. However, the manner in which they determine a crash is entirely inconsistent. You will slam into a redwood tree at 95 miles an hour with no ill effects (on a motorcycle, no less), but if you bump over a small rock, at speeds slow enough to count the trees, you crash. It got to the point that I avoided ramps, jumps, or major inclines of any kind, for fear of the game arbitrarily crashing my vehicle despite a perfect landing. And, just to really get under your skin like a tenacious insect, they often re-spawn you facing a wall, a sheer cliff, or the wrong direction entirely, forcing you to slowly back up and realign your car to the race. And with the way the AI behaves, you probably won't lose anyway.
You see, this game doesn't use rubberband AI where the other cars all stay pace with you to give you direct competition no matter how you drive, instead, every other vehicle blasts off at the races beginning at a thousand miles an hour. However, they all hit the brakes towards each races end to allow you to essentially take the game. I almost got the suspicion every other AI car had betted on me to win so they threw the game. This happens EVERY single race, and it gets to the point of utter absurdity. The only thing that ever changes is the occasional race where one car behaves absolutely perfectly to the end without missing a turn or jump. Of course this really got to me, as it felt like the game was just f***ing with me or something.
One of the selling points I noticed with this game is the fact that there is something like 5500 square miles of gameworld to explore. And believe me, that is a lot of open space. There is an achievement for driving from the Northwest corner to the southeast I attempted this only to give up after an hour and a half left me less then halfway there. And honestly, the only difference in the terrain is going from grassy mountaintops to snowy mountaintops to sandy mountaintops. It's basically just 5000 square miles of palette-swapped hills. So all it really comes down to is that there really is nothing to explore here. It's an empty world with nothing in it except the occasional paint scheme to find, something which you really shouldn't give two sh**s about. Do you really want to slowly chug your way up some random mountain, just so you can unlock a paint scematic for a single car you may not even have yet? I started to wonder if anyone on the development team brought forth their thoughts on the worlds complete emptiness or if they simply passed time until their checks came in the mail.
I give this game two lonely stars for it's bland, uneventful, hard-to-grip racing. it feels like no one really gave much on the actual racing mechanic of this game. However, I will give this game three stars overall, as I still play it despite all of it's (major) flaws. Maybe that is because it's the only racing game I have, and motorstorm is a PS3 exclusive.
So in leiu of nothing better, this game just barely holds down the fort. However, if you had to choose between an old hotwheel your sisters toddler just put in his mouth, or the car your wife has to get yourself to work, which one are you going to decide on?
This is a pass. Wait and see if these halfwits can come up with anything better.
Honest reviews on Fuel - Xbox 360
As soon as I read in Game Informer that this game was offering a map literally the size of the state of Connecticut, I had to buy it. I got it when it was first released, and played it off and on when I was bored with the MMO my wife and I usually play. Because I only played it for an hour or two here and there, I never progressed far.
Recently, we've been staying away from our old MMO in anticipation of Rift, so I have a lot more time to play console games. Let me tell you, I've been playing Fuel more than just about anything else -which is saying something given that we have about 25 titles to pick from on disc and then another 40 or so downloads between our 360 and PS3.
The game really is just HUGE. And while it's true that there are only so many different kinds of terrain, they have done a great job of mixing them up so that the scenery changes often while you're cruising along. There is a Free Ride mode, where you can just go exploring for barrels of "Fuel" which are scattered all over the map. Hitting a single barrel gives you 100 units of Fuel, while hitting a pyramid of four barrels gives you 400. This "Fuel" currency is what you must use to buy better vehicles as you progress through the game. In addition, Free Ride mode is where you get to tag various vehicle wrecks, or "liveries," which award you with new paint jobs for your vehicles, as well as "Vista Points," which are often truly beautiful views from the top of a cliff or some such, which award you new clothing and tattoos.
The game map is divided into a number of zones, which are unlocked as you earn Stars by completing races in Career Mode. In addition to the Career Mode races, there are also ten Challenges in each zone. In the Career races, you can pick from any of your owned vehicles in a given class to compete with. Often, but not always, you can go back using a more powerful vehicle that you earn later on to help you complete the harder levels of Career races. I say not always because some courses are so jam packed with tight corners that you are actually better off with a somewhat slower vehicle that is easier to control. Every Career event has three levels of difficulty, and some zones have six Career events. Every time you beat a new Career race on any level of difficulty, you are given an award of either a Doppler Truck or a "Maverick" which will appear on the map in the zone you're in, and which will travel along a random course. In the Free Ride mode, you can go around and "tag" each of these Dopplers and "Mavericks." Each Doppler will unlock one of three things: Either all of the liveries, all of the vistas, or all of the Challenges in the zone. Each "Maverick" gives you a new vehicle to use.
The Challenge races are set up such that you can only use the vehicle which is designated for that particular Challenge, even if you have much better vehicles in that class. The reward for each challenge is a certain number of Fuel units. Each zone gives you three Challenges initially, and the other seven can be unlocked by tagging the Challenge Doppler for that zone, as explained in the preceding paragraph.
So, given that you will be competing in all sorts of races, then cruising around the map unlocking other events, vehicles and decorations, there is truly an AMAZING amount of content here. If you are the type who just wants to go from event to event in a predetermined fashion, and aren't much into the exploration aspect of the game, then this might not be for you. Some of the longer races are well over 20 miles and are often offroad, so if you blow a lead late in one of these events you will have to be patient enough to start over as many times as necessary to get it right.
This brings me to the computer AI. For the most part, the AI is pretty even and fair. However, there are times, especially in longer races, when the computer opponents at the front of the pack will get a significant lead (usually about 300 meters or so), and then suddenly they become completely un-catchable. You could be rocketing at top speed through a downhill straightaway, but the computer car in first place will continue to widen its lead. Likewise when you are able to gain a large lead over the computer opponents. Once you're about 300 meters ahead in one of the long races, there is almost no way you can lose, even if you accidentally total your vehicle by sliding off the road or hitting a tree. Fortunately, these problems only rear their heads once in a while.
Another thing about the game is that the difficulty of the events doesn't necessarily ramp up in a straight line at all times. Some of the races are so easy that you'll easily beat them on your first try, while others require precision navigation through heavily wooded offroad areas or are circuit races on courses with multiple tight corners, and you may find yourself having to attempt these events 20, 30 or even more times to finally get them right. And some of these events could be challenges or career races in the highest difficulty right at the start of the game. The best thing to do in that case is just get enough career stars to unlock some more zones, get some new vehicles and do some Free Ride mode exploration, and come back to the really hard events later.
All-in-all, you can't go wrong with this game if you like a title which offers a lot of variety. Codemasters went out of their way to pack a lot of content into this package, and while it's certainly not perfect, it really is a lot of fun, and you may find as I do that there is a big feeling of accomplishment to be had when you finally complete some of the harder events.
Now that this game is down to a cutout price, it's very much worth looking into for something to pass a lot of time with.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Fuel - Xbox 360
I have a long and fun history with Codemasters published racing/driving titles starting back many years ago when Codemasters titles were NOT available in the USA and had to be ordered from European importers.
One of my first and still favorite Codemasters games was "Insane Racing" which FUEL appears to be the spiritual sequel to. "Insane Racing" was open world like FUEL, but was fun and accessible.
The first thing I noticed was just how awful the graphic are in FUEL. They are so bad that at night or at dusk/sunrise, you can't see well enough to drive and avoid obstacles. I kept ending up in the ocean.
Another thing that I found was that the handling of the vehicles was a joke... I wasn't expecting something approaching simlike, but these vehicles aren't even fun to drive.
I think the designers sacrificed a lot of quality just to have a large racing area. What good is a large racing area if the actual racing in any of it isn't fun or enjoyable?Sorry, but this one is pure rubbish. Avoid like the plague.
