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FUEL - Openworld racer from Codemasters

NecroMorrius

By NecroMorrius
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Tetchy

Tetchy

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But... but... but... the whole point is to be able to drive forever. That's one of the greatest things about it. If you don't just want to drive for the joy of driving, why buy the game in the first place? Like you say, if you're just after straight race after race, then there are plenty of other games. Though I'd say Fuel wins out in terms of the sheer number of events available, which I think is more than any other game I've seen of this type. And, with a few exceptions, the challenges are an awful lot interesting than the career races. There are some awesome races later on, better than the first Motorstorm, I reckon. (I've not played the second one yet.)

Maybe I just don't get the point of this game then. I maintain that racing games should purely be about racing, not driving for hours and hours on end across boring terrain trying to find a smashed car at the bottom of a ravine or a flag pole to look at a "pretty" pixelised view. And what I've played of the races so far, nothing comes close to any of the Motorstorm games and I can't see it holding my interest long enough to.

Um, but that's surely the point of checkpoint races, to go through checkpoints that define an interesting track? It's... it's like saying an FPS is rubbish because you actually have to shoot the enemies and can't just fire where you want and still win, or that you don't like the way they've put walls between you and the exits. I've seen other people mention this as a complaint and I just don't get it.

Anyway, you've got events that lay out tracks for you, where there may or may not be shortcuts, then other events that more or less let you go your own way.

Maybe I've been spoiled but I prefer racing games of this ilk to have an overall structure of a track with a start/finish line but allow you to complete the course through whatever means necessary, such as cutting corners, driving up and over dirtbanks or driving off off ledges to shave valuable milliseconds off my time. All I'm saying is that if you are going to have checkpoints don't make them restrictive gates that you have to drive between, make it a virtual line through that area of the course so that when your car crosses that line it counts.

On anything other than the top difficulty, you can normally get away with one or two resets, I find. The main gripe I have with resets is when it resets you on the wrong side of a barrier, meaning you're forced to restart the race. Doesn't happen often, but it's annoying when it does. Shame about the load times, but a custom soundtrack and the stats at the bottom of the screen take a lot of the sting out for me.

Y'see I tried some of the races on Rookie and Expert and they were too easy (checkpoint issues aside) but on Legend this gets insane and sometimes you run off the course because you're trying too hard to win, because if you come in second you have to do it all again anyway (which is ludicrous), the computer is telling you to reset yourself to get back into the race which is utter ballcock because if you do that then you might as well restart anyway. If ever a track reset was implemented wrongly this is a prime example. Once again Motorstorm wins it out with an instantaneous track reset with very little, if any, time lost.

I love the night driving. Sure, it's dark, but you've got headlines. You just can't bomb in a straight line at a hundred miles an hour, obviously. Do you realise there's a brightness slider in the options, though? I had to up that before it got playable. I've set mine to a little over half, which makes night driving dark, tense, exciting, but not just black.

Yeah, I know about the brightness slider but you have to fiddle with it everytime it goes dark because when day comes you can't see anything when you're driving in the bright sunlight and the screen becomes a massive white hole. My picture set-up works perfectly for every other game that has to cope with "dynamic" lighting effects but with this one it doesn't. Seriously, make it driveable at night without having to mess with the options all the time or don't bother.

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SteveH

SteveH

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Will have to give it a blast online sometime, if/when they sort the netcode out

Definitely. I could have sworn you were already on my Xbox live friends list. I'll add you when it is back up. Hope they fix online - I've avoided it up until now to avoid it souring the experience. Still loving single player though, so much to do.

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hereticboy

hereticboy

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Just got this from Lovefilm and I'm finding it a bit meh. It basically dumped me in without explaining a thing, and as it's from Lovefilm, I didn't get a manual or anything to explain things. So far I've done some races, got a quad and driven about for a bit. It's alright I suppose but it feels like I should be enjoying it more. Loading screens are doing my head in.

Are there any specific things that I should do to get me invested in the game or is it just a case of spending some time with it doing whatever I fancy?

Cheers :unsure:.

Oh and is it just me or is there no 'look back' button?

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therev

therev

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Just got this from Lovefilm and I'm finding it a bit meh. It basically dumped me in without explaining a thing, and as it's from Lovefilm, I didn't get a manual or anything to explain things. So far I've done some races, got a quad and driven about for a bit. It's alright I suppose but it feels like I should be enjoying it more. Loading screens are doing my head in.

Are there any specific things that I should do to get me invested in the game or is it just a case of spending some time with it doing whatever I fancy?

Cheers :unsure:.

Oh and is it just me or is there no 'look back' button?

Just go for a drive, do any challenges you come across, grab some vista points and liveries along the way. If you don't like just driving around the map, sometimes with a purpose, sometimes without, then you might as well send it back to Lovefilm, I reckon. Some people love it, some people don't. It's just one of those games. It's my game of the year, some people took it back in disgust a couple of days after getting it.

And there's no "look back" button, though I'm not sure why you'd need one, really. In races you can tell how far ahead you are by looking at the distances in the top right of the screen.

Oh, and do bear in mind that later vehicles are much faster than the ones you start with.

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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Which version have you got, therev? I'm not sure my PS3 review copy works online. I was tempted to ask Codies for a retail copy, but I'd feel a bit cheeky about doing so (even though I scored it pretty highly). But I'd really like to play it online, properly, with real people for a bit. That's clearly how it's meant to be played, really.

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therev

therev

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Which version have you got, therev? I'm not sure my PS3 review copy works online. I was tempted to ask Codies for a retail copy, but I'd feel a bit cheeky about doing so (even though I scored it pretty highly). But I'd really like to play it online, properly, with real people for a bit. That's clearly how it's meant to be played, really.

I've got it on 360. I've barely touched it online. I had one session that lasted about an hour because some friends invited me into a game they were playing, but it's really been all about the single player for me, at least so far. The online stuff is really let down by having to reinvite people after ending a race.

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scissorkicks

scissorkicks

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But I'd really like to play it online, properly, with real people for a bit. That's clearly how it's meant to be played, really.

And that's why it's a failure for me and I've got rid of it. The online stuff just doesn't work, and I'm not sure which parts don't work because of the design and which parts are because of bugs.

Seems a bit off that they'd supply review code that doesn't work online when that's the part of the game that doesn't work properly, doesn't it?

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hereticboy

hereticboy

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Just go for a drive, do any challenges you come across, grab some vista points and liveries along the way. If you don't like just driving around the map, sometimes with a purpose, sometimes without, then you might as well send it back to Lovefilm, I reckon. Some people love it, some people don't. It's just one of those games. It's my game of the year, some people took it back in disgust a couple of days after getting it.

And there's no "look back" button, though I'm not sure why you'd need one, really. In races you can tell how far ahead you are by looking at the distances in the top right of the screen.

Oh, and do bear in mind that later vehicles are much faster than the ones you start with.

Aye, I just went for a drive about, set a GPS point, turned off the 3D map and it was lovely. I loved TDU for it's driveabout-ness, so I'm sure it's just a case of putting some time in.

Oh and I'd need a 'look back' button because it's something that should be expected in a racing game, really. This is the first racing game I've played in a long while that hasn't let me look back either with a button, or by using the right analogue stick.

Edit - Yes, I know you can use the analogue stick to look behind you, but it is clumsy and we both know it.

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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I've got it on 360. I've barely touched it online. I had one session that lasted about an hour because some friends invited me into a game they were playing, but it's really been all about the single player for me, at least so far. The online stuff is really let down by having to reinvite people after ending a race.

Fuck's sake. Really? I thought the whole idea was that it was seamless. That's how it was sold, anyway. Bah.

Could have done with a couple more months, this, I think. I still really like it, though.

@Alan Arndale - I played the online at Codemasters when previewing the game. I did say that was the only experience I'd had of it in the review and that I found it difficult to fairly score the game given that fact.

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  • 3 weeks later...
FuntimeDave

FuntimeDave

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So no fix to the 360 multiplayer issues yet then?

recall someone mentioning this would seem like an easy fix - anyone got an insight into what the devlopers are doing and why no fix or even admission of the issues have been made. Talking about being dropped between races etc.

Lots of people I think bought this for the multiplayer aspect. It has not died a death amongst my friends as that would imply it had some life more it was never given a proper chance to get going for multiplayer as it is sooo bloody frustrating setting things up. When I have raced online it has been fun - shame - onto the next game I guess.

Cheers

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Corleth the Fey

Corleth the Fey

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I picked this up last week, and I really like it. The only thing that is shite about it is the music.

This game is all about just driving over a massive area. It's not really a racing game. For example - that lake in the first area. I thought to myself - I'll drive around that lake. An hour later - I was two thirds of the way around. This impressed me. And it was only a tiny part of the whole map.

Why is everyone complaining about the loading? It's not loading it's 'generating'. Sure it takes a few seconds but it must be necessary for the game to be able to do what it does. I still remember the old days though - so I I'm very rarely bothered by the tiny waits we get these days.

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moosegrinder

moosegrinder

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I can't believe how much patience I had as a kid. I must have seen the "R - Tape Loading Error" flash up on my Speccy more times than I care to remember but I just kept trying anyway. If that happened these days the tape deck would have gone through the window on the first one.

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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I can't believe how much patience I had as a kid. I must have seen the "R - Tape Loading Error" flash up on my Speccy more times than I care to remember but I just kept trying anyway. If that happened these days the tape deck would have gone through the window on the first one.

:) So true. You just accepted that as part of gaming, didn't you? The joys of progress, eh? Technology's turned us into a bunch of impatient bastards.

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bradigor

bradigor

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I once played Myth (I think) which took, what felt like hours to load. Well, it finished loading, but must of crashed mid load as the tape stopped but the loading screen stayed. :)

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