Fuel

Rating Everyone Genre racing Publisher Codemasters External Links Buy Fuel on PS3

Setting the world record for the largest sandbox area in a racing video game, Fuel lets players drive muscle cars, ATVs, Dirt Bikes, and more through various terrain and weather.  Drivers can complete the various races and challenges to further their career, or take a Sunday drive down the countless roads and paths in free ride mode.  Players are offered an array of customizable features, yet these cannot make up for the lack of intriguing game play.

Within the 5,000 square miles of driving, players will see a wide range of beautiful scenery.  Beach areas and hidden dirt paths make riding around on dirt bikes and ATVs fun, and swerving around cars and trees on highways bring out some unique customized muscle cars.  Overall, the graphics of the vehicles and terrain are sharp and satisfying.  From distant shots of rolling hills in the sunset to the kinks and scratches on your dirt bike, Fuel is a visually pleasing game.  With so much space to ride around, this visual element of the game is welcomed and necessary.  Weather ranging from sunny days to violent night storms give familiar terrain a slightly new twist on game play.

The controls are fluid and simple, making it easy for any level of gamer to pick up a controller and drive.  The vehicles are responsive and handle well, though the realism of hitting objects and other racing details fall short of other racing games.  Players can quickly jump between muscle cars and dirt bikes, allowing them to complete the numerous challenges in each section of the map.  Furthering your career through wins and hidden items, players earn fuel, which is used as currency, to open up another chunk of the expansive map and earn more unlocked items.  Players are given a lot of items and customizable features, which adds some variety.  With this, Fuel shows their depth of items and breadth of range, yet fall short of making a completely successful game.



The seamless transition from one vehicle to another breeds monotonous game play.  It is certainly easier for players to keep racing if they can quickly go from one race and vehicle to the next.  However, this makes for familiar game play after the first few races.  The variation of terrain and weather keeps things interesting for a while longer, but the intriguing elements of the game fade well before you visit all 5,000 square miles.  Perhaps giving each vehicle different controls and overall feel would force players to figure out each vehicle and bring new elements to each race.  Without this, the races become a task, rather than an achievement worth spending time to accomplish.

Because Fuel is a single player game, players can also head online to find races.  This will most likely be tested before you get any where near finishing the game, since there are a lot of tasks to accomplish before you see the entirety of the sandbox area.  These races can be enjoyable, since you can test your skills against other players and check out the customizations they have on their vehicles.

Fuel is a fun racing game.  There are a lot of features and driving locations offered to players.  The difficulty Fuel has stems from keeping players interested and invested long enough for them to see all they have offered to their customers.  Most will fall short of playing around in the entire sandbox, but for fun racing and some beautiful scenery, Fuel is a quality rentable choice.