NIDZUMI+

Codemaster’s line-up of so far simply excellent four lettered driving titles this generation is currently two strong. GRID and DiRT. Graphically and viscerally the best driving experiences on the current crop of systems easily come out of Codemasters’ halls. So why is it that Fuel falls short of the mark and is anything but a highly polished racer?

Fuel has you racing in a post-apocalyptic world, although there is no mention of this fact other than the cinematic before the game loads, with no real objective other than to seemingly endlessly drive. Fuel makes no attempt at trying to mislead you away from it the fact that it’s a game. You complete various races to unlock stars and the more stars you have the more areas you can visit. You’ll also be able to collect the overbearing amount of liveries, viewpoints and various other collectibles that are dotted around the game’s expansive game world.

This is where Fuel starts to, well… run out of fuel. Asobo’s ambitious recreation of a massive game world should be applauded but there isn’t much to do inside it. Aimlessly driving from collectible to collectible is the only reason you would opt to roam around these empty and landmarkless landscapes. Luckily they let you warp to set locations and races through the medium of helicopters.

Still it’s this world record breaking barren world that comes a bore. Endless driving outside the events soon turns into limited racing inside challenges. While your AI foes will opt to follow the spaghetti like trails that are strewn across the map, you’ll be challenged to go off-road in an attempt to ignore the SatNav’s indecisive knowledge of the terrain. Meaning that the best way to win is to essentially drive in a straight line while making split second decisions on how to avoid that series of trees. While it’s easy to love Asobo’s high ambition that the realistic plains give you but it doesn’t lead to a well refined experience.

Vehicles are a plenty in Fuel. From Quad Bikes to Monster Trucks, Fuel has them all and this helps variate the races from each other. They all control responsively depending on the terrain but for the most part your transport holds up. Fuel does automate tricks while on the smaller vehicles though and sometimes the game doesn’t calculate when you are going to land. Resulting in a weird animation glitch before you slam back down to earth. It would have been nice to see user-controlled tricks akin to Pure, if only to add more depth to what is a deceptively limiting driving model.

The game does look stellar although a majority of it looks very similar due to the lack of noticeable landmarks. You will however encounter a lot of graphical hiccups and glitches that are expected from an open-world game of this type. Elsewhere elemental effects aren’t the massive focus the pre-release footage might have lead you to believe. You will be racing through storms and against tornadoes but they just are respectively, a filter over the screen or incredibly scripted.

For an open-world game Fuel sure does have a lot of lengthy load screens. We are talking between every event, helicopter jaunt and even when you crash within a race. The first two can be written off as necessary evils but load times within a race just to reset your vehicle is inexcusable.

Despite the plethora of bad design choices, technical hiccups and lack of depth, Fuel surprisingly holds up. I felt compelled to unlock more stars, collect that extra livery and adventure into the unknown of a newly unlocked area. The whole plethora of collectibles will appeal to the completist but the fact that it’s so spread out will not appeal to one short on time. Fuel gets the basic controls and feeling of off-road racing spot on. It’s just a real shame that everything that surrounds it feels rushed, unnecessary or simply amateur.