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| Source // MobyGames |
The Earth is pretty darn big, isn't it? Compared to people, I mean. There's an awful lot of land out there, and several video games aim to capture that kind of scale with huge maps for players to run across, drive through, and explore in whatever fashion they like.
Most, however, stop after a reasonable distance. A city. An island. A fantasy countryside. A fictionalised representation of America. Fuel didn't stop until more than 5,500 square miles had whizzed by, and it's not a sprawling fantasy action RPG, but a post-apocalyptic racer.
A tad ambitious, no?
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| Source // MobyGames |
Frustrations
I'm playing Fuel on the PlayStation 3, having never done so when it was first released. I was vaguely aware of it back in the day, but always got it confused with fellow 1001 must-play game, Pure. Both are offroad racers, but one is most definitely not like the other.
As Fuel loaded, some splash screens gave me the barest hint of what was going on and I was allowed to customise my character before diving into an unfathomably big world. Well, I say customise, I really mean 'change the colour of my trousers', which isn't brilliant.
In fact, the whole opening to Fuel gave me the impression of "What? Is this it? What a load of generic rubbish." The intro video says that the country is screwed owing to climate change, and not just screwed but outright abandoned by everyone who isn't a racer with a passion for Mad Max.
And that's it. That's all you get. The country is now your playground, have fun, bye. That career mode? That's just a shortcut to some available races in the region. The challenges also point to a list of things to do. You want an actual story or a character to go along with your faceless racer? You want a reason to do any of this racing? There is no reason, other than that it is there to be checked off.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
I began my time with Fuel disappointed. Before every race you are dropped onto the starting line from a helicopter (even if you're on a motorbike, as my first race was), and then left to succeed at the race, whatever form it takes, or fail and try again some other time.
The scenery whizzing by was bleak, empty, forgotten, but dotted with ramps and turn markers and finish lines, the only signs that human life still exists here, and even then, the only ones you'll see are your competitors in the event.
With a whole world to render on a home console, level of detail pop-ins and dropped frames were the norm, which made getting used to some of these cars a tad tricky.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Cars are unlocked through progression through the career races and challenges, but you have to pay for them with the games currency, fuel. Race wins earn you fuel, and completing races on harder difficulties will earn you more fuel, and more stars which will count towards unlocking new regions of the map, with more challenges and races and collectables.
Each class, from motorbikes to monster trucks, comes with a variety of post-apocalyptic designs, most of which are too generic to care about, but a precious few are head-turners, and you can paint them up to your liking - if your liking is to use few colours in few places. Extra liveries have to be found in the world. Actually hunted down and found and driven into. You need to really like customising your vehicles to want to do that.
Anyway, once you've got your paint job sorted out, you have the fun of finding out how it handles, which is like a weightier version of MotorStorm, thankfully. Some vehicles, like that car, handle like a right pain in the arse, but others are already forming favourites, even in a game I'm still unsure about.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Race difficulty largely comes in the form of 'do you want your opponents to finish 10 meters behind you or 1 kilometre?', and you'll often want to play on Rookie first to learn where the checkpoints are, and how your vehicle can and can't navigate from checkpoint to checkpoint.
That car for example is speedy, but only on roads. Cutting the corners doesn't lose you too much time, but darting off-road to skip chunks of the circuit - perfectly valid, so long as you drive through the checkpoints in order - will see you limping along, compared to a full off-road vehicle like a dirt bike.
A GPS system will give you a brief idea of what route to take along the roads, but this isn't necessarily a good route to take, and some events don't use it at all, so you do need to get a feel for what your vehicle can and can't do on a given surface.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Fun Times
At first, those surfaces are boring. Hilly with trees and buildings to avoid and roads to follow, sure, but so damn generic in terms of countryside look and feel that Fuel was about to lose me before it even opened up.
I don't know what possessed me to carry on playing - perhaps it was simply the hope that it'd get more interesting - but I am so glad I did. The huge map first takes you north into the sand dunes, before heading into more of a forested region towards the middle, and from glancing over screenshots there are all kinds of American-themed vistas to find yourself tearing through in all manner of ridiculous-looking vehicles.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
The views, empty though they often are, are complemented by a lighting engine that takes you through a day/night cycle, at least it does when you're not in a race. I couldn't really tell if the time of day changed while racing, because I was often wrestling with a new car, but outside of the races, you can freely roam the vast map looking for things to do.
There are liveries to find, fuel to pick up, some kind of cars to find out on the roads, and selected vistas where you can stop and admire the view. The first of which I found was awful, so I don't think I'll worry too much about tracking them all down.
The problem with doing so is that it takes a lot of effort. I don't think you'll quite understand just how big Fuel is until you set a waypoint to something that is 'nearby' or else in the same region as you, then wonder why it's taking five or ten minutes to get even that far.
Some collectables are only discovered and marked on your map if you drive close to them, and most are only actually collected once you drive right into them. You can scour the map and drive to each event if you want, kind of like Burnout Paradise or Test Drive Unlimited, but with a menu that is all too eager to do it all for you, I didn't see any point in doing things the hard way. I didn't even use the fast-travel system, because the menus are just faster.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
I'm not sure how long I played Fuel for in my first stint, but it was enough to unlock three new regions and dabble into their events, and by then I was liking Fuel more for its varied environments, but still not seeing a reason to actually do anything in it.
When grabbing screenshots to show it off, I was told of the weather effects present, from rain and mud splatter all the way up to twisters and dust storms, and now I must admit I'm more interested in Fuel.
There's a vignette clogging up the screen for most of what you do, probably to either help the world render quicker or to give us that gritty, dirty, post-apocalyptic feeling. Fuel is definitely on the murky side, even in the sunshine, but screens like this make me wonder if anyone really saw its true colours.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Final Word
It generally shows its age, its controls are not the best to get a grip on, and its gameplay is very much a case of getting out what you put in, but Fuel definitely has to be admired for its ambition. There isn't another racer like it, certainly, though that may well be because the idea is just too daft to work well.
The post-apocalyptic rubbish is a justification for it being a world devoid of life, and it's devoid of life because it's a racing playground that is almost literally half the size of Belgium. It's staggeringly huge for a video game. It's a right shame that it feels so pointless to be found in it.
There is no reason for you to play Fuel other than that no other racing game went this big. Once you start playing it, there is no reason to continue playing Fuel other than that there are races to check off the list. You're not hunting for championship gold - there aren't even any fans here to watch you win. You do it because it is there to be done, that's all.
Sometimes, that's all you want from a game. Something to do, something for your hands to busy themselves with while your brain is elsewhere. Fuel certainly offers you a playground to pass the time in, but sticking around in it for any great stretch of time requires effort on your part, and the game doesn't really incentivise you to do so.
I'm in no rush to get back to it but I do want to see an abandoned city on my travels, and now I know there are extreme weathers to deal with, my interest is heightened that much more. Enough to see it through to the 'career' end? I doubt it. Not unless I've got a good podcast series to listen to.
Fun Facts
No loading screens. The biggest map in video gaming and no loading screens to get from one side to the other.
Fuel, developed by Asobo Studio, first released in 2009.
Verison played: PlayStation 3, 2009.