Game Review: Fuel

Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

"Fuel"

For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (Coming June 30 for Windows PC)

From: Asobo Studio/Codemasters

ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

"Fuel" has neither difficulty nor reservations about showing you some of the amazing things it can do. Codemasters boasts that the game is home to more than 8,600 square miles of open-ended terrain on which to race motorbikes, ATVs, cars, trucks and more, and once you realize that, A) it takes 30 minutes to drive from the first camp to the second, and B) there are 17 other camps ahead, it's hard to doubt the claim.

"Fuel's" groundbreaking scope is all the more impressive because of how good it looks and moves. The various vehicles handle as they should, and the dynamic weather and day/night cycles combine with some pretty scenery to create some gorgeous odes to the great outdoors.

But Asobo Studio appears to have had considerably more trouble figuring out what, beyond the occasional jaw drop, "Fuel" is supposed to accomplish from there. The sheer enormity is impressive, but it also sheds some unflattering light on how little there is to do between hot spots on the map. Once the novelty wears off, driving for 20 minutes on near-empty roads to pick up an out-of-the-way collectable feels like a chore. "Fuel" smartly allows you to instantly access each camps' events and challenges via a menu once you've discovered that camp, but completionists who want to see all the game has to offer will need some serious free time to do so.

Philosophies also clash during some, though not all, of "Fuel's" races.

Winning races - and you have to win them, because finishing second awards you nothing in terms of currency or career progression - is a matter of clearing checkpoint gates in order. During "Fuel's" better races, those checkpoints are spread far apart, leaving it up to you to navigate the terrain however you please so long as you hit each gate. But "Fuel" also is full of races in which the gates are crammed together, and it's not particularly good at notifying you if you missed a gate or hit them out of order. This, along with the long length of the races and the fact that one mistake on the home stretch can leave you completely empty-handed instead of with some reward for your time, can make "Fuel's" career progression a frustrating affair.

These issues would be enough to sink "Fuel" in the fall, which is loaded with top-shelf racing games that won't make these kind of mistakes. But fall is a few months away, "Fuel" has most of the summer to itself, and the game's unique shortcomings don't completely overtake the things it does with respect to the vehicles, the controls and some really impressive tech. If you're starved for some solid racing action and a gimmick you've never seen before, this will do.

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