8/10
A post-apocalyptic wasteland can be a pretty fun place, at least according to video games. The shooter game Borderlands and the classic Role-Playing Game series Fallout have already demonstrated that. But what about racing? After all, survivors of nuclear war/plague/alien invasion would obviously have nothing better to do than race around, right? Developer Asobo Studios’ racer Fuel aims to tap into that rather bizarre potential.
Fuel is an open-world racer, similar to other arcade racing titles like Need for Speed and Burnout. However, Fuel is a gritty off-road racer, featuring a similar variety of vehicles to Sony’s Motorstorm franchise. This Frankenstein’s monster of elements from different franchises manages to coalesce fairly nicely.
With regards to the game world, vast means unprecedentedly vast. Fuel is the world-record holder for “largest playable area in a console game,” with over 5,000 square miles to explore (Guiness World Records 2009). To give some idea of how big that is, it can take over 30 minutes to drive directly between the two nearest camps (racing hubs) in the game. And there are a lot of camps. Terrain varies from snowy mountains and scorched deserts to burned forests and rainy beaches. Basically every environment imaginable from the western United States made its way into Fuel (www.kotaku.com).
Racing, however, is relatively uninspired. Races include only circuit and point-to-point races, and unlike many arcade-style racers, there is no nitrous boost. Races also only allot rewards to first-place finishers, meaning that players that come in second, even by less than a second, walk away empty-handed, or try again (www.gametrailers.com). The races also aren’t that big. With such a massive game world, one would think that the game might throw in an epic cross-country endurance race or two, but races are confined to areas in the immediate surroundings of the camps from which they begin. The create-your-own track interface helps to offset this oversight, but it is as bare-bones as it gets (www.ign.com).
As a racing game, Fuel is mediocre at best. As an open-world game, it is too large for most gamers to swallow. Yet, given the proper investment of time from a true fan of cross-country racing, Fuel can deliver an experience unlike anything else in gaming. Obviously destined for cult classic status, Fuel might appeal to a limited audience, but mainstreamers should look elsewhere.