"Uncomplicated fun"

Story: 5/5

All good games need a good story, and Frontlines has one that we all know very well. The opening details the oil drying up, the world tripping over its own feet, lines at the fuel pumps (who hasn't seen that on the news?) and chaos rearing its ugly head. Instead of following one of the soldiers who is fighting in this war, the story chooses to focus on a reporter, who has grown up with the crisis, and is just trying to cover the story as best he can. The voice acting in the cinematic scenes is great, and more to the point, believable, the one thing needed to sell any story, so credit is due to the voice actors for that.

Graphics: 4/5

The backgrounds are often not seen by the gamer as he concentrates, but in this case, they help show that the world has indeed gone nuts. In some cases though, the impression is given that the graphics could have done with some cleaning up here and there.

Gameplay: 3/5

At the time of writing this, the gameplay had a few irritating points, and hopefully they would have been fixed in the form of an update, but as of yet they are still here. All the snipers out there know well of the first one, get a guy's head in your sights, fire, and he does not drop, and your rifle fires off in a different direction. Sometimes it takes two or three hits to do the job that you know the first one should have. Another one is when the enemies are either running straight at you firing, or running to the side, firing, and are amazingly accurate with their shots. They all seem brilliant at dodging your shots, making the player wonder if he is hooked up to the Matrix or not. Blasts that go off near a bunch of enemies sometimes don't seem to register, making you wonder what is going on a moment before they kill you. Also at the time of writing this, the online mode had its problems, players finding it difficult to join matches because of problems with the server, which would hopefully be fixed once and for all, very soon. On the plus side, it is great to control the little droids offered to you in the game, either to fly into a building and blow up unsuspecting enemy soldiers, roll under a tank and destroy it, or to simply roll into battle and mow down a group of soldiers with a mounted chain gun, a sweet idea indeed.

Value: 3/5

You will only play through the game once, maybe twice if you want the achievements, but for those who are not bothered with those, once will be enough. Online (when you can join a match) is ok, but it is not that different from other online FPS out there, except that you can use the little droids on each other

Overall: 4/5

Its good, but it could have been better. For the achievement hunters, it is an easy 1000 points, but for those who want to immerse themselves in a game, you may want to consider renting, as it is not very long a game, which is one thing it will be remembered for. If there is a number 2, let us hope they improve on the mistakes of this one, first of all, by making the campaign much longer.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/08

Game Release: Frontlines: Fuel of War (EU, 02/29/08)