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Now when I first learned about Fuel and watched some gameplay clips, I was amazed on just how big this game is to explore and thought this might be an actual fun game. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Fuel is a game of a huge scope and huge ideas. With a massive world, dynamic weather, a wide-ranging car list and miles and miles of road, Fuel not only sounds like a must-have game but one that could conceivable alter the way racing games are made forever. At least as long as you're only examining the game on paper. In retrospect, it's fairly easy to spot where Asobo Studios went wrong. As the game slowly came along, it seemed as if Asobo quit talking about most everything else about their upcoming racer and spent their time boasting about the size of the world they were building. It was then that this reviewer started to get worried as it seemed like Asobo was only worried about the scope of their game, rather than the quality. Sometimes it's a shame to be right about these things.
So what of this grand world that Asobo has created for players to race in? At five thousand square miles of open country, it is truly the largest digital world that has ever been created (and this fact was verified by Guinness World Records). This world is comprised of nineteen different territories consisting of every type of terrain imaginable. Scattered throughout the landscape are some familiar landmarks, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, which players will actually be able to race on. You might be wondering just how all this reckless driving about is justified within the game. Fuel is set against a backdrop of an “alternate present” where global warming raged out of control, driving the inhabitants out of the area, leaving it open for anyone crazy enough to take advantage of it.
As nearly anyone with any experience can attest, a huge world is useless if there's nothing to do in it. This if where Fuel makes the first, and largest, of many missteps. While there are plenty of races to take part in (which I'll discuss momentarily), there's not much need for the world Asobo has created. Players can teleport to any race from the menu, meaning players never have to ever bother driving around if they don't want to. Nor does Asobo give any good reason for players to embark into the wilderness, other than some mindless collection. Scattered throughout the land are vehicle liveries, which endow vehicles with new paint schemes, and Vista points, which don't provide much of anything other than a nice view of the landscape. These menial rewards are not nearly enough to justify the size of the world, and anyone who actually goes out of their way to hunt these things down is likely to be disappointed.
Thankfully, Asobo hasn't skimped on the number of races. Each territory has a varying number of career races and ten challenge races. Career races have three difficulties which give out stars for completion, which are accumulated until eventually unlocking new territories to race in. Completing challenge races is not necessary, though they are essential for the extra fuel they provide, which is currency of choice for the game. There are plenty of race types, from standard circuits to more interesting race types like Raids, which are basically free for all sprints to the finish, Helicopter chases which function exactly as you'd imagine and Seek and Destroy, which tasks players with catching and hitting other racers before time runs out.
Though there's definitely lots of variation to be had, the one thing they all have in common is a near total lack of excitement. This is due to a combination of several other problems Fuel has. The first, and most immediately noticeable, is that the impression of speed in the game is severely lacking. At times, I looked at the speedometer and was shocked to see that I was blazing down an off road trail at ninety miles an hour. The one exception to this feeling of slowness is with motorcycles, both road going and dirt bikes. They portray an appropriate sense of speed, and blazing across the landscape is very exhilarating.
What's interesting about the races is that, like a game such as Burnout Paradise or Midnight Club, Fuel doesn't wall off areas during a race. All races have a recommended path, but players are free to veer off the course any time they wish and find their own path to the checkpoints. This is at times incredibly liberating, but usually unnecessary. For instance, a path might take a serpentine route down a mountain, but the adventurous driver can go all out and just drive straight down the side. This freedom is possible due to the implementation of a GPS system. At all times a trail of glowing arrows will lead players to their next checkpoint. During races, this system works well enough that it shouldn't cause any problems. However, if you decide to take things off the beaten course, or just set a waypoint during free ride, don't expect things to work so well. In fact, you shouldn't expect it to work at all.
This GPS system mimics the breadcrumb trail of Fable II to a startling degree, and through some strange coincidence it has the same crazy tendencies and glitches. The GPS constantly makes wild adjustments even if the place it is leading is in direct view. It also seems to have no sense of the landscape, as it would often try to lead me up a sheer cliff or over a body of water. At times it seems as if its own inability to navigate is as befuddling to it as it is to the player, as the GPS will point forward for a few seconds and then abruptly point back in the direction you just came from.
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