FUEL Comments by Tom Bramwell

First (no really)...

I'm predicting a lot of people on other sites are going to moan how harsh eurogamer are with this review.

I was going to post first, but resisted... :op

I'm sure the morons will buy this, meaning FUEL gets a sequel and Codemasters continue in their arcadey ways... /longs for another proper touring car game (NOT sodding GRID) and prays they get F1 right

I have a friend who worked on this.

Time to get the mock on.

/Sigh.

And Codemasters' slide into absolute mediocrity continues. I just hope OpFlash 2 and Dirt 2 are good.

better than darkfall atleast

Oh dear, I quite liked the look of this (yeah it sounded very silly but in a good way, a ripping off Mad Max 2 way) but I guess it all went wrong in the execution. Ah well, here's hoping the suckers who don't read reviews buy it anyway and they get to learn from their mistakes and make a sequal that lives up to the concept.

Codemasters only published it remember. Also remember they published Jericho as well, so they do have a past history of releasing utterly shite games.

Personally, I'd love to see a return of proper Codies. The Codies who did Micro Machines, Dizzy, TOCA Touring Cars, and CMR. Not liking their current direction at the mo. All the personality has been drained out of them.

Strangely enough, I still want this..

Well of course! You're a kreku.

Ouch!

Still gonna rent it. I love racing games

Shame. I'd still like to play it myself though because my taste doesn't always run parallel to EG's...or most people's for that matter. Never really got in to Pure, for instance. Worth a try anyway...demo perchance?

It's also worth dwelling upon the memory of Evolution Studios' game - the first one anyway

I haven't come across many people that have played both games extensively and still insist the first is the better of the two. The opposite, if anything. They're both flawed, both feature track design that varies from average to utterly fantastic and are both a whole heap of fun. If anyone is still put off by EG's review (or the admittedly average demo) I'd go out and buy this instead of Fuel.

"Speaking to friends about Asobo Studios' FUEL..."

If it sounds like the start of a Tim Rogers review, then it sounds bad.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

I was /really/ looking forward to this :(

Stick to PURE, its brilliant! Oh and any chance of an Excite Bots review?

How eurogamer still get early review copies amazes me, "here have a free game, no doubt you'll give it a shit review, have it anyway"

'Rein it in.'

How many hours did it take you to type, Tom?

I'm still getting it because of it's huge world!

im not gonna pass judgment until i play it

i would also like to know how long the guy played it for to make that reveiw

Sounds like Powerslide crossed with 1nsane. I'll play it, but that's mainly because I'm a sucker for racing games.

5?... FIVE???... auch!!

DIRT and GRID were letdowns for me but I expected FUEL to be better - FOOLs!

this is what happens when you start your game design by "fixing" the "problems" that idiots kept complaining were in burnout paradise. reset to track?

i was looking forward to this too. in the end it seems, this review has simply made me want to go back and play burnout again from scratch. never compromise.

I noticed the review says that you can "hook up online". I'd originally assumed that this game was similar to TDU i.e. provided that you were connected to the net the game would be populated with other players even if you were playing the offline races. Is this the case now?

I was watching some video clips of this yesterday wondering if this was going to be worth having. Thank you Tom, answered that question for me, back to Motor Storm....and a bit of Grid.


I just forgot, TDU is sat on shelf. I really liked that, time for some driving bliss.

This is one for the bargan bin, I think. I find the idea of the game a little too interesting to resist entirely.

They've certainly done the most they (legally) can to copy the PURE box art.

Dammit I wanted this to be good!

Fuelish Asbo (sic) Studios, you've run out of gas! But really, why make such a vast game environment and then not put anything to do in it?

MOTORSTOOOOAARM!

I KNEW this game was going to be shit. I was saying at work yesterday that the game was meant to be out yesterday and yet there were no reviews (even though it had been delayed by a week a couple of days earlier).

Not surprising. The early videos showing the landscapes had promise, the latest videos showing the racing made it look completely unremarkable. Shame.

oh dear that's bad! was looking forward to this...

Is it me or has the quality of XBOX 360 games gone downhill this year???

Ugh, enough with all this Codemasters hate, they didn't even bloody develop this one and GRID got high scores pretty much everywhere, Toca elitists need to stop bloody moaning.

Not too surprising there's no demo for this one then if it's not up to much.

"Is it me or has the quality of XBOX 360 games gone downhill this year??? "

This is a MULTIPLATFORM game!!!

Codemasters is one of the worst publisher on earth. Can't believe why they'r still open for business..

I just bought PURE, and have to say i am glad i didnt hold out for this!

PURE is just so much silly fun its great :P

better than darkfall?

8/10 OPSM
7/10 OXM
4/5 Guardian
4/5 Times

GRID is a word for all things good in the world

to be fair, as much as i like DiRT and grid GRID, its this extreme racing/americanisation that is responsible for the slide in quailty .
You can never beat the thrill of hairin' it through a narrow english country lane in Colin McRae 1. RIP fella. At least this shite no longer tarnishes your name!

Awwwww

@thebaron,

There are Xbox 360 games this year?

In summary then:

BANG! Metal guitars! KAPOW! Multiplayer! WHIZZwooooooo! AMERICAN LOUDNESS!

Oh, and there's also some crappy racing.


Stop making 'extreme' american shite and make racing games again please.

@linkster - Yes, EG are harsh with their reviews, so much so, that at times I think that they must try so hard to write them that they forget games are meant to be fun. After all they gave X-Men Origins: Wolverine just 5/10 and pretty much everyone else seems to rate it higher, even Edge gave it a 6 and it averages 73%+ on Metacritic and GameRankings.

Then I sensibly remember that EG reviewers are just ordinary people like us who just have different tastes and standards so while the criticisms can be considered objective (if the review is well-written and balanced), the score at the end is always subjective because despite those niggles and flaws you may actually like the game. It really depends on your tolerance for such things and how much you like the genre really. I absolutely love Wolverine for example, it's one of the best movie-licensed games I've played in ages (not counting Riddick: Dark Athena as that's really a spruced up remake) and would give it a solid 7/10 myself. Yes, it can be repetitive and it's not the most polished game around but that's true of any game in any genre and that game at least manages to keep things interesting right to the very end with new enemy types and skills/mutagen upgrades. It makes exceptional use of the license and is actually far better than the movie it's actually based on. A rarity indeed! :)

Anyway, I tend to view EG's scores as a "de minimis" limit so if a game gets 5/10 or higher and scores better elsewhere plus the demo is entertaining *and* it's a genre that interests me then it's a worthy purchase IMO. After all if I only took EG's word on games then I'd have missed out on gems like Banjo-Kazooie XBLA and the aforementioned Wolverine.

/waits for EG to give Virtua Tennis 2009 5/10...

Codies are long past their prime.

Now do yourselves a favour and release Toca World Touring Car in the PSP store, it was the last good game you ever made.

Much pre-release hype and promising previews on Eurogamer, and then a 5/10 review. Weird.

Anyway, still sounds like something fun to pick up in the bargain bin. I don't give a damn about racing mechanics.

And yet people STILL talk like this is a terribly low harsh score. It's average! Not great, not terrible either. Why can't people see that :(

@ Darren

Fair points all. But Tom's review I think goes further than is really necessary in kicking a game that should be lauded for the ambition it shows. Criticising the fact that in an open world game of unprecedented scale there is an OPTION to play it in a structured way that means you dont HAVE to drive everywhere is baffling - obviously its there to cater for different types of players. Similarly to say the world isn't worth exploring is beyond even the harshest criticism I could imagine. The game is far from perfect, but the other reviews so far have been fair. This IMO isn't a fair assessment, and that's a shame.

I've just watched a couple of the FUEL gameplay videos and I was very impressed with the engine. Love the race with the twister and I understand the game has a large variety of environments and weather conditions, always a good thing in a racing game. Only the obligatory excess of screen tearing marred the visuals but that can easily be fixed by purchasing the cheaper PC version. I'm going to keep my eyes on the other review scores because this is a game that interests me a lot. Looks a lot of fun in the videos...