Frontline fuel of war preview

Kaos Studios' Frontlines: Fuel of War aims to deliver large-scale first-person shooting action, giving players access to over 60 types of weapons and vehicles to race across open stages and wreak havoc. We checked out the game's first level, a refinery complex set in the middle of a desert. Starting out it was possible to switch between assault rifles, rocket launchers, pistols, and C4 explosives to blow up the opposition that was swarming all over.

The enemy, the Red Star Alliance, swarmed after us in continuous waves consisting of riflemen, rocket-toting soldiers stationed on rooftops, tanks, jeeps, and armored vehicles. Rockets could take out the jeeps with one hit, two would do in an armored vehicle, and from the tanks we just ran. For a more rapid escape it's possible to hop in your own jeep, of which there seemed to be plenty scattered around, and drive while manning a machine gun turret. Friendly soldiers were running all over as well lending firepower support, but there was no way for us to actually control what they were doing.

To beat the stage we had to capture a number of computer consoles in the refinery area, the blast our way into an interrogation room to rescue a hostage. Capture points were marked on our HUD and, once reached, we had to stick around the area for a little while until the capture meter swung in our favor, much like the capturing points in Battlefield.



Should you die on the field of battle you can respawn into the action and choose what guns to go out with. In this case we had a choice between assault or explosive choices, the latter of which included a rocket launcher. Managing your health is easy enough, as the game incorporates a now familiar regenerative system, where if you take damage a few seconds behind cover will heal all wounds. Since the enemies in the game don't follow pre-determined paths, they can pop up anywhere, meaning you may find yourself hiding to regenerate quite often.

Though we didn't see it this time around, the game's got a significant multiplayer mode. On Xbox 360 up to 32 players will be on the PC players can expect up to 64. When playing online it's possible to form squads with others, so everyone in the same unit will see order markers on their minimap.

The action seems simple but exciting, as there are plenty of pretty explosions and rocket trails flying around at any time. We'll have to wait and see how it holds up in the long run. If you're curious about how the game plays you can see for yourself as there's a demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace and a multiplayer beta running on PC. The PS3 version will follow along sometime in May, whereas the PC and Xbox 360 versions officially release in February.