'Test Drive Unlimited' meets 'Mad Max'
-FUEL is not Codemaster's attempt to create a 'Motorstorm' – or 'Pure'- style game. It's more of a cross between 'Test Drive: Unlimited' and 'Mad Max'. By that I mean that the core gameplay mechanic is exploration, which (at least for me) is best done in third person. If you're looking for a game where you follow a well-delineated career framework with varied races, earning upgrades in vehicles along the way, as in GRID or DiRT, then FUEL will probably disappoint…it's much more 'free form' in design.
-the maps truly are huge, you don't realize it until you've been driving for 5 – 10 minutes in real time and you grasp that your icon on the minimap has traced only a fraction of the available road network. The game is really more of a Zen-type wandering experience, with interludes of action, rather than a full-on, pedal-to-the-metal racer. If you've played Test Drive: Unlimited and gone all over the recreation of Big Island Hawaii, then you'll have a good idea of the FUEL approach to a driving game. The gameplay is expressly designed to force the player to travel around at least some of the map in order to reveal the locations of liveries, scenic vistas, challenges, and depots of fuel.
-graphics are low-res compared to other racing titles on the market, reflecting the fact that the XBox 360 only has 512 MB RAM. It's actually pretty impressive that Asobo 's dev team was able to write code capable of rendering enormous chunks of terrain, along with weather effects, and competing AI vehicles, without sticking in a loading screen every few minutes. There's some degree of popup and draw-in, and sometimes the screen will freeze up for a second, but overall things look pretty good for a console with four-year-old technology.
-cars, ATVs, SUVs and trucks (and to a lesser extent bikes) tend to handle in a 'floaty' manner which can be frustrating, sometimes requiring attempting a race or challenge several times before you gain a first-place finish. I actually found that the third-person POV works best for racing. Races are unpredictable in terms of difficulty; in some events at the medium and higher difficulty settings, you may find yourself obliged to restart with the slightest error on your part. In other events, you can suffer several screw-ups early in the race, but still catch up and pass the leaders on the final lap. Don't be surprised if you need to try an event several times in order to figure out the best plant of attack and what kind of shortcuts you can get away with.
-I did encounter one or two races on each territory that are so frustrating that I quit on them after four or five efforts didn't pay off. Luckily, you can usually rack up enough Stars (needed to unlock new territories) and fuel (needed to purchase vehicles to allow you into certain races) through completing other events. In fact, you should wind up with more than enough fuel for your needs by about 10 hr into the game.
-the menu system is confusing and poorly designed. For example, if you select 'offline free roam' without first entering Career Mode you can travel anywhere you like but you are unable to participate in any races, discover liveries or vistas, etc. The game manual is also mediocre; too many features of the gameplay are given perfunctory coverage. For example, it states that you can change the controller setup, but in fact you can't do this. Other features that are important to the gameplay are not disclosed and it's left to the player to try and figure them out– like the spawning of 'Doppler Trucks' in each territory (strike them with your vehicle and the location of all liveries, vistas, and challenge races are immediately revealed on the map).
-the game's free-roaming and exploration aspects could be improved by allowing players to import their own soundtrack. Maybe Asobo can work up a patch for this purpose ?
-I don't know how much disk space a Territory occupies, but I for one would be willing to pay for downloadable content like new Territories, or new race categories for existing territories.
-the vehicles in the game are not all that distinctive, so I probably wouldn't download new ones unless they really brought something new to the gameplay.