[360] Frontlines: Fuel of War Multiplayer Demo!

[The Chupster]

Demo is on Live now, supporting up to 32 players! 1.11 gb, and you can bet I'll be jumping in there after I get home. Or maybe after I get some sleep.

[The Chupster]

Yeah, I'm definitely getting this one.

First off- it's a slow download. Like, 2 hours. 1.11 gb. I'm imagining everyone's downloading it, so y'know. But definitely get it in one go- I interrupted it this morning by playing some Burnout Paradise and the download stopped, and when I tried to play, I had all SORTS of hell. Finally it gave up and just started giving me a "disk can't be read" error, and I was like, what fucking disk? There's nothing in there, bitch!

That said.

To draw the most obvious comparison, Frontlines: Fuel of War multiplayer plays a lot like a game of Call of Duty 4's Domination mode- but on a HUGE scale. As I've mentioned before, the prime objective is to capture strategic points to push your opponent's frontline back. This provides you with additional spawning points, and naturally gives you advantages- like nearby vehicles and the like.

In this demo, 2 maps appear to be playable: Oil Fields and Streets. Streets has no vehicles- it's a war-torn metropolis with a main drag and several side streets to fight along. As I started playing this one, there were only a handful of us playing, but before I knew it there were ten of us trying to make our way through torn side streets to flank the enemy's main position.

It got insane pretty quick. In this game, unlike Call of Duty, you choose a class, but there's no progression past the single game. You start off with one perk and a couple of weapons, and earn more the better you do. I actually won both matches I played on this map (10 minute time limit), coming out solidly on top both times, with the Assault class and ground support perks. Soon I was running around setting up minicannon emplacements and blowing the shit out of the enemy, and later throwing around automated cannons that decimated the bad guys.

My only complaint was that it was pretty easy to spawn camp. I found the red team's main spawn point after they were pushed back all the way, jumped on top of a nearby truck after sniping off the lone defender, and proceeded to pick off 5 people that spawned before someone got me.

With the time limit, just like in Call of Duty 4, the more spawn points you get, the more points you constantly earn. We edged by the red team the first match, but the second one, we pasted the shit out of them.


The Oil Fields map is huge, open, and FILLED with vehicles. Tanks, jeeps with cannons, helicopters- you name it. Unfortunately I started with a Covert class, and soon I was climbing to the top of a massive factory tower, attempting to take down a helicopter. While I drove him off- only because he retreated for whatever reason- it was cool that from my vantage point, I was actually standing ABOVE the copter, shooting down at it, and it was by no means near the ground. Very, very cool.


As for the gameplay- again, to compare, I'll use CoD4- the controls are NOT as tight. They're more than sufficient, but they just seem a tad looser than Call of Duty's award-winning gameplay. However, at times they seem more responsive- I was able to whirl about and pick off would-be ambushers with ease. Throwing grenades takes some practice, and if you're used to the CoD4 or Halo 3 setups, a few buttons will throw you off for a bit, such as using the left bumper to reload. But soon, it's second nature and you're blowing the hell out of people.

Driving vehicles and automated drones is a snap, once you get used to it. They handle differently, but again- you just have to get used to it, like any game.

Overall, it's awesome. It may not have a lot of different modes and whatnot, but between the single- and multiplayer demos, I can definitely say that the single-player mode presents a less story-driven but more engaging, more combative feel to it, and the multiplayer takes one game mode from Call of Duty's playbook and pumps it so full of steroids that you'll shit yourself.

Give it a try, see what you think. Can't hurt to download demos after all, and the multiplayer demo is out for a limited time- probably just until the game comes out in about a week and a half. So go get it!!!