Get fuelled up and prepare to race and explore the world’s largest ever racing environment - over 5,000 square miles of spectacular wilderness. Set to revolutionize multi-terrain, multi-vehicle racing, FUEL is a fiercely competitive game without boundaries. On and off-road, two and four-wheeled vehicles race a massively diverse environment, from scaling the highest snow-capped mountain to racing the deepest arid canyon. In a fictional present, vast swathes of the United States have been ravaged by the extreme effects of accelerated global warming: tornados, brush fires, hurricanes and tsunamis have driven people from their homes leaving huge areas of America abandoned. Now these dangerous areas have created the perfect playground for a new breed of adrenaline junkies who set out to conquer each other, and Mother Nature, in closely fought races. There are over 70 different vehicles with which to take on any challenge that FUEL’s stunning environment throws at you. On-road and off-road bikes, cars, quads, trucks, buggies and dragsters take dangerous short-cuts, perform death-defying jumps and tear through spectacular cross-over points. FUEL’s landscape is powered by cutting-edge technology and, using satellite data, features some of the most exciting and inspiring areas of America - including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park, Mount Rainier and much more. In FUEL, if you can see it, you can drive to it, taking any route - on or off-road - that you want. With a draw distance of 40KM, 100,000 miles of roads, tracks and trails and hundreds of race events FUEL’s epic world demands to be explored.


Gameplay

First off there is one thing you have to know about FUEL and that is the game has a serious issue with extremely long load times and there are a ton of them. Once you are racing the load times is non-existent and streams smoothly but afterwards when you need to return to base or move to a new area there is a long load time and it brings you out of the racing experience. I did not attempt to install the game to see if the load times improved but I can only hope that they will.

Most of the vehicles drive extremely well and much better than we are used to in racing titles, which is a nice treat. But a couple of them seem to be almost in arcade mode and they over steer and bounce all over the place. If it was not for these gameplay instances I would say the overall gameplay control wise is excellent. There are over 70 vehicles of various types from motorcycles to dune buggies to quads to trucks and more.

As an open world racing title there is a lot to love in the game and some parts you will certainly hate or at least dislike. There is a ton of well designed races, vehicles, multiplayer and overall events to play in FUEL. You will spend a ton of time racing, exploring, and searching for collectables and more all over the map. What is extremely annoying about the game is during the open world driving when you are exploring looking for vistas and collectables the amount of vehicles you will see on the road with you is almost zero. You feel like you are basically alone in the game and that is a shame because if there was more vehicles it would be much more fun especially if there was some sort of interaction beyond the usual bump and grind.

Multiplayer wise the game is fun, pretty much like all other multiplayer racing title it is much better with friends then playing by lonesome. The various events in multiplayer are the same events you race in single player but of course you race with friends. These events include Speed Run which is getting to a marker in a set amount of time, Seek ‘n Destroy which is pretty self explanatory, Chopper Chase where you chase a chopper of all things, Raid where there are no roads where you are racing, Blitz get from A to B to C to D in faster and faster time limits, the classic racing Knock Out and Endurance Race.


Graphics

If you played GRID or DiRT you know the quality of the racing games graphically which were published by Codemasters. While FUEL is not bad looking it is not as good looking as those games but that is 100% completely understandable as the games world is absolutely huge and is streaming. The cars and other vehicles look good and the weather looks fantastic but there will be times when the environment becomes boring and dull. The slightly diminished graphical quality should not matter much because they are good enough to be entertaining and the games frame rate stays constant and in a racing title that is the most important thing.


Audio

Audio wise, FUEL is completely a hit and miss audio experience and it is an aggravating time from start to finish. The soundtrack is downright annoying and horrible in almost every conceivable way, if it was not for the ability to listen to other music on my iPod the game would be on permanent mute. The sound effects are well done but nothing I would say revolutionize the racing genre audio wise. The weather sound effects are actually the best sounding audio in the game and when the weather hits you in the game it is a treat to hear and see.


Value

There are not many racing games that I have found so much long term value in. Both of the Single Player and Multiplayer games are so full of amazing gaming this could be the go to racing title for racing fans for a very long time. Especially since how the game seems to almost change from race to race. Multiplayer is fun and if the developers can take everything multiplayer wise in Fuel and improve on it for a sequel it would be one of the best multiplayer racing titles on any of the platforms we currently play on. The single player game will not appeal to everyone since unlike all other racing games so far you must do a lot of exploring to unlock vehicles and races which does become tedious for many gamers, but in the end if you do not mind that you are in for a treat.


Bottom Line

Fuel might not appeal to everyone because it fails to live up to the hype about the land mass size and open world racing, but if you are a patient gamer who is willing to just race and play the game for what it is you will find plenty of racing game to enjoy. This is a must buy for racing fans if you bought GRID and DiRT, two of the best racing titles which come from the same publisher, Codemasters. If you did not enjoy GRID or DiRT you may want to rent this ambitious title but if you buy it you probably will not be disappointed.