Review of FUEL

FUEL quick Review (progress: 2nd base unlocked)

VEHICLES: 8/10 The handling is good, but the motorcycles are the most responsive. The emergency brake is effective and useful. When the stats show a vehicle is meant for offroad or asphalt, it's true. A road vehicle will struggle offroad, but as soon as it hits the road, acceleration kicks in as well as better handling. As you continue to unlock and buy more vehicles with Fuel points, you'll notice faster, better handling vehicles start showing up compared to the slow ones at the start. Overall, responsive controls, nice enough physics and plenty of interaction with the environment with varying terrain and jumps. You start the game with a free ride choice of a buggie or a dirtbike, and can quickly earn an ATV and car on the first zone. Finish the first zone, and 21 vehicles or so will be available to buy with your Fuel dollars, including Monster trucks, new motorcycles, buggies, ATV's and cars. Very nice.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10 For the fastest progress, use the MENU and win the 3 races on Rookie, then jump into the Challenges and complete them. Each time you win first, you get Fuel Credits (and Fuel dollars). The credits offer access to the next Shack Base on the giant map. Unlocking new rides is a highlight of the game.

RACES: 8/10 So far, they're the most enjoyable part of the game. The competition does seem to get a fast start, but you'll catch up fairly quickly, where after that, you can take the lead. Rookie mode is very forgiving, Expert is average difficulty and Pro is tough. The guide arrows are a big help. The biggest complaint? You can't pick your ride (so far anyway).

CHALLENGES: 7/10 Chase the Helicopter is fun, along with a few others, except for the Blitz/CHECKPOINT race, which for whatever reason, they barely give you enough time to work with on the clock. Took plenty of retries to win. No option to change difficulty in Challenges.

GAMEWORLD MAP: 9/10 Enormous. If you're just going to explore, it will take a long time as the reviewer said it would. You can go anywhere in the entire game right from the start in free ride, but you won't be able to unlock any checkpoints or rewards really until you win races and challenges.
You can pick a dirtbike or Dune Buggie from the start of the game and just explore. The terrain to cover gradually changes as you progress, offering new visuals from deserts, waterfronts, mountains, snow, thick forests, wastelands, winding roads, plains and more. The game is seriously massive in scale.

REWARDS: 9/10 Winning races/challenges and reaching new checkpoints in your local zone that you've already unlocked will earn you Fuel points which are needed to unlock new base/shack zones with new races and challenges, Fuel Dollars, to buy new rides that are unlocked by winning enough times, and gear for your rider. The rider gear and paint for your rides is a nice touch that could've been overlooked, but wasn't. It's not very in-depth in customization like Midnight Club, but it's welcome nonetheless. The new rides are affordable and a noticeable improvement on the first set of rides.

CAMERAS: 7/10 Three cameras to click through while riding, the default being the most advantageous during racing, since it gives you a better view of the action. But for exploration, the up close 2nd camera is very nice, really showcasing the detail of your rider and vehicle, bringing you closer to the action. The third view is first person, which is solid and looks even better when you see your vehicle shadow, giving you the sense you're almost in the vehicle, but really, this game should have also included an INTERIOR DASH VIEW, to really get the sense you're inside a vehicle instead of looking at a remote control toy. Overall, good camera views to experience the game world with.

OPTIONS: 4/10 There needs to be more options. You can't map the layout of your controls, there's no way to adjust the day/night cycle or set the time of day in free ride, but thankfully, you can adjust the sound, HUD displays, and a few other minor options for the game.

DAY/NIGHT CYCLE: 5/10 Count 12 minutes of daytime, then realize the entire world takes well over 3 hours or so just to reach the other end. That means every 12 minutes you're riding in moonlight darkness, missing all the scenery during exploration. During races, it's automatically set, which is fine. There seriously needs to be a way to set Constant DAY TIME, Constant Night time, or DUSK/DAWN at the very least to really enjoy what scenery this game is offering. At night, all the details are neglected but for your headlight view.

MULTIPLAYER ONLINE: Unfortunately, I haven't played it online yet, but hear it's good.

GRAPHICS: 7/10 The first time I plugged the game in, the gritty look to the graphics, which appear a bit sharp with very high contrast, didn't appeal to me right away. Night time reminded me of a PS2 game at times, a bit oversaturated and flat looking, but the daytime graphics, once you get used to the high sharpness level, are pretty good for such a giant game world. Just don't expect the detail and realism of DIRT or GRID, which are really refined graphically. Good graphics during the daytime overall. The vehicles look nice, with mud building up if you hit the wet dirt. Characters really can be seen best when riding the motorcycle.

SOUND: 7/10 The vehicles each have a unique engine sound, but once you hit top speed, the constant tone seems a bit dull after awhile. Overall though, the engines sound realistic. Some wind can be heard, with crickets at night. Impacting the ground uses the same thud each time it seems, but I still have much more to discover.

OVERALL: 8/10 The racing isn't revolutionary, but it's fun in an ATV OFFROAD FURY kind of way and is enjoyable. The scale of the map world delivers and offers plenty of variety if you have the patience to explore it, but I suggest playing the races first to see what the game can offer in terms of gameplay and fun. I still have to find a city to explore, as the game is enormous. It was a bit dull before starting the races, but now that I'm finally making progress unlocking new rides, outfits and reaching new checkpoints to new races, the game is fun. Give it enough play time to unlock new rides and you may enjoy it despite the harsh reviews.



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