FUEL (PC DVD)

I played a demo of this and liked the idea of a vast open world. But its all locked when you start the game. You unlock areas by winning races. The wold has to much glow for me and hurts my eyes after playing for a few hours. I also found it too easy and come 1st place in most races. Its great for a quick race to pass time but not something I would play a lot.

For anybody interested in buying Fuel, I would say go for it! It's great value for money for what you get! The open world map is enormous, the many different cars are really great, races and challenges are fun! The only downside I can possibly think to the game is the menus. There a bit strange an funny but you'll get use to them! Happy playing :)

Got the game a few days ago, and, despite it saying "configured to use almost any PC controller" in the readme (and elsewhere), it does not appear to support any form of Wheel. [HOW can this be the case for any DRIVING game!?] - did raise a call re this with CodeMasters - but still no response 3 days later!Anyway, playing the game with a XBox 360 controller ...As it says on the tin, the play area is massive - impressively so; amazing to look at and appears to be randomly generated, so you don't see the same patterns repeating. Sadly, they seem to have felt compelled to use ALL this area, I've played just four zones I am already bored of driving for 10 (real!) minutes just to unlock a livery (I'll probably never use). The terain etc is nice but your vehicles just don't seem to interact with it (ie "floating" on, rather than "driving" on, it!)There is a nice selection of race types, but the AI is questionable: I don't like the Xbox 360 controller I'm forced to use, but I'm still winning almost every race and challenge easilly, only the hardest setting causing any real challenge.The "sat nav" AI (in races, or in free roam) is Awfully Incompetent ... often sending you along a road, then suggesting you go straight up a rock face, or across a lake. Also, if you choose a target location from the map, and set the sat nav to it, it is often 100's of meters from what you were aiming at!If you crash and respawn your POV is suddenly set looking at your face (ie the camera direction means the direction you were going is now "behind" you) - so you often accelerate away into the same tree you just crashed into! Also, you can occasionally respawn into impossible places (eg onto a rock face, which you then slide off) resulting in no choice but to restart the race - frustrating if you are 10 mins into a race (and 3 mins ahead!).The idea of "Fuel" (barrels) scattered around the place is excelent, but there is so much to be found that I already have loads, and not a lot to spend it on - this seems to devalue an otherwise excellent concept.The game runs well (but I have a good system), but you have to endure lots of loading screens, and need lots of clicks to start every race.In summary - if you want a RACING game, forget it - you can't use a wheel, the AI is simply not challenging enough and the Sat Nav (which you simply must use in such a big area) very unreliable. However, if you want a big area to free roam all over then it is well worth a try!

It does not work with windows 8 or 10

FUEL is an off-road, arcade racing game with a HUGE free roaming area and online multi player feature. I loved Test Drive Unlimited and the open, real time driving and discovery in it, so I've been looking forward to this. Firstly I see complaints here about a lack of wheel support which is a shame, but at the same time it's not a driving simulation - you don't even have the option of a manual shift. I've been playing it first with keyboard then my cheap game controller and it works fine, so it's not as though it's like Juiced 2 for the PC which supported only the 360 controller. I will add an installation note: you must install the Windows Live part to be able to play it offline.On to the game. A sort-of post-apocalyptic future where climate change has forced mankind to live in cities, leaving the remaining US wasteland open for a bunch of environmentally unfriendly, fossil fuel racers. There are 4 different vehicle types from dirt bike to muscle car and apparently 74 different vehicles. In career mode you've got races and challenges including checkpoint races, beat the clock, beat the chopper etc. For each race you can choose your level of expertise. Winning at a high level will earn you more stars, which indicate progress and are used to unlock new territories. The races themselves are decent arcade fun and don't require a huge amount of driving skill, roughly comparable to playing Flatout. Playing on higher levels of expertise improves the driving skills of your opponents. Winning also earns you FUEL.The free roaming is great. You can follow the roads but it's wise to go off-road. The idea is to pick up barrels of FUEL dotted about which are the equivalent of credits in the game and used to pay for new vehicles. The environments are like riding through Fallout 3 on a quad bike, full of deserted farms and abandoned cars. Now and again there's traffic, so watch out in free ride that you don't hit an oncoming truck. Some barrels are less easily accessible, requiring you to perform jumps over ramps to get to them. You'll also discover new challenge races, livery, clothes and vantage points on your travels. Considering the 5000 sq mile map and real time driving, this game is going to take plenty of time to finish.Graphics are very pretty indeed and performance is good. The colours are realistic, the bloom isn't overwhelming, the sunrise and sunset are spectacular and there's weather too. I'm running on a low spec'd system AMD X2 3800 and nVidia 7900 at 1024 but it almost never drops below 35 frames and is smoother than playing TDU. No crashes or glitches encountered either.Only negative point is that the soundtrack is practically non-existent. There's a decent rock tune going on in the background but that's it. Doesn't affect the gameplay though.Bottom line: If you like driving in pretty real-world environments and racing without too much thought, then this is for you.

Haha, I have this game. Quite looking forward to it the few days before I purchased. And, you know, it's great. It's no feat of technical achievement by any stretch, but it's a fun game with a nice open world to explore. People shouldn't bash it too hard. :)