Fuel is a racing video game developed by Asobo Studio

Asobo Studio

Asobo Studio is a French video game development company based in Bordeaux, France, that was founded in 2002 by 12 Kalisto Entertainment former employees, known for having developed video games for both consoles and PC, including video game adaptations Pixar Animation Studios movies Ratatouille, Up...

 and published by Codemasters

Codemasters

The Codemasters Software Company Limited, or Codemasters is a British video game developer founded by Richard and David Darling in 1986...

, released on June 2, for PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

 and Xbox 360

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

, and June 5, for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

.

Gameplay

Fuel is an open world

Open world

An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives...

 racing game

Racing game

A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...

 set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by extreme weather fueled by global warming, with players experiencing varying weather effects such as occasional tornadoes

Tornado

A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

 and sandstorms

Dust storm

A dust / sand storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Particles are transported by saltation and suspension, causing soil to move from one place and deposition...

, as well as an accelerated day-night cycle. The world of the game is over 5,560 square miles (14,400 km²) in size, which is roughly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, and completely free to roam. In the free roaming mode, the game features the ability to drive anywhere in the game world without incurring loading times, however crashing a vehicle - or invoking the reset function to return to the road - does invoke a loading screen.

Vehicles

The player starts at one of 19 camps, with a few vehicles at the start of the single-player campaign, which is called "career" mode. When the career is fully completed the player can use seventy different vehicles across six different classes, including bikes, ATVs, muscle cars, SUVs, buggies and trucks as well as a hovercraft. There are around 75 vehicles in the game including a hover craft called Trident and dragster called Damocles; the first can be found in Rainier Peak and the second can be found in The White Flats. The currency used in the game is Fuel and it serves as money to pay with for new vehicles. In the game the player can customize vehicles and the driver up to certain limits.

Exploration

Driving around the parts of the open game world will lead to the discovery of new "challenges" (i.e. races out in the wilderness), new liveries for vehicles and "Vista points", which offer picturesque views of the environment and are collected by driving through the flagpole. Once a vista is activated properly, a "FUEL-flag" will spawn on the pole and the player is notified they have collected a Vista point. Also to be found in the wilderness are caches of fuel barrels, which the player must knock over to collect.

Challenges are found by driving through the environment and finding their start grids. Challenges vary from A-to-B races against opponents or within a time limit, up to long distance racing, helicopter chases and "Seek 'N' Destroy" races. In "Chopper Chase", the player needs to stay close to a helicopter flying ahead of the player, and eventually the player must get ahead of the chopper and reach its landing site before the chopper gets there. In Seek 'N' Destroy challenges, the player must eliminate a specified amount of opponents by touching them, before the time runs out. Challenges are awarded with fuel only. Just like career races, challenges can only be done in certain vehicles.

Races

To advance through the game, the player must earn stars and fuel. Stars are earned with Career races, the locations of which are shown on the map as a 5-point star in a circle indicating a camp. Each race has 3 difficulty levels. For completing a race, the player earns one star for each difficulty level and an amount of fuel. This can only be done once; completing the same race for the second time on the same level will not be rewarded. With enough stars the player can unlock new areas of the open world map, with a total of 216 stars to be collected in the game. To get all stars, all races must be won on all 3 difficulty levels, although winning on the lowest level gives most rewards. Next to earning a star and fuel, the player will also unlock new clothing items, new vehicles (which still need to be bought) and Doppler Trucks will appear in the specific area.

Once the player has completed a race, the star-icon will get a ring around it, matching the color of the difficulty level with which the race was completed. Career races can only be completed in certain vehicles, usually the player gets restricted to choose out of maximum a dozen vehicles. Career races are restricted to one class of vehicles.

Doppler trucks

Completing races will, alongside rewards, also bring Doppler Trucks and Maverick vehicles in the specific map area in which the race took place. Doppler trucks are shown with either a red, blue or green arrow. These are linked to what they unlock: hitting a red Doppler truck will give all locations to challenges, a blue truck will give all locations of liveries, and a green truck will give all Vista point locations. Maverick vehicles are shown by a purple arrow. These are bonus vehicles which can be unlocked just as Doppler trucks can be defeated: by hitting them. These vehicles will be available to the player instantly (without having to buy them) after hitting them, unlike vehicles which are unlocked by winning career races, these will only appear in the vehicle list.

Fuel supplies

In the game the player pays with fuel. Fuel can be earned in 3 ways: by winning career races, by winning challenges or by hitting the white fuel barrels scattered on the whole game map. They can be found in 2 amounts: one barrel, or a pyramid of 4 barrels. One barrel earns the player 100 fuel, 4 barrel pyramids earn 400, not depending on how many barrels fell on the ground. Fuel barrels are found both on land as on top of building ruins, where a jump usually leads to the roof on which the barrels are.

Character and vehicle customization

The driver can be customized with skin colors, helmets, upper clothing items and lower clothing items. Every clothing item and helmet also has several liveries to choose from, these are instantly available when the items themselves are unlocked.

Vehicles can be customized with liveries and base colors. Liveries have to be found, however. They appear as blue spheres on the game map and as blue spheres with spray cans on the compass in the top of the screen. Like vista points, which appear as green spheres and triangles, liveries are usually positioned offroad, forcing the player to sometimes go to the edge of a cliff to get liveries or vista points. This usually comes down to the right combination of vehicle and approach route.

Development

Fuel evolved from a game Asobo Studio announced in 2005, called Grand Raid Offroad.

The award for largest playable area in a console game was awarded to Fuel developer Asobo Studios. Guinness World Records presented the developer with a certificate to commemorate the achievement.

Multiplayer

Fuel has a competitive online multiplayer mode for 2 to 16 players and a co-operative online multiplayer mode supporting 2 to 4 players. There is no offline multiplayer mode (LAN) available.

Reception

Fuel has been met with mixed reviews. Many of the rewards available to be unlocked were seen as not worth the effort and the racing mechanics have been noted as sloppy, with the AI opponents leading for most of the race only to slow down towards the end to allow the player to win.