Fuel

The game world of Fuel is very large, … but sadly nothing more. The scenery becomes boring after a short time. There are some pros like the assortment of many different vehicles, but on the whole the game lacks soul.

FUEL has a ton of potential, and moments of brilliance stashed under its rough exterior. The problems are hard to ignore though, and unless you have a ton of time to dedicate to it, the races will likely grow boring long before you uncover half of this massive world.

FUEL didn’t meet its goal. Actually it went quite far from what Codemasters had promised. Although it is evident that the dev team has put a lot of effort in creating an innovative and fresh concept, and has produced a vast free-roamable terrain of proven technical quality, some unfortunate gameplay solutions and a improvable AI have mined the overall experience.

The complete lack of boundaries means it's a totally unique challenge, in which standard racing skills often need to be thrown out of the window. Despite this, with such exciting technology at its core, we can't help but hope that Asobo gets another roll of the dice to create something truly, and consistently astonishing. [June 2009, p.84]

Fuel is without a doubt a complete game, that thanks to the numerous unlockable areas, cars, challenges and so on, reaches an enviable longevity. Unfortunately the gameplay lacks all the functionality typical of the competition, and there are some techincal issues that ruin the overall score. Fuel is a game for all arcade-off-road racing games, but beware as you won't find the dynamism of Motorstorm nor the attention to detail of Pure, but a different game, with good free-roaming gameplay.

Fuel scores marks for its awesome, appropriately used open world but loses them for the lamely executed driving mechanics and offensively common load screens.

FUEL is a huge project but never quite fulfills its potential. The game lacks polish and style, and the overwhelmingly enormous world is too lifeless to keep you entertained. Thus, FUEL never manages to impress, making it nothing more than an average off road-racer inferior to competitors like Pure and Motorstorm.

Those who have followed the development of Fuel will be disappointed with the final result, while those who know nothing about its scope will find an enjoyable but at the same time unremarkable game.

It's simple to get into, it looks good and at the end of the day it provides some incredibly good racing action. Purists will hate it, but those who just want to have a laugh without worrying about hardcore racing simulation will enjoy Fuel for what it is.

Quotation forthcoming.

FUEL is a very good addition to open world and off-road racing genres. But despite the overall enjoyment I got from the game, I can’t help but feel that it lacks the competitive elements that have enabled so many racing games to succeed.

FUEL is a huge game in every sense of the word, but all too often the quality just can't match the quantity.

Every fibre in every single bone of my body wanted to love FUEL. I’m a bit of a sandbox junkie truth be told, but even the huge open-world with diverse environments wasn’t enough to divert my attention from the game’s nagging design faults. With a pretty poor GPS, unbalanced difficulty scale, terrible opponent AI and average visuals, FUEL is left on a par with mediocrity.

Most people will probably wade through the list of career races and challenges but only the most dedicated (or bored) gamers will ever have the desire to fully explore this enormous game world to unlock the secrets it contains.

Motorstorm who has gone post-apocalyptic, thats the best way to describe Fuel. It´s not quite as good as the first Motorstorm and it has some really annoying flying arrows, but it´s still a good game. At least while we´re waiting for Motorstorm 3.

Only frantic devotees of racing games/loading screens could justify this over the competition. [July 2009, p.115]

This expansive arcade racer may be ambitious, but it doesn't nail all of the basics.

A waste of a wonderful idea. It's vast - but inferior to most other racers. [Aug 2009, p.78]

A cool-looking racing game that ultimately crumbles under the weight of its own slow pace.

Everything else about the game is completely lackluster, and even driving around the open map, the high point of the game, gets tedious after a while.

Again, Fuel is just a poor game no matter how you try and look at it. There's a fair amount of content here, but it's not good.

When that ambition fails to live up to its promise by delivering a hollow and disappointing experience, you can't help but feel somewhat nonplussed by the final product. This should have been incredible, but having tried our very best to like Codemasters' latest racing IP, we can't help but feel like we've been taken for a ride. Fuel-ed, if you will.

After putting in numerous hours with Fuel, I've struggled to find anything that I especially like about it. The racing has issues, but in and of itself (outside of not being able to select a ride you might want), it works well enough. Not great, but well enough.

If the massive game world and plethora of races and things to do were housed in something with proper physics and some reference to the real world, we would have loved it. Unfortunately, Codemasters have published a shambles of a game, so we’ll spend our time playing GRiD and waiting for Dirt 2.

We had high hopes for FUEL, which promised to offer an expansive game world teaming with insane weather and even crazier racing. Ultimately, however, Asobo Studio has served up a barren wasteland filled with nothing to do, bland race events, and weather effects that are far less dynamic than Codemasters might have you believe.

Is it a mediocre racer with some fancy tech, or does it want to be a mediocre racer with some fancy tech? All signs point to the latter: Beautiful visuals and interesting vehicles that look like they were stolen from the set of Mad Max -- but on the flip-side, the game offers nothing in terms of customization aside from a few minor cosmetic changes to your driver and vehicle.

Fuel is a race game with two faces. On one hand you've got a huge and open world in which the impressive weather effects and the sheer size alone are a new milestone in it's genre. But on the other hand the game feels a little lost and lacks decent gameplay mechanics. In the end the flaws take the upper hand and giving us the feeling that Fuel could have been so much more.