Frontlines: Fuel of War
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:08 pm
The year is 2024 and the world is crumbling. Running out of oil, the economy is quickly crashing, and governments are falling. In a last ditch effort to secure what remains of the world's 'black gold', the Red Star Alliance (Led buy Russia and China) and the Western Coalition (Led by the U.S. and Europe) have started a fierce and desperate war. A war to determine who will survive, and who will not.
Frontlines: Fuel of War is an upcoming squad-based first-person-shooter in the fashion of EA's Battlefield series.
About the Developers:Kaos Studios
Frontlines is the first release by developers Kaos Studios. These guys made the Desert Combat mod for BF1942 under the name Trauma Studios. In 2005 Trauma Studios was aquired by Digital Illusions, makers of the Battlefield series of games - to become the R&D arm for Battlefield 2. Later that year, just before BF2 was released, Frank Delise and the rest of the Trauma Studios team left EA/DICE to venture back out on their own. In early 2006, in partnership with publisher THQ, Kaos Studios was formed in New York. So, based on who's developing it, it should be no surprise that Frontlines has many battlefield-esque elements to it: Large player counts, Squads with SL-spawning, VOIP, capture points, a variety of vehicles (armor, air,etc), open environments, etc..
The Frontline Mechanism
In both the multiplayer and singleplayer parts of the game (more on these later) the so called 'Frontlines' system. This is a flexible and moving 'frontline' that stretches basically between the current 3-4 objectives. Only the objectives on this frontline can be captured/completed. Completing these causes the frontline to move. The object of this is to focus the fighting on the maps (which can be quite large) to a smaller area.
Classes and Roles
Frontlines: Fuel of War is a class based game, similar to the SWBF series. This means that you will have the options of
- Assault
Sniper
Spec-Ops
Anti-Armour
Close Combat
Support
To add to the tactical choices you have to make, there are 4 roles. These roles are independent of the classes, meaning that any class can be used with any role, and are very important to the battle. They are:
- Ground Support
Air Support
Drone Tech
Countermeasures
These all grant a variety of abilities and weapons that can be used on the battlefield to great advantage.
They can each be 'leveled-up' a total of 3 times, each time granting a better unlock. (Example: The Red Star level 3 air support can call in a fuel-air bombing on a target of their choice, while the level 1 can only call a smaller air strike form a UAV.
DRONES:
Drones, unlike BF2142, play a HUGE role in this game. From the Red Star's flying 'Tiger Eye' Recon drone, to the Western Coalition's heavy AQ432 Mortar Drone, these can cause devastating damage when used properly. They are controlled chiefly by a Drone Tech specialist role, and are operated remotely, although the Air Strike role utilizes automated UAVs to deliver the chosen ordinance to the enemy.
Drones are not invincible. They are very vulnerable to fire, especially the aerial ones. They also have one other weakness: the Countermeasures role.
The Countermeasures role has an arsenal of EMP technology at his disposal, with which he can totally disable enemy vehicles, equipment, and drones. From an EMP rocket launcher, to an automated pulse generator, giving a safe zone from
all but infantry assault.
Unlike most multiplayer centric games, Frontlines: Fuel of War plans to include and extensive single player campaign. This single player campaign will track the story of the Western Coalition's Stray Dogs division, as they fight out the war for humanity. The single player mode will feature the same open battlefields and frontlines system, but will include many more objectives and plot points (similar to a blend between COD4 and BF2142. In fact, that's pretty much the feel of the whole game right there)
The Multi Player still is, however, what Frontlines is designed for. There is no overarching stat-tracking/ranking system like 2142, and instead each role is upgraded in each round, like Crysis or ET: QW. The multi player will focus chiefly on conquest like battles on a variety of maps.
VIDEOS
The E3 Trailer
The Combat Tutorial
An example of one of the maps: Invasion
Frontlines: Fuel of War is, in a phrase, what 2142 should have been. It looks to be a great game, and is beta now. Go try it if you think it sounds fun. Discuss.
