Frontline: Fuel of War MP Demo Review (Xbox Live)

So I recently downloaded and decided to play the new multiplayer demo for Frontline: Fuel of War. I heard that this is the second incarnation of the demo, the first being what I read to be an awful single player experience. However, not having played it, I had to venture out into the Frontline universe alone.

That being said, there's one thing I can can definitively say about this game: it makes you feel small. Not small like you're walking next to Yao Ming small, but small as in insignificant, like how one feels sometimes when gazing into the stars. I say this because, as near as I can tell, I made absolutely no difference to my team no matter what class/role I played. I played two maps (I think the only two on the demo: Oil Field and Streets) and this is true of both of them, but in different ways. Oil Field is a massive vehicle map. As such, tanks, APCs, Helicopters, and Humvees were scattered throughout the map. The driving system is clumsy at best; I spent most of the time either getting blown up by enemy airstrikes or running into inanimate objects... always time well spent. Running on foot is like playing Final Fantasy XI and traveling without a chocobo... oh yeah, and way before you reach your destination, you die and have no idea how. The map Street is designed for combat on foot, but it doesn't change the fact that there's something about the game interface or environment or engine that makes you individually feel like you're totally insignificant. Perhaps I'm terrible at the game... I'm totally open to that option. I guess in that respect the game reminds me of Tribes, except that Tribes had one element that this game is still critically lacking: fun.

Speaking of class/role - I think their idea is kinda neat. It's not too far off the beaten path with games like Team Fortress having been around for ages and games as such, but the differentiation between class and role - the ability to chose a role independent of a class - is something worth noting. The closest thing I would be able to relate to it is perhaps being able to choose your weapons and perks separately before each spawn in Call of Duty 4. However, the downside is that there is a loading period between the selection of said call/role and spawn which is pretty weak. No other game has a non-mandated respawn time (think Halo, there's a forced respawn time, or perhaps team hardcore on CoD 4.) Your classes are pretty standard - Assault rifle, LMG, SMG, Shotty, Sniper, Rockets. The roles are where the game gets interesting, there's a soldier role that allows you to deploy varying degrees of manned/unmanned sentry turrets after a certain amount of time, a drone tech role that allows you to use UAVs, an air support role that allows you to call in varying degrees of airstrikes on a certain location, and an EMP tech role that allows you to disable equipment and not appear on the map. Interesting, we'll have to see how it plays out in the actual finished version of the game.

My final words: if this game is going to compete with the juggernauts out there like Call of Duty, Halo, and Orange Box, it's gonna have to cut the loading time out prior to respawns (or at least disguise it by making it seem forced,) perhaps manipulate the engine so the game feels more responsive to the player, maybe decrease the map size and cut the player limit (which is currently capped at 50 - sure it feels epic, but it doesn't come expenses free.) On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 4 - it doesn't do anything particularly well and doesn't really keep my interest long.