Product Description

From the publishers of 'Colin McRae: DiRT' and 'Race Driver: Grid' comes a revolution in multi-terrain racing and featuring the biggest racing environment ever created. Born of Asobo Studios' cutting-edge proprietary engine that has benefited from over four years of development, Fuel will present players with an astonishing no-boundaries playfield that's over 5,000 square miles (14,000+ km) in size.

With environmental detail inspired by America's most incredible landscapes, Fuel will be the ultimate competitive go-anywhere racing experience. Fuel will have players competing across wildly different terrain from deep snow to open wilderness and arid river-beds, and executing spectacular death-defying stunts as they race and explore this epic world on an unprecedented scale.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1533 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Codemasters
• Released on: 2009-06-05
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Format: Unknown format
• Dimensions: .29 pounds

Features

• In stock, Next day super fast delivery from London warehouse!!

Customer Reviews

Good all-around road and offroad racer
If you look at ratings for this game all over the Internet, you'll find an average mark of 6.5/10. I think this game deserves a little better because most reviewers insist on little glitches which don't really spoil the experience.

Fuel has a good lifespan. Online races with friends are really excellent. I didn't encounter any lag. Graphics are pretty good and weather effects really do much for atmosphere.

As far as driving mechanics are concerned, they're better in my opinion than those of Motorstorm which I think are too fancy and unrealistic (unlimited turbo anyone?). There are six classes of vehicles and they handle pretty differently. They all differ in terms of handling, grip, braking power, resistance and so on. The ground you're driving on is also quite important and cars and motorcycles will react in a very different way depending on its nature.

Overall, you get the best taste of Fuel taking your time: it is not a game for someone in a rush. Unlocking the faster vehicles takes a little time but it's worthwhile. Fuel is not a simulation game either but driving the faster vehicles with the first-person view (yes, THERE IS ONE - obviously game testers don't do a thourough job anymore) requires some amount of skill and attention. I particularly enjoy the quad vehicles: they simply feel great.

The only thing I regret is the lack of offline multiplayer. Likewise, if you don't have your PS3 connected to the Internet, you're likely to miss out a big part of the fun Fuel can provide.

Calling it 'average' is a compliment.
In recent times, Codemasters racing games have been nothing short of epic, with amazing new features, wowing us all with their polished graphics. Sadly Fuel doesn't bring anything new or exciting to the racing game genre. Yes, the map is endless and I admire that, but far too much focus has been poured into this frankly irrelevant creation. It's all well and good going for 'the largest ever playable area in a video game' but it has no substance, mile after mile of baron wasteland. I personally would not mind this so much if it weren't for the 6th generation visuals. The second rate graphics are dull and lifeless and don't even compare to the quality of design in GRiD and DiRT.
Even horribly basic errors have been made, i.e. being able to drive through some buildings and other solid objects. The racing itself feels dull and spectacularly uninvolving, and very frustrating when coming to the end of a race, your steering fails you or the car refuses to automatically change down a gear, so your competitors overtake and you need to do the race over and over again. The lack of storyline is probably the least of this game's worries.
The whole idea of 'open-world' (or GTA clone) games is becoming tiresome, especially requiring to discover 500 oil barrels throughout the 14,000km square map, which is frankly ridiculous and lets be brutally honest, boring. As for the other challenges, chase the helicopter is quite involving but doesn't really prove to be much of a 'challenge', vista-points would work if the graphics proved to be worthy of the Xbox 360s potential. With the collectables, such as liveries and clothing, I feel no urge to do so as it deems itself pointless, yet such a key challenge in completing the game.
In summary, the background idea of the game was, in theory, very good, but Asobo and Codemasters have really not applied it in the best manner. The weather conditions are good, but not as good as promised in the pre-release trailers etc. The visuals are not up to current standard and fall way short of Codemasters previous releases, the challenges seem repetitive and unnecessary, and overall is generally dull. I've given the game 3 stars as it reflects the game perfectly. Average. That itself a compliment.

Disappointing
I'll keep this short: Fuel is a bit disappointing.
The bad things:
- There's no real atmosphere or passion. You never get to hear about your opponents or feel that they are challenging you. It's just a bunch of vehicles buzzing around the countryside
- Handling is ok but nothing special. You don't get that "wow I just made a great move" feeling that you get from some games
- There's no nitro/boost, tricks, ways of sabotaging your opponents. All very vanilla, standard racing
- Graphics are very ordinary, they feel a little last-generation
- The menus are confusing. It's easy to get lost in them and I stuggled at times to figure out how to get a race going - the "start race" was greyed out for every race
- The option to explore the landscape without racing is ok but a little boring. And when you do finally find a challenge you almost always don't have the correct vehicle to actually take part in the race
- There's no "look behind" or "View replay" option
- It gets a bit repetitive
- The "post-apocalyptic offroad racing" thing has been done many, many times before. I think Fuel struggles to compete with existing games in this genre

The good things:
- The signature feature is pretty cool ie the large open landscape
- Racing can be fun at times when races are close

It's not a terrible game. It's just not that great. And for a full-price game I'm expecting a little more than this. Especially from Codemasters.