So you've racked up more hours than you can count in Halo 3, hit level 55 on Call of Duty 4 multiple times, can't get into Turok and have taken the cake in Portal. It's time for something a little different, but you can't bring yourself to at least put down that assault rifle. In step THQ, bringing in Kaos Studios, made up of the former members of Trauma Studios (creators of the Desert Combat Battlefield 1942 modification), to deliver a first person shooter that loads new ammunition into a familiar weapon; unfortunately however it ends up jamming along the way, ultimately leaving a lot to be desired.

Frontlines: Fuel of War starts off with a fantastic cinematic to set the tone of the game. The year is 2024 and the world is in a crisis over depleting oil and energy supplies. Blackouts occur frequently in the US, leading to mass rioting and looting every night, where citizens who step outside do so with a death wish. On the political front, the US has aligned itself with Europe, while on the other side Russia has formed a devastating alliance with China, leading to an East vs. West confrontation of global proportions, as both sides fight for the last remaining resources. The story is told through various cinematic scenes, as a journalist tags along with the Stray Dogs, a group of US soldiers fighting for the Western Coalition, fully aware that they could be fighting an endless World War III.

The future in Frontlines is bleak to say the least and sets a fantastic tone. There isn't a lot in the way of specific stand out characters or even bad guys, as it's presented on a grander scale and seen as country vs. country, focusing very little on individual units or characters outside of your Stray Dog group and the journalist you have in tow. The game begins with said characters traveling via helicopter when they're abruptly ambushed and shot down. Upon landing you take over the controls and battle through a near architectural wasteland, littered only with the remains of some buildings. It's not a pretty area, but it makes for great combat as you pick your line of attack. The game uses a frontline system, which the name is derived from, where in order to progress you must move a 'line' on the radar up. To move it up you complete various objectives, usually securing a point or detonating a weapon. Once all or most of the objectives are met, the line moves up and you can advance. Your goal is simply to meet your objectives and move the line; you're given free reign over how you decide to achieve to them.

Much like Battlefield, a game which Frontlines draws much inspiration from, players can advance in any direction they see fit. I've taken the same area from numerous angles and completed them in completely different ways, each one resulting in victory. For instance, in one section I stayed back with a sniper rifle and then on a second play through I ran in guns blazing, taking cover within an abandoned bus off to the side of the map (something I was very impressed by, considering it looks like it's simply a random object placed there for looks, but it was fully interactive). As you play you'll earn new toys to use and thus even more ways to approach a situation.

Typical FPS regulars like sniper rifles and rocket launchers are here, though with their own touches. The rockets in Frontlines will lock onto large vehicles and follow their heat signatures, making for some spectacular helicopter takedowns. Frontlines gets original with the other devices though; there are various air strike attacks that you can call in by simply aiming in a certain direction and activating it, such as a carpet bomb or even a helicopter mounted gun barrage, which you direct by continually aiming a curser and holding the trigger. Even better than this is one of Frontlines' biggest selling points: the use of drones.

Three drones are at your disposal; a quick, remote control car style device with C4 strapped to it, a mini-tank and a helicopter. Each one has their advantages and disadvantages, but the helicopter is easily my favorite; not only does it give you a great view of the area, but it's a lot of fun to take out an annoying sniper nest with a miniature helicopter loaded with rockets! The remote control car is also great, as it's so compact that you can drive it right under a tank and blast it to bits. While these drones are neat, and a refreshing weapon for the genre, they don't play as big a role as you would expect; it's entirely possible to play through the game without using them at all, though it would be much more difficult - however, this only further proves that the open-ended nature of the campaign actually works. What you won't be able to avoid using during the campaign, however, are the vehicles. Though you won't often find yourself flying a helicopter, despite this ability being present, there are numerous sections where humvees and tanks are put under your control to rip through the stages however you see fit, making a nice break from the constant running, but these have far less freedom than I would have liked. Vehicles are used exactly how the game wants you to use them for the most part, and abandoned under the same basis.

While the single player campaign has a promising set-up and concept, it never really goes anywhere. Your missions don't really seem to have a huge impact upon completion and the overarching goal of the game is pretty much lost in the shuffle from the get-go. However, the story does have a refreshing ending that you'll get to see sooner rather than later, as Frontlines is not a long game by any stretch, which isn't surprising considering that it was basically built as a multiplayer experience, much like Battlefield.

As such, it's pretty good fun online, even if there's nothing here that really excels or raises the bar. The Frontlines concept works great when both teams battle for control of huge, open maps with multiple checkpoints. The frontline starts in the middle of the screen and both teams fight to get the next objective to push the line up in their favor. However, you can't capture points beyond the Frontline, so if the line is moved back whilst capturing a new objective, you have to abort and re-adjust your strategy to defend the line and push it back up. One specific feature I enjoy about the Frontlines multiplayer is how the class system works. Instead of selecting a certain class that has specific weapons and a special perk, such as the drones, you can mix and match by selecting a weapon class and a special ability class. Each ability class has three specific moves; for instance, the air assault perks include a basic air strike, a carpet bomb and the gun barrage. To get each attack you'll have to play well and wait a specific amount of time for them to activate, balancing the gameplay quite well.

Unfortunately howeer, due to the massive size the battles can reach (ranked matches are thirty-two players, player matches can get much higher), players can only communicate with a custom-made squad that only holds up to four players. In a game with so many players where the goal is always objective based, it's incredibly irritating to have to pick and chose which players you can talk to. Generally when I play a game like this, it's with a group and often with more than four players. Furthermore, the online is simply broken (as of the time of writing) and simply doesn't work most of the time. In one session I spent well over forty-five minutes attempting to find a ranked match that I could get into, but I was constantly hit with messages saying I couldn't connect to the server, or it would load up and instantly boot me back to the main menu as soon as I got into the game. I had some luck with a few player matches, but only a select few, and found numerous problems connecting to these as well. For a game that is focused on multiplayer, it would be nice if I could play it when I wanted to play it. I shouldn't need to struggle with a game to play a match online, nor should it be released like this with plans of a patch in the pipeline.

Frontlines ends up choking on quite a few hiccups in the graphics department too. The game looks good from a still viewpoint and the huge draw distance is nice - but then you see it in motion. Anything out in the distance simply has a god-awful frame rate, very similar to Unreal II and ancient shooters such as Duke Nukem, and this is common at closer range as well. The game simply chugs when it should run smoothly and this severely dampens the overall experience. On a system where we've seen great things, we know that the Xbox 360 is more than capable of creating a simple shooter on a huge battlefield; the game simply needed a lot more work before release and shouldn't have been put on the shelves in this state.

What doesn't need much more work however is the sound (outside of some dubious voice acting, that is.) On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the graphics, you'll find sound that compliments every single aspect of the game extremely well. The explosions are superb, the guns sound great and everything comes together perfectly, topped off by some extremely good music that sounds eerily like a John Powell soundtrack, specifically from the Bourne series, mixing intense orchestrations with a good dose of electronica. Even the menu has fantastic music!

Frontlines: Fuel of War has a lot of potential. The single player mode stands out from the recent rash of first person games simply because of its non-linear style, the design of which is excellent. Compared to games like Condemned, Call of Duty 4, Medal of Honor, Turok and Soldier of Fortune, the campaign here is completely different and overall really refreshing - unless you've played Battlefield 2 recently. Likewise, the online play offers huge battles that contrast the online modes of recent memory, most of which are very small in scale by comparison. However, the sheer frustration of actually finding a match and then trying to communicate with all your buddies to win by using effective teamwork almost renders the multiplayer unplayable at this point, yet if you can find a game that's stable, the use of drones and special perks in the online play matched with the frontline concept of constantly struggling for control of specific points in order to advance is a great idea and a lot of fun. Sadly however, Frontlines is yet another case of a series of great ideas crushed by a couple of huge faults that another six months in development could almost certainly have resolved.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).