Imagine a future in which the world has run out of oil. No more petrol. No more lubrication. And worst of all no more plastics – Kinder Eggs would be all but redundant. Frontlines: Fuel Of War puts you in the shoes of an anonymous member of a special forces unit called the Stray Dogs, who themselves are a part of the military might of the Western Coalition – one of two opposing forces squabbling over the last of the world’s fossil fuels. The other, an amalgam of the former USSR and China known as the Red Star Alliance, helpfully show up to the battlefield to give you something to shoot at.

The titular frontline is a reference to the overarching gameplay mechanic. As in real war, an imaginary line, which in this case is represented by a less-thanimaginary border on your mini-map, exists between one force and the other, the object of each mission being to capture objectives and move the line back. In a system similar to Medal Of Honor: Airborne, you’ll be able to choose from anything between one and four different objectives to take on in whichever order you fancy. However ‘open world’ the system purports to be, though, such tricks can’t disguise that you’re essentially repeating the same task ad infinitum – get to the objective point, and either blow it up or stand around watching the ‘standing around gauge’ to capture it. For the first couple of missions it’s pretty good fun killing everything in sight and stealing their land. It’s an American tradition dating back to the Wild West, but within a couple of hours the endless repetition starts to grate at your enjoyment like Parmesan over too many carbonaras.

Like a certain sci-fi shooter of late last year, you’ll also have the chance to control vehicles, although, unlike Halo, there’s something missing. The handling of the tanks, choppers, APCs and so on is just that little bit the wrong side of fiddly, with a huge amount of accuracy required to make any progress. But, that’s not to say that this is a difficult game, quite the contrary. One of Frontlines’ biggest issues is its erratic difficulty curve, the game beginning at a pitch so facile that you can pretty much take out half the Red Star army using only your sidearm. But then, by the sixth mission or so, it unsubtly takes many more shots to kill each soldier – the sheer number of them becoming essentially overwhelming. It’s very difficult to tell if the AI is ramped up as you go but, to our eyes, they always seemed to be doing pretty much the same thing, just with more health, better weapons and greater numbers.

There’s always a reason why friendly AI is programmed in a particular way and we’re sure Kaos Studios would only be too happy to point out the clever stuff it has done with it, but we can only talk about it from the subjective viewpoint of the player. Because of the multiple objectives and the free will you’re afforded in attacking each, it’s very easy to confuse your allies. Without any system in place to tell your men what to do next, they have a tendency to always be a few steps behind, sometimes, rather comically, turning up at an objective after you’ve singlehandedly captured it, or, even more ineptly running past you to the objective you’ve just captured, while you’re already focusing on the next. And, while we’re whingeing like little girls, we also have to ask how difficult it can be to program friendly AI not to stand directly in your line of fire?

Being set ‘in the very near future’ has given Kaos Studios the opportunity to implement some near-future weapons. It’s all stuff that’s no doubt already in development by various militaries, although perhaps not quite yet in use. At various points in the game you’ll have the opportunity to use radio-controlled drones which come in two varieties: the flying ones that blow up, and the miniature tanks that act as a mobile turret. The first time you use them, you’ll have to storm a heavily fortified complex, using the heli-drones to enter a window and destroy the control console, thereby opening the gate. But apart from the point at which they’re introduced, we found no other point in the game where using your gun wasn’t the better option.

Visually, the game is on a par with early PC-ported releases such as Battlefield 2 – hardly surprising considering Kaos Studios’ involvement with the series. Essentially, if you’re looking for a pretty game, look elsewhere. The textures and lighting appearing functional at best and at worst, positively archaic. As much as we would never judge a gameplay experience purely on its graphics, such rough visuals certainly chip away at your level of immersion. This is a stark contrast to the sound design, though, which is nothing short of stunning. A staggering amount of work is apparent, from its Hollywood-quality score to all of the bangs, pops and whizzes of war.

Frontlines is not devoid of fun, but there are too many issues to make the single-player experience worth your money – perhaps because of the game’s apparent focus on multiplayer mechanics. Being completely fair to Frontlines: Fuel Of War means an online review, plain and simple. And next month, we’ll be giving you exactly that.

Dan Howdle