Here is my latest Gameworld column. This one feels a bit different because it’s about a game that is expected to do only moderately well. But it’s one of those titles that becomes more interesting the more you learn about it, or the more you play it.
First, the cool backstory. In 2002, Electronic Arts released Battlefield 1942, a World War II-era multiplayer shooter for the PC. It was wildly successful because it allowed for huge battles involving up to 64 players fighting at a time. Not only that, but it gave players the option of picking a “class” such as medic, engineer, etc. Each class had special abilities that were needed for a team to be successful. Moreover, BF1942let players drive tanks and fly airplanes. It was a radical shift away from the run-and-gun deathmatch, every-man-for-himself style that had been standard fare for multiplayer shooters. Instead, the game encouraged teams to work together and utilize a range of skills in order to win.
One other thing the game allowed was for people to create modified versions, or “mods”. One group of guys spent weekends and evenings fooling around and retooling BF1942 with modern weapons and set in the Middle East. The game basically still played the same but instead of Browning machine guns and B-17 bombers, players were handling M-16s and AC-130 gunships.
This “Desert Combat” mod proved wildly popular, a fact not lost on Digital Illusions CE, the studio behind the original game. They worked with the Desert Combat guys, by then organized as Trauma Studios, on the next Battlefield game, Battlefield 2, which not surprisingly was set in the modern era in fictional Middle East locales. Soon, DICE, which was partly owned by EA, bought Trauma. But the match was short-lived and DICE ended up shutting down Trauma in 2005. The fellow I interviewed for my piece said the issue was that they wanted the Trauma team to move to Sweden, where DICE was located.
Whatever the reason, the former Trauma guys didn’t have to wait long for their next gig. Within months, they were hired by THQ and renamed themselves Kaos Studios. THQ was and is a company known mainly for its licensed games based on properties like WWE, Nickelodeon shows, and Pixar movies. It has been trying, with mixed success, to come up with more original games and the evergreen popularity of shooters probably seemed like a safe bet.
Two years later, Frontlines: Fuel of War is out. My impression, having played the multiplayer for a few hours this week, is that it’s the closest thing yet to Battlefield 2 on a console. The weapons variety is good and the soldier classes are varied enough that it’s a different experience playing with each one. My favorite trick is play as the drone expert and fly remote controlled drones to take out unsuspecting enemies. I was surprised, however, at how quickly the opposing team could spot my drone and take it down.
Read on or click through to Reuters to get the details:
Frontlines aims to break out of shooter pack
By Scott Hillis
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – At first blush, THQ’s Frontlines: Fuel of Warseems like just another entrant in a recent string of military-themed shooter video games. But a few tricks could set it apart enough to turn it into a sorely needed success for THQ, which struggled last year with lackluster reviews and poor sales.
The game is set in 2024, and a “peak oil” energy crisis has sparked a global war over resources with Russia and China in one corner and the United States and Europe in the other.
“We started researching it and we were blown away by how real these theories could be and how dependent our modern society is on that affordable, cheap oil,” David Votypka, the game’s design director, said in an interview.
The single-player portion of the game drops the player in a combat zone with a constantly updated list of missions. Where many games, like last year’s hit Call of Duty 4, have players follow a set path, Frontlines chose an “open-world” model.
