Rented the game "Fuel" and I have a two-word mini review....

NOW LOADING

:jay:

its a shame such a cool concept for a game turned out to be so shitty

Fuel has been met with mixed reviews, stating that while the game world is the largest in console gaming history, it is mostly uninteresting and empty. Many of the rewards available to be unlocked are also seen as not worth the effort and even the basic racing mechanic are sloppy with the AI winning most of the race, only to slow down towards the end to allow the player to win.[9]

The load times are just awful...they take you right out of the game. The actual racing part of the game is not bad, I think. There is a bit of rubber-band AI, but I haven't yet seen any of the magnitude of the above quote. Biggest gripe with the actual driving is that the cars are glued to the road. I tried my damnedest to get a car to roll down a steep mountain side after launching it off a hairpin curve and no matter what I did, it slid wheels down the whole way down.

The thing is, I think they looked at Test Drive Online, and thought we can make a big game world with little back story and some racing like they did and just let people go nuts. But Fuel has no soul and nothing to do. They talked up this big post-apocalyptic setting in the build-up and in the literature, but it has absolutely zero bearing in the game except maybe to explain why there's almost no traffic running around in the free roam and why homeowners have inexplicably built ramps in their front yards.

Character customization sucks (hope you want to be a muscly shirtless Road Warrior reject because that's the only character model you get. Are you a woman who would like to play a female character? Tough shit). The vehicles, livery upgrades, and clothing upgrades are all appalingly generic so there's no real desire to go out and collect any of them. The highly-touted real-time weather doesn't seem to mean shit because in an actual race, it defaults to whatever weather the race calls for. And I'll have to go back and check to confirm this, but I don't think you even have to drive to a challenge to participate in it when it's first discovered...once it shows up on your map after getting within, like 20 miles of it, you can just instantly go race it, where as in TD, you at least had to drive to it on your own the first time you wanted to race it. So the whole driving-around-and-exploring thing is neutered, which is kind of the game's whole raison d'etre. And I agree with the quote that the world is uninteresting and empty. It's extremely pretty, and well-detailed, but there's nothing to see or do, tons of empty roads, no bad guys or cops. At least in Test Drive you feel like you're accomplishing shit by trying for that Ferrari you wanted or getting that house you were saving up for. And driving around from one place to another required that you pay attention as there were cops and traffic everywhere. There's none of that here...it's just aimless wandering around with no purpose.

:jay: indeed.

This is the only "review" of fuel I needed.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/fuel2009

It's also obvious with games like this that the size of the world is only going to increase the rating of a few retards that shouldn't be reviewing games at all.

I love metacritic.

What's irritating is that somewhere underneath all the shit is a very good game. The basic elements are there...another 6 months fleshing it out, and this could have been one of the best arcade racers.

Such is the norm these days. Publishers pressure the developers and end up rushing out a sub-par product. It seems most of the games that are any good these days are either built upon existing IP/software, or are done by developers with enough clout and history to tell the pub to fuck off and wait.

man i just found you can download demos on xbox live. im fucked


is fuel on there?

Yeah, they just put out a demo for it.

I haven't downloaded a demo in months and months. I really need to get busy.

The Ghostbusters demo really interests me but I believe it is US only.

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:man i just found you can download demos on xbox live. im fucked


is fuel on there?

How long have you actually had a 360 for?

What's your gamertag?

got it just before christmas. xbox live is on my housemates account and ive no idea what his tag is as i hardly every touch it whereas he lives on COD. all i ever do on it is set fastest laps on forza 2.

race me in forza 2 you limey fuck

my gt is grusselgrosser. send me a friend request sometime.

shit i cant wait for forza 3, its gonna rock so hard

online sucks in forza. it takes an age to find anyone to race and even then most of them are just some fucker parked up at the side of the track. the only time ive found someone who actually played properly i swear it was michael schumacher at the other end of the wire.

alot of people online with any game are ridiculously good. theres just so many people with no lives out there playing 24/7.

JaysonAych wrote:The load times are just awful...they take you right out of the game. The actual racing part of the game is not bad, I think. There is a bit of rubber-band AI, but I haven't yet seen any of the magnitude of the above quote. Biggest gripe with the actual driving is that the cars are glued to the road. I tried my damnedest to get a car to roll down a steep mountain side after launching it off a hairpin curve and no matter what I did, it slid wheels down the whole way down.

The thing is, I think they looked at Test Drive Online, and thought we can make a big game world with little back story and some racing like they did and just let people go nuts. But Fuel has no soul and nothing to do. They talked up this big post-apocalyptic setting in the build-up and in the literature, but it has absolutely zero bearing in the game except maybe to explain why there's almost no traffic running around in the free roam and why homeowners have inexplicably built ramps in their front yards.

Character customization sucks (hope you want to be a muscly shirtless Road Warrior reject because that's the only character model you get. Are you a woman who would like to play a female character? Tough shit). The vehicles, livery upgrades, and clothing upgrades are all appalingly generic so there's no real desire to go out and collect any of them. The highly-touted real-time weather doesn't seem to mean shit because in an actual race, it defaults to whatever weather the race calls for. And I'll have to go back and check to confirm this, but I don't think you even have to drive to a challenge to participate in it when it's first discovered...once it shows up on your map after getting within, like 20 miles of it, you can just instantly go race it, where as in TD, you at least had to drive to it on your own the first time you wanted to race it. So the whole driving-around-and-exploring thing is neutered, which is kind of the game's whole raison d'etre. And I agree with the quote that the world is uninteresting and empty. It's extremely pretty, and well-detailed, but there's nothing to see or do, tons of empty roads, no bad guys or cops. At least in Test Drive you feel like you're accomplishing shit by trying for that Ferrari you wanted or getting that house you were saving up for. And driving around from one place to another required that you pay attention as there were cops and traffic everywhere. There's none of that here...it's just aimless wandering around with no purpose.

TDU was a great game, very challenging, but also very frustrating. There was WAY TOO MUCH traffic littering the streets, and the cars practically dove at you when you drove past them. Not only that but all you had to rely on when racing was the GPS, which sometimes warned you to turn too late to slow down (or never said anything at all) before you missed your turn. Seriously, every other racing game on the planet puts up barricades for the streets you're not supposed to go down, why couldn't they?
But I suppose you just have to drive around more so that you know better where you're going.

...and why did they make the runways on all the airfields dirt? I'd have loved to do top-speed drag runs down the airstrips, but you could only get up to like 70mph in a McLaren

so i just got that game race pro for 20 bucks. the graphics almost look like they belong on the original xbox. and besides the realism, the game just seems dull and uninspired. when you win a race, a guy just says "congratulations, youve won the race" in a monotone voice. plus, not much music anywhere. grid was much more exciting.

driving the caterham seven is pretty fun though. i hope they put it in forza 3. oh, and the ariel atom.