Frontlines Fuel Of War Beta - By aussierockr
As someone who as been highly anticipating the release of Frontlines: Fuel Of War for almost a year now, I was one of the first in line to snatch up the Beta key and get my copy.
The reason for my angst for this game? There has been no game similar to Battlefield 2 that has managed to hold my attention. Battlefield 2142 was a massive flop; exploit haven and easy rank-ups. Besides 2142, there has been little else in terms of large-scale FPS warfare games. Battlefield 2 set the standard for all games a few years ago; now someone else has to step up and do it. Call Of Duty 4, Crysis; games like this have tried, come close but in the end haven’t managed to set any new standards for gaming.
But Frontlines: Fuel Of War looks like it is going to change everything. Created by the original developers of Desert Combat; an amazingly popular mod for Battlefield 1942. The only way I could describe it is comparing Half-Life to Counter-Strike.
Frontlines delivers futuristic modern warfare through a scarily believable storyline. The game is set in 2024; the world is in an energy crisis. Natural Gas and Oil supplies are almost depleted, and two major alliances have formed; Western Coalition, consisting of the US and EU, and the Red Star Alliance, consisting of Russia and China. In an attempt to secure the remaining oil resources, a full scale war has broken out.
So, let’s get onto the game setup. It is very similar to the Battlefield setup; multiple control points, hold majority of control points to deplete reinforcement (respawn) tickets, first team to hold all flags wins, or team with 0 tickets loses. But Frontlines has a clincher, which fixes a majorly annoying problem with Battlefield 2. It uses a system whereby all the control points up to a certain area must be capped to move onto the next one, thereby creating the tactic of sneaking around the side of the map and capping the end bases pointless. This should not be considered a bad thing, as it removes the focus off of capping bases and turns it to fighting. We are talking about full-scale, head on battles.
When you join a server you are greeted with the loadout screen; choose your class and role. Now, unlike most games where you simply have a class (assault, heavy assault, sniper, anti-vehicle, special-ops, close combat), Frontlines incorporates a secondary choice; your role. There are four roles in the game (Ground Support, EMP Tech, Drone Tech, and Air Support). The roles provide you with 3 different upgrades per role. The upgrades are obtained by getting kills and over general time. The most popular two roles are Drone Tech and Air Support. Drone Tech allows you to unlock three small battle drones; you guide them with a remote camera and can attack enemies, as well as a very useful self-destruct function. These drones are more of an attractive feature rather than a useful one; although I am speaking from a standpoint of only playing the two available Beta maps. Air Support is very useful; it allows you to call in three different types of air strikes through designation via binoculars. In comparison, the other two roles are extremely weak and provide very little help to you.
Character movement has been improved upon; it is very similar to Call Of Duty 4, as it feels realistic and brings you more into the game. The game sounds are a big bonus; it is amazingly realistic and adds an intensity to the game never before experienced. A helicopter can drown out noise, but when it is destroyed, an eerie silence occurs which hits you hard. Then the sound of tanks are heard rumbling in the distance; you move quickly, following the sounds of sniper bullets in the distance. The game provides an adrenaline rush which, as a long time gamer, I never felt before.
The two maps released in the Beta are Oilfields and Street; two very different maps, attempting to showcase the diversity of the game. Oilfields is a large…uh…oilfield. Although not large enough for fighter jets (at least not in the Beta), helicoptors, tanks, APC’s and jeeps are all available. But the greatest showcasing available on this map; snipers. The sniper viewing distance is larger than I have ever seen. There are several groups of extremely tall towers; reaching higher than a lot of helicopter pilots go. Even at the very top of these towers, I can see most of the very large map. Granted sniping at such range is very difficult, but is doable. It also acts as a great air support position. The actual firing of the snipers is also more realistic; judging a shot of an enemy running is now much harder, albeit annoying.
Although there are a lot of upsides to this Beta, I feel that it will also have the same major problems that Battlefield 2 had; lack of modding support, terrible customer support, bugs not being fixed, etc. Although realizing it is a Beta, the game has some serious issues which, even after a recent patch, have still not been addressed. Quite frequently players can stand meters apart, shoot at each other, and not hit them. And the server browser has an absolute truckload of bugs. And finally, the Australian servers cause extreme latency to most users, causing all the Australian gamers to invade the Californian servers (although only one of them works!).
The gaming world has waiting several years for the next big thing; if the Beta is anything to go by; this is it.
The reason for my angst for this game? There has been no game similar to Battlefield 2 that has managed to hold my attention. Battlefield 2142 was a massive flop; exploit haven and easy rank-ups. Besides 2142, there has been little else in terms of large-scale FPS warfare games. Battlefield 2 set the standard for all games a few years ago; now someone else has to step up and do it. Call Of Duty 4, Crysis; games like this have tried, come close but in the end haven’t managed to set any new standards for gaming.
But Frontlines: Fuel Of War looks like it is going to change everything. Created by the original developers of Desert Combat; an amazingly popular mod for Battlefield 1942. The only way I could describe it is comparing Half-Life to Counter-Strike.
Frontlines delivers futuristic modern warfare through a scarily believable storyline. The game is set in 2024; the world is in an energy crisis. Natural Gas and Oil supplies are almost depleted, and two major alliances have formed; Western Coalition, consisting of the US and EU, and the Red Star Alliance, consisting of Russia and China. In an attempt to secure the remaining oil resources, a full scale war has broken out.
So, let’s get onto the game setup. It is very similar to the Battlefield setup; multiple control points, hold majority of control points to deplete reinforcement (respawn) tickets, first team to hold all flags wins, or team with 0 tickets loses. But Frontlines has a clincher, which fixes a majorly annoying problem with Battlefield 2. It uses a system whereby all the control points up to a certain area must be capped to move onto the next one, thereby creating the tactic of sneaking around the side of the map and capping the end bases pointless. This should not be considered a bad thing, as it removes the focus off of capping bases and turns it to fighting. We are talking about full-scale, head on battles.
When you join a server you are greeted with the loadout screen; choose your class and role. Now, unlike most games where you simply have a class (assault, heavy assault, sniper, anti-vehicle, special-ops, close combat), Frontlines incorporates a secondary choice; your role. There are four roles in the game (Ground Support, EMP Tech, Drone Tech, and Air Support). The roles provide you with 3 different upgrades per role. The upgrades are obtained by getting kills and over general time. The most popular two roles are Drone Tech and Air Support. Drone Tech allows you to unlock three small battle drones; you guide them with a remote camera and can attack enemies, as well as a very useful self-destruct function. These drones are more of an attractive feature rather than a useful one; although I am speaking from a standpoint of only playing the two available Beta maps. Air Support is very useful; it allows you to call in three different types of air strikes through designation via binoculars. In comparison, the other two roles are extremely weak and provide very little help to you.
Character movement has been improved upon; it is very similar to Call Of Duty 4, as it feels realistic and brings you more into the game. The game sounds are a big bonus; it is amazingly realistic and adds an intensity to the game never before experienced. A helicopter can drown out noise, but when it is destroyed, an eerie silence occurs which hits you hard. Then the sound of tanks are heard rumbling in the distance; you move quickly, following the sounds of sniper bullets in the distance. The game provides an adrenaline rush which, as a long time gamer, I never felt before.
The two maps released in the Beta are Oilfields and Street; two very different maps, attempting to showcase the diversity of the game. Oilfields is a large…uh…oilfield. Although not large enough for fighter jets (at least not in the Beta), helicoptors, tanks, APC’s and jeeps are all available. But the greatest showcasing available on this map; snipers. The sniper viewing distance is larger than I have ever seen. There are several groups of extremely tall towers; reaching higher than a lot of helicopter pilots go. Even at the very top of these towers, I can see most of the very large map. Granted sniping at such range is very difficult, but is doable. It also acts as a great air support position. The actual firing of the snipers is also more realistic; judging a shot of an enemy running is now much harder, albeit annoying.
Although there are a lot of upsides to this Beta, I feel that it will also have the same major problems that Battlefield 2 had; lack of modding support, terrible customer support, bugs not being fixed, etc. Although realizing it is a Beta, the game has some serious issues which, even after a recent patch, have still not been addressed. Quite frequently players can stand meters apart, shoot at each other, and not hit them. And the server browser has an absolute truckload of bugs. And finally, the Australian servers cause extreme latency to most users, causing all the Australian gamers to invade the Californian servers (although only one of them works!).
The gaming world has waiting several years for the next big thing; if the Beta is anything to go by; this is it.
