FUEL - Openworld racer from Codemasters

[Mars]

I'm selling my copy for £20 delivered if anyone is interested

[Professor_k]

Put a couple of hours in with my copy (rented from lovefilm) and it seems "ok".

The visuals are Furrrgly with jaggies spearing my eyes and some ps2-ish environments. I'm liking how you enter races and earn money to buy new shit, it's kept me wanting more. Also, about 70 achievement points in the first 2 hours? Ok thnx

To regurgitate something Michael said on a recent Joypod, night time in this game is super-dark. I tried having a drive about at night in the open world and ended up in water more times than I was on the road. Will persevere with Fuel though, theres somthing cool about it. Loving the mad dash for the checkpoints and the shortcuts that plonk you in an unbeatable position.

[linkster]

Got the demo of this last night, and was under-impressed. It's an OK-looking world and the openness of it is OK, but the driving's not a patch on MotorStorm, and the races not as fun and hectic. Will not be picking it up.

Dunno what vehicles are in the demo but those who persevere do largely seem to agree it gets more fun, and the race editor should make it a different experience from MS. The constant direct comparisons are understandable but a tad annoying over time.

Still I think Codies is completely fucking mental releasing a demo before a patch for the online. Piss off more people why don't you.

[stefcha]

Dunno what vehicles are in the demo but those who persevere do largely seem to agree it gets more fun, and the race editor should make it a different experience from MS. The constant direct comparisons are understandable but a tad annoying over time.

Still I think Codies is completely fucking mental releasing a demo before a patch for the online. Piss off more people why don't you.

There's a bike and a buggy thing, I didn't feel like I was driving offroad in either of them to be honest. Sega Rally still nailed that feeling best of all.

[SteveH]

I'm still loving this as well. Doing the same as someone else said, and finishing every bit of a section before moving on. The only thing annoying me is when it puts you in races with a vehicle different to everyone else's, and isn't suitable for some of the surfaces you race on. I am at a loss as to why they did that. It isn't challenging, it is frustrating.

I only just discovered last night that you can just pick the challenges from the menu and race straightaway. I've been driving everywhere

[T Pot]

This thing isn't going back in my xbox till there is a patch.

[Secondspace]

The racing does suffer in comparison with Motorstorm, for me the game is all about the long distance exploration. It feels like the game would be brilliant if it was about stealing the lorries or finding pockets of civilisation. It's very strange to like a game, but wish it was a different genre.

[Boozy The Clown]

Finally got to see this in action last night at a mates and was gobsmacked. I kept pointing at the screen and saying "look how fucking far you can see!" The vehicles all seemed to handle quite competently and the racing seemed adequate enough. I just had to marvel at the landscape. It looked better than expected and at some points the lighting was quite awe inspiring. They should just have called it Long Way Round the game, and had you go exploring, meeting random sheep herders and gangsters on the way.

I'll be picking it up as soon as I'm finished with Red Faction.

[therev]

Got to the stage now where having got two stars on every race isn't enough to open up more areas, so I need to go back and do old races on three-star difficulty. I was dreading it, to be honest, but so far it's been great fun. A mix of very, very easy races and ones I've had to absolutely nail in order to win. And, even though I'm now going through the menus for everything, the load times aren't pissing me off too much.

[moosegrinder]

Finally showed up so gonna give it a pop beforeI continue with the hoovering. Rock n roll.

[Girth Certificate]

any difference between ps3/xbox versions, will probably pick this up tomorrow

[JPickford]

Just tried the PS3 version and it has the lowest framerate of any game I've played in years. It must be 10-15fps at best. The first (well only) thing I tried was free ride and it let me drive about 20 yards before telling me I was out of bounds.

There might be a good game in there but the framerate barely counts as animation.

[linkster]

doesnt sound anything like the actual game.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

Just tried the PS3 version and it has the lowest framerate of any game I've played in years. It must be 10-15fps at best. The first (well only) thing I tried was free ride and it let me drive about 20 yards before telling me I was out of bounds.

There might be a good game in there but the framerate barely counts as animation.

You bought Mario Kart

[JPickford]

You bought Mario Kart

IDGI

[moosegrinder]

The frame rates fine. It is a bit low, but it's not horrendous.

So far I'm quite enjoying this, it's very intimidating in scale and, technically, it's stupidly impressive. What I DO have problems with is the night (which could be easily resolved by making the headlights brighter than the candles that seem to be in there at the moment) and the GPS which is fucking thick. When I'm near a road it wants to take me the long way round, when I'm near a lake it wants me to drive through it. Fucking rubbish.

[christaylor]

The frame rates fine. It is a bit low, but it's not horrendous.

So far I'm quite enjoying this, it's very intimidating in scale and, technically, it's stupidly impressive. What I DO have problems with is the night (which could be easily resolved by making the headlights brighter than the candles that seem to be in there at the moment) and the GPS which is fucking thick. When I'm near a road it wants to take me the long way round, when I'm near a lake it wants me to drive through it. Fucking rubbish.

Sounds like they've modeled the GPS directly after my tomtom.

[neoELITE]

1 GB demo now available, for those who wish to try out the game.

I played the demo yesterday on the 360. It was pretty but boring and I certainly didn't enjoy it enough to even consider this as a budget title once the price falls through the floor in 2 months time. I can see what it's trying to do and I do imagine that the full title should offer a lot more but the demo isn't doing it any favours as you basically ride a very slow bike on a very easy course against some AI riders who seem to be on mopeds with hair dryers for engines

I haven't looked at a Codemasters game since they brought out that horrendous aeroplane game on the Wii.

[moosegrinder]

I'm enjoying this quite a bit, BUT the rubber band AI is pissing me off a little. I'm trying to do the first endurance race, but I'm on a shitty fucking quad and the 2 in front are so far ahead you can't catch up. You can't go in a straight line because off road it loses 20 mph. Do Ijust have to stick to their route or can I buy a better quad? I couldn't find how to sort the vehicles by class. There isn't any indication of if they're even grouped.

[hereticboy]

The game seemed a bit mental in choosing what it would let me use in a race. There were a fair few times in the short time I had the game where I was shouting "I just bought a new fucking buggy! Let me use it, you cunt! What's the point in letting me spunk my remaining cash away on a new vehicle when BLAH BLAH BLAH".

I never worked out how it classed vehicles.

Edit - For the record, I think I managed the first Endurance challenge on my first quad. Be better, Steve!

[moosegrinder]

The 2 in front are away by a considerable margin! And I'm telling you, the quickest way between two points is only a straight line when this game decides it wants it to be.

[Cyhwuhx]

.::: Played the PS3 demo yesterday and it's... not my cup of tea, I guess.

It feels like Smuggler's Run set in a brown lifeless Fallout 3 environment. The huge gameworld might be its selling point, but why would I want to race in such a dead environment? At some points it reminded me of stuff like King's Field and Aquanaut's Holiday in terms of atmosphere. The racing itself seemed to boil down to "keep aimed straight at the next checkpoint to win". I'm willing to believe that it becomes more interesting as you progress, but so far it lacks the skill and knowledge of the environment you can deploy of something like Midnight Club (where knowledge of the terrain becomes your ticket to shortcuts).

If everything is open terrain, and it stays that way, I can see this becoming very boring indeed.

No problems with the framerate BTW, was just fine imo.

[Cyhwuhx]

The 2 in front are away by a considerable margin! And I'm telling you, the quickest way between two points is only a straight line when this game decides it wants it to be.

.::: That sounds better than what I experienced. Though you don't make it sound like a good thing.

[JPickford]

No problems with the framerate BTW, was just fine imo.

This is bizarre. It's like 15fps. How is that fine?

[SteveH]

Have to confess I have had to resort to the vehicle select bug when it has thrown me in a race with a completely unsuitable vehicle. For those that don't know how, it is best to choose the race from the start menu, and be in the wrong vehicle for the race. When the chopper drops you down, wait for the "go" after the countdown and hit the back button. This opens up the usually locked vehicle select screen and you can choose something more appropriate.

[Cyhwuhx]

This is bizarre. It's like 15fps. How is that fine?

.::: I honestly don't know, it was more akin to 30fps here. It does however translate every dimple in the road to camera movement, so maybe that's what's going wrong?

[JPickford]

No it's definitely the framerate.

[mr_woo]

I've definitely not had any major framerate problems whilst playing FUEL on the 360, it was one of the things that surprised me as I thought it would be all over the place. Seemed to be around 30FPS with slight dips here and there.

[moosegrinder]

Have to confess I have had to resort to the vehicle select bug when it has thrown me in a race with a completely unsuitable vehicle. For those that don't know how, it is best to choose the race from the start menu, and be in the wrong vehicle for the race. When the chopper drops you down, wait for the "go" after the countdown and hit the back button. This opens up the usually locked vehicle select screen and you can choose something more appropriate.

That's a pretty good/bad cheat, depending on who you are. Thing is, I chose a different quad for offroad and it STILL slows me down as much as the shitty one. The mood I'm in at the moment means that if I don't figure out how to beat it soon then the pads going across the room. I fucking detest elastic AI in any game, but this one is an absolute fucker for it.

[linkster]

.::: Played the PS3 demo yesterday and it's... not my cup of tea, I guess.

It feels like Smuggler's Run set in a brown lifeless Fallout 3 environment. The huge gameworld might be its selling point, but why would I want to race in such a dead environment? At some points it reminded me of stuff like King's Field and Aquanaut's Holiday in terms of atmosphere. The racing itself seemed to boil down to "keep aimed straight at the next checkpoint to win". I'm willing to believe that it becomes more interesting as you progress, but so far it lacks the skill and knowledge of the environment you can deploy of something like Midnight Club (where knowledge of the terrain becomes your ticket to shortcuts).

If everything is open terrain, and it stays that way, I can see this becoming very boring indeed.

No problems with the framerate BTW, was just fine imo.

I really dont know why they bothered with a demo, well I do but I wouldnt be polite.

World brown and lifeless, depends how much you played. Oh hang on, someone said the demo limits you to a play area doesn't it? Yeah, good call Codies

Sounds like they picked two of the earlier vehicles and yeah there's not much to them, the pacing of the opening to the game is pretty poor (although I remember TDU being the same - not that it's an excuse, just ran out of time to rebalance). Muscle cars down mountain roads are genuinely good fun. As for the shortcuts, it's all about balancing the amount of damage you can take before a write off to see how many shortcuts you can risk taking (not that this applies to all races - the A to B ones can be a chore). Having the race editor is why the world can offer an awful lot to people who persevere to get better cars and find and create interesting routes.

All said even if you were willing to give the full game a go I'd say don't bother til the online gets patched.