Gamers love little more than seeing a popular genre absolutely pummelled to death and Codemasters, a company with a history of giving the people what they want, are only too happy to drown us in racing games.  Codies have bombarded us with no less than five racing games in the past two years, DiRT, Grid, SBK 09, Superstar V8 Racing, and Fuel, with DiRT 2 and F1 2009 (Wii and PSP, with a bizarre 2010 release on the other platforms) also coming our way in a few months.  The problem with overloading a genre in this way is that a company must then compete with their own recent catalogue on top of countless titles from their rivals.  The big question is whether or not Codemasters have succeeded in making Fuel stand out in one of the most competitive genres in gaming.

I think it’s fair to say that the developers were aiming for a “Test Drive Unlimited meets Motorstorm” hybrid.  On paper this is an exciting prospect, the combination of an open-world to explore and adrenaline fuelled races, but we all know that reality often differs from expectations.  The game has a ridiculously huge open-world map weighing in at 5,000­­² miles but this welcome attempt at pushing the boundaries doesn’t quite go to plan.  I love the relaxed atmosphere when driving around an open-world map but in this case it quickly becomes tiresome as the distance between points of interest is too great.  Something which makes TDU feel more alive is having other vehicles on the road with you but in this you can drive a long distance and pass only a handful of identical looking heavy trucks along the way.  These desolate roads not only appear unfinished, as though you’re testing vehicles for a game still in development stage, they also begin to feel quite creepy.

It’s fair to say that this has more in common with Motorstorm than TDU, especially in the graphical sense, but I can’t say this matches up any better with that PS3-exclusive.  The learning curve in Motorstorm: Pacific Rift is hard but fair while I found Fuel to be much less demanding and the challenges on highest difficulty only took me at most a couple of times to complete.  One of the best aspects of Motorstorm is the adrenaline rush from knowing that one mistake could cost you dearly while it’s possible to snatch victory from 4^th place on the last corner.  I never felt that same excitement with Fuel because even on the higher setting I often found myself comfortably in the lead halfway through a race.  My level of enjoyment quickly vanished when I realised that even with a huge mistake I‘d be able to gather my senses and still win the race before the AI drivers could reach me.

With so many racing titles available it’s hard for me to recommend this one.  Fuel attempts to capture the feel of two different styles of racing game but ends up falling short of both.  I suggest you look elsewhere for an open-world racer and if exciting races are your thing, and you own a PS3, you need look no further than Motorstorm.  On the other hand, if you’re looking for something which attempts to bridge that gap, you’ll find some enjoyment here but perhaps not a great deal.

6/10

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