[PC] Frontlines

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Frontlines™: Fuel of War™

Kaos Studios/THQ, 2008

Single Player / Campaign.

I first want to start off by stating that I am no professional reviewer and thus I probably will suck at doing it. Now onto the game. I was not really expecting much out of this game since I didn't know anything about it. It came out and that was the first I heard of it. Yet people started talking about it here at Neowin and I said hey what the hell and I went and paid for it on Steam. Which at 12GB downloading off Steam it went pretty fast, I finished downloading it and had it running under 6 hours. The whole game was interesting and fun as hell. The graphics were really good, not COD4 level, but not that far off. Same with the game play. I actually found the game play of Frontlines to be more intense and got me more into the storyline and battlefield. I felt like holy crap I am in the middle of this crazy war.

Now I did find the Single Player to be quite short. There are only 8 or so levels, yet each one was intense and objective filled. You can pick the "hardness" of the game between Casual, Normal, and Hardcore, and Hardcore being the hardest setting of the game. I was playing the game on the easiest setting and I was still getting my butt kicked. Now that might be because I suck but who knows. It was hard at times but at the same time it was the good kind of hard, as in it is challenging you to be better. I really enjoyed learning how to beat each level, which didn't take long. The shooting system in this game is hard to get used to at first, but once you do its genius. I don't know how to explain it but it makes you really learn a skill of shooting. No one can really just go in there and be good, you have to really be good. You will see what I mean when you play the game.

I don't know what else to say about the game, I have already played though the game again at a harder level. The storyline is something different then what you get with COD4 or anything else I have seen lately. The story is based on a future dieing world where we are all fighting each other to survive and gain oil and supplies. It is simply amazing. Oh and I almost forgot about the music score. I don't know much about music and games, but I know when I notice good music and this game has it. That is all I have to say in terms of that.

Multiplayer

Now I have only played the multiplayer for a few hours but from experience from other games I really enjoy this one. I keep coming back to COD4 because well it has set a pretty high standard. I really enjoyed COD4 for obvious reasons, but I never really liked playing it on MP because I found it to extreme and hard to play. The people who do play online are to hard to play with, or the other way around. I don't know how to explain it but there was just something about COD4 MP that I didn't like. Now this game is the total opposite of that. There are so many different things that are going on in the game that its fun. You can be driving a tank, helicopter, running, playing with toys and tons of other things. There are tons of weapon options that you can choose from, when you pick what type of player you want to be. Including, Special Ops, Heavy Gunner, Sniper, and 3 or 4 others I believe. I will have to double check that.

I found it really fun and easy to get good at it. There are many ways to get a better score, and many ways to get beat. You have to worry about your team and you have to worry about yourself. I forgot to mention in the SP section how easy it is to find objectives. They are clearly mapped out on your HUD and it always shows you where to go. I wish I could give you more details about the multiplayer but I have not spent that much time in MP yet. When I do I will come back and update this section. All I know at the moment is that this MP is one of the best that I have played in awhile.

Verdict

Overall, Frontlines: Fuel of War is a very amazing experience on the PC (not sure if it's on anything else). The list of thumbs down is very low and the options you have to play in this game is great and will keep you coming back for more, at least I am.

Breakdown

Gameplay: 9/10

Controls: 10/10

Music: 8.5/10

Graphics: 8.5/10

Rating:

8.5/10

Edited March 2, 2008 by bman

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Great review. I may actually buy this game. I've tried the multiplayer beta which wasn't so good but the final version should be better. Thanks for the review! :)

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

No problem, I enjoyed everything about it so I thought hey I might as well try and write a review. Now it might be this good only to me, but I hope other people agree!

When you do get it, add me to Steam (bmangamer) and we will play some MP.

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

good review man, btw did you play the 2 bonus levels? sp-street & sp-village? (didn't realize there was another bonus level until I checked out the game on teamxbox and there in the cheats section was an extra level code!)

[mycoolkim]

sounds awesome, ill give it a shot

[raider360]

They are planning to release the demo? I've played the beta and actually don't like it. :unsure:

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

They are planning to release the demo? I've played the beta and actually don't like it. :unsure:

That is too bad that you didn't like it. I believe there might be a demo, not sure.

good review man, btw did you play the 2 bonus levels? sp-street & sp-village? (didn't realize there was another bonus level until I checked out the game on teamxbox and there in the cheats section was an extra level code!)

No I didn't know there were bonus levels? How do I get to them?

[Unimatrix Xero]

ohh bonus levels.. sweet bman i'll see you online soon :) catch me on WLM or on steam

[Emil Valsson]

Wish I could play it, tried to download it 3 times from Steam but it doesnt want to start up. :p

[Unimatrix Xero]

look on the steam forums there is a fault with steam even though it says its 100% complete its STILL downloading the movie files for the game, after its been downloaded, depending on your line speed, leave it an extra hour, (steam bandwith moniter doesnt even show activity)

but this is the only way to get the required files atm

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

I find it weird that you are having troubles, I had a clean quick connection the whole time i was downloading, as stated in the review I finished within 5 or so hours.

Hope it gets working for you.

[Kaos DComo]

All,

Thanks for enjoying the game! As a Neowin reader for a number of years, I was very pleased to see a post about Frontlines: Fuel of War on the site!

To answer the demo question, yes, a PC demo will be released. For those who played the beta, but did not purchase the final release yet, give the demo a try when it's released!

For the latest info on Frontlines, please keep an eye on our Community Forum: http://community.kaosstudios.com

Thanks!

Drew

Kaos Studios

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

No I didn't know there were bonus levels? How do I get to them?

click bonus content in the menu and either enter sp-street or sp-village to play the bonus levels. The only thing I find annoying is you have to enter the codes each time you wish to play them, they need to make a patch that keeps them unlocked.

[zeta_immersion]

do you actually need an sm3 vid card? .. because i got the x800xt and it does not run ...

[Kaos DComo]

do you actually need an sm3 vid card? .. because i got the x800xt and it does not run ...

Interesting as we have tested the X800 and X850 Radeon cards and found that the game runs. (However, you need to set it to low quality due to the age of these cards.)

I have an X800 sitting on my desk right now that just came out of a test PC.

[Unimatrix Xero]

WOW a Kaos dude on neowin

right i have a question about the game and tbh it completly annoyed me AFTER i had brought it, according to the steam page it states that VOIP is support, it doesnt say feature will be added later or anything like that, so i assumed and so did alot of people that VOIP is in the game..

Sadly i didnt know that it wasnt in the game untill i had brought it and i was looking for the sound setting for the heasdet. i personally think this is really bad advertising and you should contact valve to get them to alter their store page accordly

this wasnt typed in a angry mode LOL its just that i felt like i had been let down :(... when will you be adding VOIP into the game??

BMAN brilliant review!!

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Thanks for the comment.

Also, thanks for the bonus level details, going to play it now.

I just installed the openAL update and now FL won't open at all. I double click in Steam and it does nothing. I have restarted, nothing.

Ideas?

*EDIT

Found this on their forums.

Attention: All those who have digitally purchased this game and installed an incorrect patch need to re-install and download the correct patch.

Users of TryMedia and Steam - Please visit your vendor for the appropriate patch.

All other digital vendor's patches are now on the patch website and correctly labeled. There should be no further problems patching your versions of the game.

http://kaosstudios.com/ffow-patches/

PLEASE NOTE: Steam users that have tried to 'patch' their game to 1.0.1 will undoubtedly come across errors because of the unique way Steam patches games. To correct this, you will need to go to Frontlines in your 'My Games' folder on Steam: Right click / Properties ; Click the 'Local Files' tab then select 'Verify Integrity of game cache.' This will force steam to compare your Frontlines to the version that is on the Master Server, thus getting you back to 1.0.0. After that you will need to wait until steam gets the patch and can apply it for all steam users.

Didn't help me, but might help some.

Edited March 5, 2008 by bman

[gunnerhkjp]

I'm enjoying the single player part of the game so much that I haven't gotten around to playing multiplayer :D