Fuel Review for PC

System: PC, PS3, X360	Review Rating Legend
Dev: Asobo Studios	1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid	4.0 - 4.4 = Great
Pub: Codemasters	2.0 - 2.4 = Poor	4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
Release: Jun. 2, 2009	2.5 - 2.9 = Average	5.0 = The Best
Players: 1, 2-4 (Online)	3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
ESRB Rating: Everyone	3.5 - 3.9 = Good

However, this is where Fuel starts to develop some issues. Although the world is plenty big, there's just not that much to do within it. The game is not set up like Burnout Paradise, where you just pull up to an intersection to start a race, and the huge world seems wasted when all the races are just a menu away. Sure, you can come across a race in the wild, but there is no real reason to drive to it when you can just use the menu. You can also drive around and look for cars to add to your garage, but that just didn't seem like enough of a motivation to really drive around the expansive world.

Fuel screenshot

Another issue I had with Fuel early on was with the visuals. Honestly, the tracks and vehicles are a bit simplistic. Although the world is huge, the truth is that it’s not filled with terribly much, and repeated obstacle elements punctuate the landscape again and again. However, the one exception to this rule has to be the weather effects. Honestly, I found them quite impressive, and riding through the rain, high winds, tornadoes, and lightning storms to be quite the exhilarating experience.

Control in this game falls squarely in the arcade genre, with speed and quick turns being emphasized over precision driving. The game never punishes you for going off-road or damaging your vehicle (after smashing an ATV right into a tree at 50 MPH I was able to just reverse and drive away), and if you get too far off course or have a colossal wreck, the game will just reset you back on the track. The game even forgives you for being lost, and you have your own reset button you can use to right yourself if you have gotten too far away from the action.

Fuel is definitely not a bad game. In fact, I liked it a lot. However, it is not the standout title that I was expecting it to be. Last year's GRID was such a memorable racing game, and I was really expecting Fuel to be another standout title in the same vein. Despite being a very competent racer, and one fans of arcade-style racing will enjoy, Fuel just doesn't ever cross the line into “amazing” territory. If you were expecting lightning in a bottle, Fuel keeps the electricity in the environmental elements and out of the gameplay.

By Amanda L. Kondolojy
CCC Staff Contributor

RATING OUT OF 5

RATING DESCRIPTION

3.7

Graphics
Levels and cars are a little simplistic on a technical level, but the weather effects are impressive.

3.6

Control
The arcade style of control lacks depth, but is perfect for fans of the control style.

2.5

Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Music is generic, and motor sounds are repetitive.

4.0

Play Value
The career mode is rather lengthy, the challenge mode, provides plenty of game variation, and playing online certainly provides decent replayability. But, lack of split-screen multiplayer is regrettable.

3.8

Overall Rating - Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

Dramatic, dynamic extreme weather: Set in an environmentally damaged fictional future, the game world is further brought to life with real-time extreme weather that includes blizzards, lashing rainstorms, lightening strikes, sandstorms and tornados that transform the terrain and affect vehicle performance creating a unique race experience.

Choose your own route, win in your own style: With a huge range of vehicles, player choice lies at the heart of FUEL’s action-packed races as players speed across huge swathes of diverse terrain, carving out on-the-fly routes to take the chequered flag. Roadsters reach extraordinary speeds on the asphalt, monster trucks steam-roller through forests and dirt-bikes scramble down mountainsides as gamers take on dangerous short-cuts, death-defying jumps and clatter through spectacular cross-over points in a beautifully realised wilderness.

5,000+ square miles inspired by wilderness: FUEL’s world is created from the most compelling, diverse and striking areas of the North American wilderness, from the Utah badlands, to Yellowstone Park and Arizona. Recognizable landmarks, including Death Valley and Mount Rushmore, are modeled from satellite data and rendered beautiful by the game engine. The effects of accelerated global warming – from sandstorms, blizzards and brush fires to tsunamis and tornadoes – create uniquely unpredictable and spectacular races.

Online multiplayer: The online and offline worlds become one with a fully-integrated multiplayer featuring hundreds of preset challenges and countless locations where friends or strangers can meet to show off their skills and their customized rides or set out to explore the world together.