Frontlines fuels of war -single player review

With the upcoming Homecoming looking so promising, I thought I would check out Koas studios previous effort in Frontlines: fuels of war. The mid 70's is a great time period to be in but sadly, not a desirable metascore. However, the trailers looked great, especially the vehicle combat. Since it was somehow sitting in my steam, I went to justify it myself.

The game is set in 2024, the world has run out of oil and the US is fighting in the caspian see against the O-so-evil Red Star Alliance (that's China AND Russia) over that last drops of black gold. The intro does a good job at painting the setting through a montage of images of the past events (which happen in the future?) with solid narration on top. The opening cut scene is the one from every modern shooter ever, the one where you in the helicopter. and there are doods. and you get shot down. But before that all, something odd happens. There is a member of the press on board (known affectionately as Princeton). A lovable looking guy, cracking wise to the arrogant macho-marine in a very protagonist kind of way. After the chopper goes down, I expected to be transported into the body of the reported, and have a marine lob an assault rifle at me and say in a black man's voice "follow me" and run off into combat. So it was a shock to me when 'Princeton' helped me up, only to be grabbed by a bad guy. "well," I thought."all that character development wasn't actually for me."

Now to the important part of the game, the game. "lags like a bitch's dell"" is the term that came to mind. I don't have dated hardware by any means, but I had to set this to the very low to stop the jerking, which wasn't consistent anyway, so its just bad code. Not surprising given its another crappy port.It actually looks alright, but I credit this to the excellent Unreal engine rather than the developers. Is it too much to ask for as a PC gamer, for a game to be made for PC? Apparently so.

The actual combat is much similar to that of C&C 4, in the sense that nothing ever dies, and has piss weak firepower. It seems that this great famine has made everyone tougher, and more bullet resistant. Enemies take forever to kill, mainly due to you incredabad rifle. What a piece of shit. It has permi-spray, which means that the direction in which you aim, and the direction in which the bullet travels are mutually exclusive. The first shot isn't even accurate, and the cone of fire is wide, when scoped you seem to lose sight of them.

vehicle combat was a little more tolerable, but I kept getting stuck on rocks, in my jeep....Why is everything so shit in the future? Now remember that openning scene from CoD, where you and you buddies scramble through immense gun fire, guys getting picked off? That was true FPS immersion, I felt afraid for my virtual life, and it is one of my fondest gaming memories. Now take that, and raise it to the power of -1. And that's F:FoW. I had absolutely no ranged stopping power, so I simply ran at the guy with the MG, assuming I would die so I could rage quit this abysmal experience. But no. I lived, pwnt the poor man and instantly regenerated all my health. Battlefield FPSs have been around for ages, so to be good, you have o bring something knew to the proverbial table, or at least use what has been already established as good. This game does neither.

There are some good elements of combat, driving/flying the drones around is good fun, and the only real futuristic element of this game. The environments, although average looking, help build a sense of setting and purpose in you mission objectives. Apart from this, nothing else really stands out as tolerable, and in defense of this game, its really a class based multiplayer shooter. But its not all bad news, I gave this one a whirl to see what the folks at Kaos studios could do. They proved they can put together a decent story, and design a decent setting. I think this game was decent to begin with, and was ruined by some bad design choices. Kaos admit they have learned from the whole 'port' stuff that so frequently ties my testes, and my faith in Homefront remains at a reasonable strength. Should be one to watch out for.