Fuel (Xbox 360) Review

Game: Fuel
Developed: Asobo Studios
Published: Codemasters
Release: June 2, 2009
Type: Racing
Rating: Everyone (Comic Mischief)
Players: 1(Offline) 2-16 (via Xbox Live)

The Game
Fuel is another racing game from the pros at Codemasters. Savvy gamers may have remembered their previous exploits in the DiRT series and the older Colin McRae offroad games. Fuel aims to follow suit with the same type of crazy offroad races and vast catalog of selectable vehicles as it's distant cousins, with several key differences.

The first thing gamers immediately notice is just how big the game is. Asobo received a Guinness World Record for having constructed the largest interactive world ever in a video game with Fuel at 5000 sq. miles. The gigantic environment is it's own living, breathing colossus with ever changing weather effects such as blizzards, tornadoes, and lightning storms, most of the time taking place while you race and tossing all sorts of debris into your racing path. As you traverse the game world and pass from zone to zone, you'll notice that each area is almost like it's own little planet. Each zone is different either sporting lush, green forests or dry plains that show nothing but leafless trees and brown grass. The weather, the scenery and the world are easily the most impressive thing about Fuel. I found myself multiple times, literally stopping to smell the roses.

So what will you be exploring this awesome world in? Well, a little bit of everything. There's multiple styles for every class of vehicle that include ATV's, dirt bikes, dune buggies, monster trucks, muscle cars, and even a few hidden vehicles for good measure. You can even customize your driver with different helmets, shirts and pants as well as different styles of tattoos if you choose to let him ride without a shirt on.

And what exactly is the point of the game? To race and to win, of course. The career mode of the game lets you race different courses for each zone that you're in. If you win, you gain fuel. Fuel is what the game is centered around and it's the game's currency also. So when you win a race and earn some fuel, you can then take it and buy new vehicles. Now, winning isn't the only way to earn fuel. If you just want to drive around and explore the game world, you'll find white canisters of fuel all over the place and running into them will increase your current stash. So as you progress through the career and continue to win, you'll also open up more zones that you can instantly access via heliports. Since the game is so large, it would take you hours to drive to the other side, so as you can imagine, it's much easier just to fly where you want to go.

That's pretty much what Fuel consists of. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of huge jumps and places to explore. You'll find yourself lost for hours just driving around chasing Tornadoes and looking for all the hidden vehicles that drive around the world randomly. There's also points in the game where you can drive to and just do some sightseeing. And I nearly forgot to mention, you can even create your own races in this game. Want to challenge your friends to a race up a mountain? Do it. You can draw out the course of a race and set your own checkpoints and ultimately where the race will finish giving this game a lot of replay value. Overall, if you're into racing games, you'll get a lot of mileage out of Fuel.


Final Rating: 4/5