Gaming Frontlines: Fuel of War

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2008/..._fuel_of_war/1

Developed by Kaos Studios, Frontlines is a classic rags to riches kind of tale. But can this multiplayer shooter from the makers of the Battlefield 2: Desert Combat mod get us up to full throttle, or is it just running on empty? Find out within!

[wuyanxu]

you forgot to mention that on 8800GTX or Ultra, you are required to lower/turn off foliage. otherwise the game will pause for 1s every 5 seconds all so.

try turn that off on your x6800+8800Ultra rig.

[Bluephoenix]

the review seems to be a bit biased, or at least thats the impression thats given.

normally I wouldn't point something like this out, because everyone is to some extent, but it really seemed like preconceptions played too great a hand in writing this.

sorry joe, don't take it as bashing, just helpful criticism.


on the subject of the game itself, it is actually a very good game and does what its supposed to very well

the only three games that play in the same sandbox as frontlines (vehicle and infantry based team-shooter) are BF2, BF2142, and ET:QW this really seems to be a spiritual successor to BF2 and I think given time, a good deal of BF2's server population will latch onto this game as well.

[CardJoe]

I certainly didn't approach the review with any particular bias - prior to my preview a few months back I hadn't really heard of the game anyway. I stand by my conclusion that the game, while not flawed per se, doesn't really stand out massively, but I'd be interested in hearing more of your feedback. PM or email me if you want to discuss it further.

[Gunsmith]

i tried it the otherday having heard nothing about it, i wasnt all that impressed to be honest, it just...didnt feel right

[iwog]

So, what’s wrong with the multiplayer then? Well, to be honest, it just feels a little dull and plain. The levels are all interesting enough on paper, but in actual gameplay they very quickly get dull and the game artists don’t seem to have been comfortable with any other colour than brown.

See I had that feeling in during the beta and had kinda hoped that they'd fix it. Its an average game but the multiplayer feels slow and a bit clunky where you can spend 3 minutes running across the map to to take one shot to head and have to do it all over again.

I agree whole heartedly about the review but i have to ask about the scoring. If its an average game why does it get an above average score, surely 5/6 would have been more appropriate. But then again my view is kinda biased by the beta and i really dont like this game or think its as impressive as people make it out to be.

Originally Posted by Gunsmith

i tried it the other day having heard nothing about it, i wasnt all that impressed to be honest, it just...didnt feel right

My thoughts exactly.

[DXR_13KE]

the theme of it is very interesting.... and very probable in the future....

[aggies11]

A few Minor Corrections:

Desert Combat was a mod for BF1942.

The creators of the mod formed "Trauma" Studios, which was then bought by DICE and they did some early work on BF2. Sometime there after they left DICE to go out on their own and formed KAOS studios.

All in all I think the review is pretty agreeable (it too didn't' really "spark" for me). However I would like to see a bit more evaluative focus on multiplayer gameplay rather than just the standard descriptive one. How does it play, are kills rewarding, do they seem fair, unbalanced? Do matches last forever, end satisfactorily etc? Does it encourage teamwork, or are you just a lone wolf. How are the Squad systems, is VOIP support integrated well or at all? All the things that someone considering this game for multiplayer would probably be very interested in.

[Phil Rhodes]

What I don't get about the graphics in these games is that there is a lot of fog in the simulated atmosphere, and yet you can still see the clouds. For some reason, they don't fog the skybox. Yes, that's because the skybox then wouldn't be visible, but isn't that the entire point? You end up with distant, nearly-100%-fogged items stencilled out unconvincingly against the clouds. Whatever happened to overcast?

P

[CardJoe]

Originally Posted by iwog

I agree whole heartedly about the review but i have to ask about the scoring. If its an average game why does it get an above average score, surely 5/6 would have been more appropriate. But then again my view is kinda biased by the beta and i really dont like this game or think its as impressive as people make it out to be.

Well, I definitely make an effort to use the entire 1 - 10 range as you can see in past reviews. To me a 5/10 suggests a game that is a mixture of good and bad elements which leave the entire game entirely generic and forgettable. Here, that was true of the MP, but the SP I found rather enjoyable. The story, physics, drone technology and scope all worked to push my opinion up a little. The game is technically solid too - the main flaw is that the multiplayer doesn't do anything new. A 5/10 to me suggests a "mixed / reasonable" game, while a 7/10 is more a "favourable" review. 8/10 would indicate "notable", which Frontlines isn't.

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally Posted by aggies11

A few Minor Corrections:
Desert Combat was a mod for BF1942.

There was also a 'Desert Conflict' for BF2. Much in the same style of the 42 mod. But it seems it wasn't related to Kaos, more of a tribute.

[Siskodata]

I have been reading reviews of software and hardware every day here at bit-tech for the last 3 years. It has been bit-tech that influenced my choice of hardware on my present rig. This is the first time that I want to comment on a review and I hate being negative but this review is very shallow and very inaccurate.
First of as aggies11 stated KAOS aren’t newcomers to the industry and the author should at least have checked the info on KAOS’s history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Combat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_Studios
Second this game had to be a Battlefield killer but it failed mainly because of the Unreal engine used in the game that limits this game in many ways. Size of maps and usage of vehicles are a few of the things that make this game inferior to the BF series. All in all it is a good infantry FPS with some vehicles thrown in for fun.
The game has some new ideas thrown in like the drones although these have already been seen on BF1942 mods like Forgotten Hope and Galactic Conquest. The most polished part of the game is how you advance on the frontline by capturing the flags (in a BF way of saying it). If you have both sides with good teams the frontline will move back and forward frequently and you can get caught behind enemy lines very often and therefore having to retreat back to capture the new frontline. The one thing that none of the Bf games has is the destructible environment. Although limited it is much better then in BF2 or even BF2142 that has no destructible environment. These are the features that are making me play the game.
The worst part of this squad based game is that the squad system is not comparable to the later BF games. It doesn’t exist. You join a squad and the only thing you can do is spawn on the squad leader that is it. The squad leader can issue orders but it is so cumbersome that it isn’t used. With the lack of VOIP and no easy way to communicate to your mates the squad base feature here is useless.
Last but not least there are the bugs with the server browser and these aren’t the usual bugs that almost all multiplayer games server browser have. I think it is the worst server browser I have ever seen. Lack of Joystick support (although on the box it is stated that the game has joystick support) and no 5.1 sound show that this game came out early before it was ever thoroughly finished.
Hope this was a constructive info on the game and article hope the author doesn’t get offended as it wasn’t my intention to do so. I just wanted to state my views on a game genre that I am passionate about. For further info visit the forum here:-
http://community.kaosstudios.com/showthread.php?t=6829
Thank You

[lewchenko]

The review, combined with siskodata's comments has told me everything I need to know. Im afraid I wont be buying this game. I invested over a hundred hours in BF2, and to me... that game was legend. I probably invested the same in 1942 and to a lesser extent 2142.

Whilst these games had there faults, they created an amazing community of players that wait with baited breath for the next installment.

So hopes were very high indeed for this game. It appears not to meet expectations. Did they skimp on PC features (like VOIP/Squad features) because extra effort was invested in the 360 as well (only a finite number of resources available) ?

Who knows.. but with Battlefield 3 due this summer I think (not confirmed at all though.. summer 09 more likely), there isnt long for a game like this to build a community.

BF2 would have been vastly more popular if more maps and mods had been released through official channels so that they can be accessed through ranked play.

[CowBlazed]

With the games publisher announcing game cuts and other problems right before the launch of this game, makes you wonder if they rushed it a bit more then they had planned.

[CardJoe]

Originally Posted by Siskodata

I have been reading reviews of software and hardware every day here at bit-tech for the last 3 years. It has been bit-tech that influenced my choice of hardware on my present rig. This is the first time that I want to comment on a review and I hate being negative but this review is very shallow and very inaccurate.
First of as aggies11 stated KAOS aren’t newcomers to the industry and the author should at least have checked the info on KAOS’s history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Combat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_Studios

Hello and welcome. I'm just about to correct the article to reflect it was a 1942 mod, not a BF2 mod - this was purely a mistake on my part. As for the inaccuracies you suggest about Trauma Studios versus Kaos Studios, I've laid it how it was explained to me at a preview by Luis Cataldi, Art Director for the game. I've not mentioned Trauma Studios explicitly deliberately to avoid confusion. The impression that Luis gave me was that Trauma was simply the name the modding group went under and wasn't really a professional studio in a true sense. Many of them were from the R&D team for the game, but many more were not. I've since checked these facts up and confirmed them as best I can right now. After the success of Trauma was noticed the team was put to work on aspects of Battlefield 2 - but they were by no means the leading team involved. Trauma was then shut down by DICE and the group formed Kaos. The team at Kaos is now drawn from a wide range of developers, but the impression I was given by Luis is that Kaos still considers itself very much a team made of gamers.

Pretty much everything else you point out about the game is your own personal opinion, much as the review is a reflection of mine and you do elaborate on a number of points I also make in the article. However, much of your opinion seems to be extrapolated from a preconception that the game is attempting to match or recreate the BF series - which isn't really the correct way to approach Frontlines I feel. Kaos knows BF inside and out - if they had wanted to recreate it they could have but instead they have tried to create a new game in the same genre. We both agree that this hasn't worked as well as they might have hoped, but to say the review is inaccurate is unjustified I feel as nought but the history of the developer was actually false as far as I can see - and even then only false by deliberate omission.

I appreciate your feedback and feel free to contact me directly if you want to go over it in more detail.

[HitmanAdski]

It wasn't a bad game in fact it's good but in my honest opinion it feels like one of those copy games that I'm getting sick of to be honest. I think you hit the nail on the head with the first line of the conclusion btw.

P.S. They don't make games like they used too, it's rare to find a game that clings like CS BF2 or my current fav Company of Heroes (which they made the Allies too OP argggg!!!.... sorry) it just feels like another copy game :'( or maybe that's just me getting older and demanding more... although Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures looks sweet.

[Bladestorm]

Imho, the main reason pro gamers minimize detail isn't neccessarily to max out frame rates as much as it is to remove as much potentially distracting world detail as possible to make player characters and basic geometry stand out.

EG it will be slightly faster to spot and shoot a player who is stood in a bland grey box, compared to one in a room with glowing/shiny/highly detailed walls. Or to shoot a player stood on a flat green plain, instead of one stood on a detailed grassland with bushes spread across it.

[Siskodata]

CardJoe

First of all thank you for your response which I found constructive and explained a lot about the reasons why you omitted the BF2 involvement of members of the KAOS team. Although in numerous interviews they have state from where KAOS was coming and that plus some similarities to the BF type of game that gave me and many fans of BF the preconception that this had to be a BF competing game. When choosing a product it is normal that you compare it with a similar one.

I agree also that opinions are opinions and vary from gamer to gamer but I also stated important facts that a modern game such as this should have like VOIP, 5.1 sound and joystick support as it is stated on the box.

Finally I agree with what you said that you (seeing KAOS’s history) would have expected more from KAOS on this game. Although SP is very good but today gamers look more for the MP part and as you say MP fails to deliver.

[iwog]

Originally Posted by CardJoe

Well, I definitely make an effort to use the entire 1 - 10 range as you can see in past reviews. To me a 5/10 suggests a game that is a mixture of good and bad elements which leave the entire game entirely generic and forgettable. Here, that was true of the MP, but the SP I found rather enjoyable. The story, physics, drone technology and scope all worked to push my opinion up a little. The game is technically solid too - the main flaw is that the multiplayer doesn't do anything new. A 5/10 to me suggests a "mixed / reasonable" game, while a 7/10 is more a "favourable" review. 8/10 would indicate "notable", which Frontlines isn't.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, i haven't played the single player only the multiplayer and so was basing my view on that. To me the multiplayer felt broken where long slow treks across the battlefield were met with sudden death from an enemy which you had no idea was hiding anywhere near you. Whilst this is realistic its not fun. However i thought Frontlines was being marketed as a multiplayer game much like ET:QW and UT3 where the single player campaign was tacked on to to provide some offline enjoyment.

[outlawaol]

I was part of the beta (yes, beta rules apply) but I didnt get a great feeling from the game either. The remote controlled vehicles where sweet, no doubt. I couldnt play it anymore cause it felt like a glorified version of BF2142.

I dont think I'll be touching this one for awile. I'll stick to COD4 as your weapons actually do damage (and are aimable).