This month saw the release of Fuel, a racing game for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles from Codemasters. The hype was big. But was it worth it?
Fuel, the press release told me, was built on ground-breaking technology to give the game a huge world of “atmospheric beauty and awe-inspiring size fully open to race and explore. There is 5,000 square miles of game world to explore, making it the ‘biggest game ever made’.
This unprecedented racing playground features dramatic weather effects, including tornados, blizzards, sandstorms and lightning, a full day / night cycle and enormous environmental diversity, from the snow-capped dormant volcano Mount Rainier to the arid Grand Canyon and everything in between.”
Fuel allows gamers to pick and choose their route, races and career progression while extensive multiplayer options allow up to 16 players to race against each other in pre-set events, explore the world in free ride or create their own challenges and share them online.
It includes a wealth of over 70+ quads, trucks, bikes, cars and even hovercrafts that race across both land and water to choose from. But is a wide range of vehicles, terrains and race tracks enough for an arcade style racing game in 2009?
Like a lot of other gamers, I was really getting quite excited about the release of Fuel. After all, Codemasters know their stuff right? Unfortunately, Fuel may look great, and may offer you more race track and vehicles than other racing games. But frankly, that’s not enough. And after the initial buzz of excitement Fuel falls well short and fails to deliver.
You can play Fuel in two different game approaches: Free Ride and Career and Challenges.
Free Ride is very similar to the Freeburn gameplay in Burnout Paradise. Unfortunately, the similarities with Burnout Paradise don’t stop there.
Fuel: screenshot
The game’s Career and Challenges mode allows a player to fast-track to the beginning of an event without having to travel between each race. The main emphasis of the game is career events and the challenges offer extra interest level as missions. Unfortunately, most of the Career and Challenge events are simple standard races against a grid of 8 other opponents.
Similar to Burnout Paradise, your progress in the Career and Challenges unlocks more vehicles.
Fuel is an exciting game filled with 72 career events, 196 challenges and a vast land available to roam freely in freeride where you can collect oil drums, liveries and vista points.
On a more positive note, Fuel has online multiplayer races for up to 16 players.
Furthermore, the game comes with a race creator that allows players to design checkpoint races and can form part of the endurance challenges. Competing online with up to 15 other players is Fuel’s best point. Though I’m not sure the gameplay is going to keep anyone’s interest for too long.
In conclusion I would say if you haven’t already got a racing game for your PS3 or Xbox 360 then you will possibly enjoy Fuel enough to warrant a purchase. However, if like me you were hoping it would be an improvement on what I already have, think again.
Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were once again on stage together at the launch of The Beatles Rock Band game.
Paul and Ringo were joined by John Lennon and George Harrison’s widows, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, at the E3 Electronic Entertainment expo in Los Angeles.
The Beatles: Rock Band is a take on the popluar Guitar Hero computer game. The game allows gamers to play along to their favourite songs using controllers which mimic the Fab Four’s instruments. I’m not sure how many gamers have even heard of The Beatles, let alone want to plat along with hits from the sixties!
The Beatles Rock Band game could start family feuds as teenagers all over the world complain about how parents are wasting too much of thier life playing computer games!
Ringo Starr said: “The game is good, the graphics are very good and we were great.”
Paul McCartney added: “We love the game. We think it’s fantastic. Who’d have ever thought we’d end up as androids.”
The game has been developed by Harmonix, the makers of the Rock Band game series.
Rapid Turtle Games have released Space Falcon Commander, a classic arcade shoot ‘em up game for the iPhone and iPod.
Space Falcon Commander is a vertical scrolling shoot ‘em up game featuring 3D graphics, wide range of explosions and visual effects, high quality music and sound effects, lots of bonuses and power-ups.
The player is in the role of an elite commander controlling an advanced space fighter: the Space Falcon. They must stand as one-against-many strange aliens, mini-bosses and big bosses invading the universe in more than 45 levels. It’s a simple plot of the game, but it is made with gameplay as the most important factor in mind.
Space Falcon Commander offers great arcade fun, adrenalin pumping action and online “Hall of Fame” where players can compete against other Space Falcon Commander players around the world!
Space Falcon Commander Features:
More than 45 levels giving hours of playtime
Beautiful 3D graphics with wide range of explosions and visual effects
High quality music and sound effects
Many different aliens, big bosses and dozens of mini-bosses
Wide range of power-ups, special weapons and bonuses
High score saving and online high scores submission
Easy to learn but hard to put away gameplay
Available in languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch and Hungarian
Space Falcon Commander is published by Chillingo now available for the iPhone and iPod touch and costs $0.99.
This won’t be as long a piece as this announcement deserves I’m afraid – I’m absolutely shattered, but I shall do my best to cover the bare bones of the story. You can read more about it here.
OnLive is a technology some seven years in the making that promises to do for gaming what cloud computing is doing for work and offices. The idea is simple, but already enough to get doubters complaining it will never work: in essence, instead of playing the game through your console or PC, you play it on a server many miles away, and a video feed comes back to your screen making it feel like it’s in the same room. If successful, it would mean that any PC – even several year old models – could run the latest games like Crysis with the top end graphic settings enabled, as all they would be doing is playing the video feed.
Just think of all the advantages: no more installation required, no more online cheaters, no more waiting to try demos, no more needing to upgrade, and most importantly for publishers: no more piracy. This is why OnLive has already attracted support from big names like EA, Epic and Take Two. No sign of Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony though – that’s to be expected from a box that could challenge their console share.
Because for what it is, OnLive is said to be very cheap indeed. It’ll be a subscription service that undercuts Xbox Live in terms of costs. All you’ll need is a computer or TV set and a broadband connection – 1.5mbps for Standard Definiton TVs and 5.5mbps for high definition. Can it be done? We’ll have to wait and see how it fares with millions of users, rather than the handful of beta testers but if it does, it will dramatically change the gaming landscape forever.
We’ll find out before the end of the year. Exciting times.
