Frontlines: Fuel of War

Revisiting the Frontlines

“To the front lines! We war for fuel to fuel our war!”

Beneath the banner of such ludicrous and almost tautological battlecries, I and a motley squad of fellow one-time Frontlines fans revisited the early ’08 first person shooter late last year. Arcadian Rhythm’s own AJ had discovered there were still a sizable collection of die-hard fans keeping the game’s servers busy with the scream of UAVs and airstrikes, and we were nothing if not eager to contribute our firepower and our fragile, fleshy bodies to the firestorm of fire and stormy bullets.

Frontlines screenshot of the oilfield map
The game's maps were always curiously uneven, with a memorable Eurogamer review noting that their very haphazardness lent credence to the idea that these were actual battlefields.

Frontlines: Fuel of War was developed by Kaos Studios and released by THQ, and is one of many first-person shooters to have been released and subsequently mostly forgotten. Fair or not it takes a lot to succeed in such a competitive genre, and it’s easy for titles to slip between the cracks. It’s worth remembering that Frontlines emerged several months before Battlefield: Bad Company and half a year after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – competition was stiff. That said, Frontlines had the unique selling point of supporting larger multiplayer matches than had previously been practical on a console (up to 50 players thanks to the use of dedicated servers).

It also featured a novel system for both single-player and multi-player modes: each opposing team shares a common “front line”, a jarring border across the map held together by various control points along that line. Capture all points and the line advances, pushing your enemy back – they can no longer spawn as far forward as they could. It means that a match on a huge map (and believe me, Frontlines had some huge maps) never became fragmented and dissolute, with players always focused on where the action was. Of course, this also offered scope for a well-organised unit to move around the action and get behind enemy lines – a daring action but a vulnerable one.

Other features were welcome additions to the genre: forming small squads within a team to communicate directly with friends and respawn on the squad leader, for example, and unlockables within matches that allowed players to utilise unmanned drones, airstrikes, EMP strikes and more. It’s telling how many of these same features have cropped up in later, more widely-known multiplayer FPS titles.

Frontlines drone screenshot
The unmanned drones are a lot of fun, and thanks to the large maps you can take your time and have fun piloting them.

Frontlines is still popular enough on Xbox Live to manage multiple games during the mid- to late afternoon on a Saturday; i.e. when both European and USian players are online. Unfortunately our first experiences were a bit hit and miss. The problem with revisiting an older multiplayer game is that most of the people you’ll be pitted against, or allied with, have been playing the game for years. Since we spent the first few minutes hurling grenades around like shrapnel-farting candy (“iron sights! Iron sights!”) and failing to remember how to form a squad (it was the d-pad! Of course it was the d-pad!), we died an awful lot. No doubt the veterans had a killstreak field day. “Hey, it’s that guy who runs into walls again!”

Fortunately things levelled out soon after and we managed to get a few decent matches going. We mostly lost – four players disused to a game will be a drag on any team – but after we got into the swing of the game we had quite a bit of fun holding down territory, leading bold and inevitably suicidal assaults on enemy-controlled points, and bundling into vehicles and heading out on a road-trip. The latter usually ended in a picaresque destination featured on the front cover of Craters Monthly (the number one ‘zine for tank shell enthusiasts).

Less fortunately, it seems that cheesing is still alive and strong even in a game with a player base you’d have expected to evolve towards decent sportsmanship. Yep, all four of us were invited into a game on a map we’d just played by a player we’d just fought alongside. After a few minutes it transpired that this player, the host, had set up a deeply uneven game. His chosen team was equipped with deadly attack and transport helicopters; we defenders had our vehicles and EMP upgrades disabled. Our only defence was to switch to an anti-vehicle loadout and sling rockets into the sky… but with the game balance so askew this was akin to pissing in the rotor downdraft, or indeed feeding kittens to Cthulhu, the unspeakable lord of the infinite stomach. We held on gamely for a while but after this dick of a host had spent 20 minutes coasting about in his attack chopper purely because he could, we bailed and dropped negative feedback down his gullet. Fire in the hole, fucker!

Despite this one incident it was an excellent afternoon of manshoots, and we hope to get involved in revisiting this title some more over the coming weeks and months (and if you’d like to join in, drop us a comment and we’ll look at organising a game or three). It’s heartening that not all games which drop off the radar are wholly abandoned, particularly when they offer as unique a multiplayer experience as Frontlines. (I should probably add at this point that I’m a huge fan of Bad Company 2 and, while its multiplayer is clearly very heavily informed by Frontlines, I do believe it’s the better game. But I am a PC gamer at heart and I played BC2 on that platform, and Frontlines on Xbox. It feels nice to have a sweetheart in two different towns; call me a cad if you must.)

Frontlines PC screenshot
Frontlines looks way sexier on the PC. It's also way cheap these days thanks to Steam sales and THQ bundles, and the online community also seems quite active.

Off the back of this multiplayer fun I also elected to revisit the single-player campaign. I remembered a number of the levels but had almost entirely forgotten the plot, which I’m pleased to say is a remarkably restrained and well-handled creature, at least for the boorish FPS genre. It’s set in a near-future post-peak oil world in which the dominant powers and nation-states have banded into two super-states in order to control the world’s dwindling resources.

So far, so whatever. Resource wars have provided a common backstory to decades of videogames, books and film. What is a little unusual is the sensitivity and maturity with which Frontlines engages with its plot. Sure, within the levels themselves you play a nameless soldier gunning down scores or hundreds of nameless soldiers whose sin is to be wearing different uniforms, and enemies and allies alike have the genre-typical deathwish which sees them standing in the open or running directly into enemy fire. But in the cutscenes between these levels, in the loading screen voiceovers, and in the optional fluff buried in the game’s front-end, there is an admirable focus on the geopolitical inevitability of resource conflict and the human cost of dwindling energy supplies and full-scale war. The formation of both the Red Star Alliance and the Western Coalition is portrayed as a regrettable, tragic inevitability, and the foolish irony of going to war over a reduced and declining supply of oil is highlighted. Similarly, the story back home – of blackouts, food riots, starvation, economic and social collapse – is presented as both a tragedy and a driving force behind military engagement.

With many present-day and near-future FPS games there’s often a moral void at the heart of the story they use to contextualise their large-scale violence. It is all too often cartoonish, such as Modern Warfare 2’s ridiculous and largely disconnected tale of unconvincing conspiracy and betrayal (how ironic that MW2 appeared so soon after its titular predecessor was lauded for its refreshing take on videogame narrative). For a game that is, ultimately, about the organised shooting of men trying to shoot you first, Frontlines deserves respect for its tale of rulers desperate to maintain their power and their nation-state’s stability and influence, and civilian populations reduced to abject poverty and selfish desperation.

It is still a tale that lacks depth, and its moral exploration only extends so far, but it makes an effort to ground itself in political and social realities that extend beyond hyper-accurate modelling of the latest billion-dollar US military projects. And in spire of the sobering story it tells, it is a tremendously entertaining game.

Frontlines screenshot
Boned.

AJ

Frontlines was a weird proposition when I originally picked it up, goaded on by a friend. I literally had no expectations.

There are several things that Frontlines does very well, and several more that no other game has done on the Xbox 360. The most prominent is the 50 simultaneous player matches: this is a massive draw when going into a match and knowing that the huge levels will be teeming with opposition soldiers flying helicopters, driving tanks and skulking through canyons. The other is the levelling system. Released a year after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frontlines didn’t go for killstreak options that can heavily influence matches or reward systems that favoured perseverance. Instead it kept your gun loadout and class skills separate and interchangeable; the class skills levelled up depending on your performance and these buffs only lasted for one match. No one had a better weapon than anyone else and the effectiveness of their skills was down to how they employed them.

You could play a sniper controlling remote vehicles for scouting, spying and remote demolition or a heavy weapons expert who specialised in EMP equipment – becoming a pilot and driver’s worst nightmare. The choices weren’t many but they offered different tactics for each of the maps and it was down to you to decide how to use them most effectively.

When we revisited Frontlines I had no time for the extremely unbalanced player-set up levels, weighted in the Host’s favour. Back when I was playing three days a week they were a delight to me, as instead of aiming to win I just tried to ruin whatever power trip the Host was on: sabotaging his vehicles, laying mines everywhere and using every trick I could to take out his helicopters with a rocket.

It got to the point that on weekends I could put 10 hours into the game without even noticing the time. Friends from Canada would drop in to play while I half zoned out, with a thousand yard stare, barking warnings to my squad and playing spotter with tiny RC cars.

The servers are still busy and I feel that urge, like a veteran who has returned to civilian life and can’t quite fit in because of his uneasy yearning. Unfortunately, I am rusty and the kids who stayed on there have far surpassed my skills. I guess I will have to wait for Kaos Studios’ next game, Homefront.

Despite this Frontlines, alongside the original Unreal Tournament, will remain one of my fondest online memories.


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10 responses to “Revisiting the Frontlines”

  1. badgercommander Avatar
    badgercommander

    Have I mentioned that I love Frontlines: Fuel of War?

  2. GordoP Avatar
    GordoP

    Alas, my interest in Frontlines was stunted when a digital copy from D2D refused to work and then the exact same problem happened with a boxed copy. I really did look forward to the game but it seemed destined not to be.

    And no Mr.Commander you have not…wait, yes, yes you have

    1. ShaunCG Avatar

      That's a real shame Gordo, I had no idea there were problems with the PC version. What was the issue?

  3. GordoP Avatar
    GordoP

    A complete show stopper when attempting to start the game. Everything worked fine in the front-end but beginning the campaign caused an indefinite hang on a black screen.

    I recently had a show stopper in Call to Juarez: Bound in Blood and just today with The Ball. Neither game I'm overly upset about but they were on my list of games I needed to finish. I will re-install them at a later date but for now I'm moving on with my list…Dark Sector here I come.

    1. ShaunCG Avatar

      Hmm, not even a hint as to what the problem might have been! Shame. Personally I refuse to accept there might be anything wrong with my PC and tend to try things / google ideas until I hit a genuine wall. It works… *most* of the time. :)

      1. GordoP Avatar
        GordoP

        The ol' update drivers, look for patches and what not was carried out but to no avail, both copies have been refunded and so a re-attempt is out. Frustration definitely set in and no forums were consulted, possibly foolish, but it was the heat of the moment. I too, as a PC only gamer, have a very convincing pretend veil of knowledge that also leads me to refuse to believe there was anything wrong with my system, a problem with my system, blasphemy!

  4. badgercommander Avatar
    badgercommander

    You really should finish Dark Sector, it was one of those games that, although unremarkable, was a solid piece of fun in a rather barren release schedule.

    And I am not just saying that because I buy everything that D3 publishes.

    1. GordoP Avatar
      GordoP

      I'm at the final boss fight now. Overall I have quite enjoyed the game, I even forgot how brutal some of the finishing kills were, but the this final boss fight and the one before it are exactly what I dislike with many boss fights. Much like the Batman: Archam Asylum fights were it is find the weakness, hit weakness, defend/dodge, rinse, repeat.

      You are right though, not especially remarkable but a solid game overall.

    2. ShaunCG Avatar

      Ergh, my rubbishness at games probably shows in that I've gotten stuck at a relatively early rooftop fight in Dark Sector – the first time you encounter the guys carrying shields. I think I struggle because I'm so rubbish at using the glaive.

      1. GordoP Avatar
        GordoP

        There were more than a few moments that I needed to quit out and calm my frustrations with the game. But once calmed I was able to get through most areas without too many resets.