Rating:

Pros

+ Respectable graphics. Absolutely no framerate issues at all no matter how much was going on on screen.

+ Amazingly fun remote vehicles/weapons. The helicopter drones with rockets and machine guns were a blast to use.

+ Fast paced action

+ Abundance of enemies with repectable AI.

+ Straight forward and unlinear gameplay. There’s no question as to what your objectives are but the maps generally (see Cons below) give you enough freedom to approach the mission how you want.

+ Decent amount of vehicles to drive, most of which have great handling.

+ Respectable soundtrack that lends to the futuristic action feel of the game. Only a few cheesy guitar rock riffs thrown in. A few of the tracks are almost exact rip offs of John Powell’s scores for the Bourne films, not necessarily a bad thing.

+ Guns have a great sound and feel. I play a lot of FPS games and I tend to notice when the development team actually put time into using authentic sounds for the weapons. I noticed immediately a difference in this game vs other FPS’. There was also a wide variety of weapons to use throughout the game. My only complaint was that you didn’t carry weapons over from mission to mission.

Cons

- Forgettable story

- Single player campaign is too short. I finished the game in less than a weekend.

- Helicopters are a lesson in frustration to fly

- Terribly annoying messages for “leaving the battlefield/abandoning your mission” that really limit your freedom of movement while trying to accomplish your mission objectives. I remember a few maps where I was literally forced into the open amidst dozens of enemies versus flanking and using cover to eliminate them. Quite frustrating.

- Narrator/Reporter is pretty much non-existant during gameplay yet he’s supposed to be travelling with your company of soldiers.

All in all I was very pleased with this title and found it a ton of fun to play through. I would definitely recommend it to fellow FPS fans. Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Rating:

Play in a squad of up to 4 to achieve map domination. Move the front line forward to win the game, there is a ticket system if you cannot advance the line. Spawn to any owned base or your squad leader. Do you want to defend or be agressive. Work together with customizable load outs to achieve your group goals. Also the rocket launch can take down the copters, no problem (2 required). Large variety of destructible environments, big and small, vehicles and infantry maps.

If you do not have friends, play COD4 the “one man war” game that has amazing graphics and strong solid feel, but does not focus on team work. I have done all I can in COD4 and am ready for good teamplay.

This game did launch with issues, but if you are reading this, they have all been corrected. 8800GT is amazing with this game.

Rating:

Positive

-Sometimes exciting

The single player (as many people have previously pointed out) is not that long or challenging although it is fun. However, this game is not an improvement from Battlefield 2142 or just 2 even from a multiplayer standpoint. The main reason is the new “frontlines” system, which allows for less running time but on the whole makes the game less fun.

The system works much like the point capture version does in Battlefield (stand by a point for a period of time without dying) except, instead of being all uncontrolled by teams, they are split evenly between the two, with only the front set of the opposing team’s points being able to be captured. This is a problem for three reasons-

1. All fighting is done within a very closed area, making for exciting gameplay, but not as much thought as the Battlefield 2142 titan play (for the non-nerds, giant flying ship that needs to be assaulted then destroyed)

2. Often you will die the second you spawn

3. Incredibly frustrating for new players

Another gripe I have is with the weapon loadouts and the glitchiness of the game.

Mostly the loadout that is problematic is Assault. Normally, this is my favorite class to play, but with the addition of a fast-reloading, high ammo capacity underslung grenade launcher (a mouthful I know, for future reference- the noob-tube) that leaves many maps annoying to play in. This is because many players use the noob tube excessively, making any sort of attack-defense dynamic that the Frontlines game system would normally excel at void. This makes many maps seem like one giant explosion.

The glitchiness of the game is incredibly annoying. Mostly these glitches involve loading screens (will load infinitely) or will not let you join multiplayer games for little to no reason (this is talking just post- 1.01 patch by the way). Also, rockets can get stuck on objects, making a player capable of firing his rocket launcher and hitting a target without the normal graphic that would normally indicate said players location.

My last gripe is that the maps (even the largest ones) are tiny. This takes a huge chunk out of any strategy aspect that would normally be incorporated.

On the plus side, the game can be exciting, if you live long enough for it not to be frustrating.

Rating:

I purchased this game from ‘Steam’ and after a long, sporadic download (off and on over 24+ hours) and then some difficulty getting it to load, I FINALLY got to play this game. (I suggest, before buying, that you visit the forums to see some of the troubles people are having.)

I initially played this game on ‘normal’ difficulty and found that it was fairly easy; the enemy were not that strong, my buddies although useful at times, didn’t seem to do much, and my character seemed to be able to take a pounding before getting killed. However, playing on ‘hardcore’ difficulty, gave this game a entirely new dimension; it was a real challenge (but a doable challenge).

Some comments on what I liked and didn’t like: (played on single player)

1.)Excellent smooth flowing graphics, good audio (even a good ‘heroic-type’ music tract [usually I turn the music off in games as I find it annoying]) that was pleasant to listen to. Also, some interesting ‘cut-scenes’ (which you can skip).

2.)There are the usual large variety of weapons; rifle, explosives, rocket launcher etc., but there are some interesting new remote controlled ‘drone’ robots (both ground and airborne) that do add a new twist to the FPS concept. These units can be used either as 1st or 3rd person and once you get the hang of manipulating these robots skillfully, they are exceptional pieces of weaponry.

3.)Although specific objectives must be obtained to complete a game segment, there is no order in which tasks have to be done and furthermore you usually have several ways of approaching a target, giving the game a certain amount of non-linear play to it.

4.)You get to operate a number of vehicles (both ground and air) and their weapons. Most of these vehicles can be played in either 1st person or 3rd person with a toggle key; obviously 1st person is the most realistic, but the 3rd person is extremely useful for looking around to get your bearings and to see where the danger is.

5.)There are no quick F5/F9 game save/loads; you must reach a game check point to autosave (which basically means completing a specific objective). If you died you can ‘redeploy’ (up to 5 times) somewhere near where you died. This feature seemed to work well and checkpoints were reasonably spaced apart.

On the negative side;

1.)Learning to fly and control a helicopter was an exercise in perseverance and frustration; I’m not sure the time I spent on this was worth the mediocre results.

2.)This game had a LONG load time from icon click to actual playing, however the restarts after dying (redeploys), were fairly fast.

3.)With the ‘Steam’ download there were two concerns;

A.)there was no manual available; this would have been very useful for general info and also for the different key combos that the different modes (infantry, driving, flying etc.) required . (these keys designations are available in options>controls but are inconvenient to look up in the middle of battle)

B.)there was no key code to unlock the ‘extras’ which apparently contained some extra levels and cheat codes.

4.)This is a fairly short game; only 8 campaigns (that have 4-5 sections each). I finished this game in two days of intermittent play. Not much playing time for $50 US.

Conclusions:

A short game, that graphically was well done, and it does have some interesting scenarios and ideas. And although it doesn’t quite have that visceral intensity of Call of Duty 4, it is still an interesting and complex FPS. This game, played on ‘easy’ or ‘normal’ difficulty resulted in just a so-so rating, BUT on ‘hardcore’ it required some thinking and planning (and using your fellow soldiers), and thus making it intriguing FPS to play! 3 1/2 – 4 Stars

Sys Specs; Played on Vista with a Dual core processor, P5K motherboard, 2 GB RAM and nVidia 8800 GTS card

Rating:

This is a fast-paced First Person Shooter built around capturing points and getting territory rewards. It bears great similarities to BATTLEFIELD, yet I felt more like playing COMPANY OF HEROES from a FPS perspective. Various objectives are to be completed in order for the entire battlefield territory to be captured.

The graphics are good, although, not exceptional: CoD4 is much more impressive. The sound was nothing to complain about: your usual battlefield whizzing bullets, staccato automatics and loud explosions.

I really liked the feature which allows soldier and weapons customization – which, in an RPG twist, can get upgraded (up to level 3) as the game progresses. This is a game with a lot going for it. Unfortunately, the story does not end here.

The first star was withheld because of the short duration. FPS games keep getting shorter and shorter but 6-7 hours is way too short even for an expansion, let alone a standalone game! At this rate, in a couple of years, games will not run longer than a movie and will cost ten times a movie ticket.

The second star was withheld because of the weak Single player campaign. The missions were rudimentary designed and, even if there are challenging moments, it was painfully obvious that FRONTLINES is a game designed mainly as a multiplayer. Now, this is a risky way to set up a game since it depends on the number of onLine participants. If UT3 failed to attract a crowd, I cannot see FRONTLINES fairing any better. By the way, if THQ wants to boost onLine participation, they should offer more than the 8 maps currently available.

All in all, FRONTLINES is a good game that will leave Single player gamers with a mild unsatisfied aftertaste, whereas multiplayer gamers will enjoy more, provided they find enough companions to make it interesting.