Frontlines: Fuel of War almost predicted everything perfectly. It begins with exposition; and a slow decline. The search (and ever decreasing supplies of oil) leads to a slow slip in the quality of life of the world; until finally, it reaches a tipping point, and there's full blown war in the West, and the East, in the fallout of an Avian Influenza pandemic.
This has a few analogues to our current day planet Earth, but isn't exactly the same. What makes it interesting is the fact that this game was released in 2008, and has the following statement in its synopsis:
In a world ravaged by a global energy crisis, environmental decay, and economic depression, players assume the role of an elite soldier in the Western Coalition Army on an epic crusade against the Red Star Alliance to control the last of the world's oil reserves.
What follows in terms of gameplay is a single player game, with a story; but with levels that are clearly designed to be a tug of war between two opposing factions. This makes it easy to see that this took multiplayer game mechanics of things like Battlefield; Medal of Honour, Day of Defeat, et al; and combined them together in an extremely clever way.
Objectives in the missions can be completed in a non-linear fashion, which gives you interesting strategic options, but for the most part; you just shoot everything that moves that isn't friendly.
Gunplay is pretty fun; but the audio doesn't really connect with the lethality of the arms you're able to use. It feels as though your shots may just bounce off opponents; when they should be lethal, but eventually; they go down all the same.
There's a story woven together between missions via cut scenes, but outside of this, there's not a lot to do. I imagine that this would have been an absolute blast in multiplayer; but it appears that this functionality may no longer work.
The technology stack that the game is build open includes Punkbuster and Phys-X (remember those physics accelerator cards, before nvidia quickly purchased the company, Agea?) - in order to get Frontlines to run; you have to install some Legacy Phys-x drivers; and I'm not sure why; as there isn't a great deal of physics present in the game.
There's some destruction of buildings; but nothing as notable as Red Faction; which did just fine without the need for licenced middleware.
Overall; this game is a bit of a hoot; but largely pointless. FPS is a genre that does not age well; and this game certainly hasn't. The cut scenes are pre-rendered, and look worse than gameplay sequences; which is problematic. Did I also mention that the game has a colour palette that is totally brown?
Could be a fun game if you're nostalgic for Battlefield style gameplay, and don't want to deal with other humans. Competently executed, but surely there's better stuff out nowadays.
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