Revision of Frontlines: Fuel of War from Mon, 02/03/2009 - 08:04

Here is the promised review

This game is based in the not to distant future where the world has almost run out of oil. The lack of fuel is causing economys huge problems with smaller countrys struggling to survive. Most countrys join up into one of two teams. Most of what is now NATO joins the Western Coalition. Russia and China create the Red Star Alliance. Red star launches attacks because of suspision that a coup in a oil rich Red Star Nation was caused by Western Coalition. As both teams scramble to secure the fast dissapearing oil supplies it turns into all out war.

This game has acutally been out for quite a while but to be blunt when it was release it was crap. It was buggy and nothing works. There was lots of hype but i did live up expectations.
5 patches later ands its become a really good game. They have fixed all the issues I have yet to find any.

It is mostly a multi-player game with the single player being a short intro into how to play the game. Prob between 4-6 hours of single player.

Most the multi-player servers have around a 50 player limit so they are big maps. The gameplay is far different to most other fps games. Rather than just doing one obj then another. In this game you are constantly trying to advance the front line. Normally this means you need to hold all the required objectives in this area of the map(normally 2-3).

There are most of the normal classes except medic who has been replaced by Close combat.

Anti-Vehicle

Designed to combat enemy armor, the Anti-Vehicle class is armed with anti-tank landmines capable of dealing large damage to enemy armor. The Anti-Vehicle class also utilizes a heat seeking rocket launcher that allows him to track the target, lock on, and select the rocket’s trajectory before firing. These missiles can be blocked by vehicles by deploying thermal flares.

Assault

The Assault classes comes equipped with a standard Assault Rifle, as well as a grenade launcher that allows him to deal with lightly armored threats.

Heavy Assault

The Heavy Assault class trades mobility and accuracy for firepower. Their heavy assault rifle is capable of firing a constant stream of bullets, helping suppress enemy soldiers. By using the crouch or prone position, the Heavy Assault soldier can become more accurate at the cost of mobility.

Sniper

Utilizing a sniper rifle, the sniper can locate and eliminate enemy infantry at long range. However, the class is weak at short distances or against large numbers of infantry, or armored vehicles.

Special Operations

Armed with a scoped Sub-Machine Gun, the Spec Ops class is designed for both short and medium ranged combat. Spec Ops can also use their C4 to destroy armored vehicles. In the single-player campaign, the C4 can also be utilized to destroy cover and some barricades.

Close Combat

Armed with a shotgun, the Close Combat class excels in close-quarters situations, but is very vulnerable to both medium and long range fire due to the shotgun’s lack of range.

Frontlines also adds a another new aspect to the multi fps game called roles in which you can become even more specialised.

Ground Support

The Ground Support subclass has a repair torch that allows you to fix any vehicle, turret, or drone. In some cases only the ground support class can take objectives back because of his ability to repair structures. Depending on which faction you play as in multiplayer you can acquire different turrets as you rank up in your class. Western Coalition has the grenade launcher which is effective at taking out groups of infantry. Red Star Alliance has the mini-gun which is effective against light armor and infantry. High ranking Ground Support allows for the rail gun and an automated turret. The rail gun is effective against all vehicles with the exception of fighter jets available to WC forces. The automated turret can be placed in strategic locations for defense and is available to Red Star forces.

EMP Tech

The EMP tech Role starts out with “mini-map stealth”. It allows one to walk past a UAV Drone without showing up on the enemy radar. Mid role EMP techs are granted a lighting rod that disables any electronic device in its radius. It also removes any threat of air-strikes in the vicinity. High ranking EMP Techs have a prototype EMP Rocket launcher, which releases an EMP rocket on impact instead of exploding. It doesn’t affect infantry unless they’re in a vehicle.

Drone Tech

Drone Techs use a wide variety of drones. They start out with UAVs that highlight any enemy in the vicinity (with the exception of the EMP Tech Class). Mid-ranked Drone Techs have access to two different types of drones. The C4 drone is available to the Red Star Alliance and uses a RC car to deliver its ordinance. It is powerful enough to take out any armored vehicle. Western Coalition uses a drone outfitted with a mini-gun. While it has the edge in firepower, it is also slow and useless against armored vehicles. High ranking Red Star Drone techs use a Tiger Claw Attack Drone which is outfitted with mini rockets. The Western Coalition uses a mortar drone which uses four mortars.

Air Support

The Western Coalition Air Support role has a precision bombing which will destroy anything in one hit. These bombs are easily dodged, though, so they work best when they target a checkpoint or objective. The second level can use a cluster bomb that is very efficient at taking out men and clearing objective points. The third level can use a gunship that flies above a designated area and kills any enemy in that location.

Red Star Alliance Air Support subclass has the same precision bomb but instead of a cluster bomb they receive a carpet bomb instead, which can easily clear an enemy battle line. Their third level is a fuel air bomb that will kill anyone in a wide area.

Another Very important aspect of this game is Vechicles.

There are a lot to choose from. To start you have ya basic jeep think warthog with rockets on it :). Then there is a light tank with a small gun but fast firing. Then there is the Big tank (think titan). There is also a mobile flack gun (also with rockets).

Then to aircraft. We have:
Air – air fighters
air – ground fighters
and helecopters.

Will improve the Vechicles bit later, I cant remember for the life of me what their names are.

There is also talk from the directors that they may implement a live anywhere feature so that PC users can play against XBOX users.

I have found this game to be great and lots of fun. Not a huge amount of people on servers but hopefully more will start coming back to it.
I highly recomend this to IPXers as it is a great fun game.

I give it a 8.5/10 blood drops