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Fuel: The Least Restrictive Racer Ever?

Off-road racers often lend themselves to a certain amount of freedom. In all actuality, if one is already "off-road," why can't one find shortcuts and stray off the beaten path to find other beaten paths?

Well, Codemasters is apparently taking this idea to heart with their upcoming racer, Fuel. Producer Phil Wright told VG247 that it may actually be "the most open-world game there is." In other words, the game doesn't really place any restrictions on the competitor; the only boundaries you will find in the game are naturally environmental. Said Wright:

"Apart from the artificial boundaries at the edges of the game world, the only impediments to going where you want are natural, be that water, a sheer rock-face, or using the wrong type of vehicle (for example, trying to drive a road car up a steep slope off-road). It takes a few hours to drive from one edge of the landscape to another, but it can be done."

To drive the point home, Wright talks about how developer Asobo went above and beyond the call of duty to create this wide-open world. It seems they actually used "satellite image data of large areas of the more remote and wild parts of North America, including Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, to name a few." The end result, which should definitely present the racer with a limitless number of options when attempting to best the competition, is an environment that is kinda like a "best of" assembly of the North American wilderness.

If you like what you hear, give Fuel a try. It should be on store shelves for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on May 31.

Related Game(s): Fuel

5/21/2009 Ben Dutka

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Comments (28 posts)

laxpro2001
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 9:20:14 AM
Reply

Hmm... Interesting. Maybe I'll rent it?
The last racing game I enjoyed was Burnout 3: Takedown.

I wasn't too big of a fan of Paradise :(

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Turbey
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 10:08:21 AM
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I need a good racing game on my PS3. And it looks like Fuel will be one of them! :)

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Highlander
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 10:08:46 AM
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If the open world nature of Burnout Paradise wasn;t to your liking and you preferred Burnout 3 Takedown, I find it really unlikely you'll like the really, really open world of Fuel any moe than Paradise.

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laxpro2001
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 10:43:18 AM

it wasn't so much the open worldness as much as it was the way they changed the gameplay ie. smashing your opponent into oncomming traffic to get more boost

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Highlander
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 11:02:50 AM

Gotcha. A lot of gamers who preferred the earlier Burnouts were completely against the open world concept, my mistake for making an assumption.

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laxpro2001
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 9:55:02 PM

It's fine :)

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Beamboom
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 10:45:39 AM
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I loved Burnout Paradise, and Fuel seems to be taking that concept further into the extreme so this is definately a game I look forward to read the reviews.

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Highlander
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 11:03:33 AM

Maybe Fuel's DLC won't charge you the cost of a downloadable game for a single freaking car?

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fluffernutter
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 10:50:44 AM
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Damnit. Yet another game that's got me interested. Better get ready to burn another hole in me wallet. Ha ha.

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Highlander
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 11:04:51 AM

If Sony comes to E3 and pre-announces GT5 with an actual date prior to the end of 2009, my racing game dollars will be salted away for Gran Turismo 5.

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tlpn99
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 12:26:11 PM
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I am gonna get this one reminds me of Motorstorm in a way :)

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N a S a H
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 1:08:56 PM
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I'm more of a simulator fan than these sort of racers.

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Tim Speed24
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 1:59:37 PM
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"It takes a few hours to drive from one edge of the landscape to another"

I doubt it. If you are traveling at 80-90 mph on a bike....no way. I always hear how big these open world games are but one end to another in any open world game never takes more than 15-20 minutes, tops.

I just hope there is not alot of pop-in...that just ruins the illusion for me.

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Highlander
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 11:44:38 PM

It's possible, I think that they use a lot of map elements that are generated procedurally rather than from pre-rendered objects and textures so that the amount of world data required is reduced and they can fit more in memory at a given time. It takes more processor to build each frame, but lot's less memory.

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somethingrandom
Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 12:17:39 AM

You would be hard pressed to cross the map of Oblivion in less than 30min.. even on a horse. But in a racing game the map would need to be absolutely huge. In most racing game open worlds, crossing the map is usually a matter of less than five minutes. It will be interesting if it's true though.
Last edited by somethingrandom on 5/22/2009 12:18:50 AM

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Jackyl
Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 6:46:38 AM

Depends on your average speed going through these maps. Try racing from one side of Mt Rainer to the other, it is going to take you a long time. These aren't paved streets.

Several hours does seem like a stretch but but I could easily imagine 30-55 minutes, depending on terrain.

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Tim Speed24
Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 7:14:36 AM

I still think they're Gallram liars, unless you are driving really slow.

@somethingrandom
Horses aren't as fast as motor vehicles the last time I checked. Put a dirtbike in the Oblivion world and you could cross it in less than 15 min.

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Nestore
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 2:28:15 PM
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I didn't like the open-world nature of the new Burnout or Midnight Club games, so this is reducing my interest in Fuel.

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killzone100
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 2:28:18 PM
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The graphics for this game look bad. I would wait for Dirt 2.

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Zaben
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 2:53:47 PM
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Paradise really disappointed me and I haven't been into racing since.

But the statement about driving from one edge to the other taking multiple hours really catches my interest. But with a large area, I'm scared that the graphics and gameplay will suffer greatly. We shall see I suppose.

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 3:21:50 PM
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We won't have to stop at the gas station for expensive fuel will we?

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coldbore
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 6:37:40 PM
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this game looks like a mixture between the old 4x4 evolution games for the ps2 and motorstorm, i will definetly pick this one up.

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Jian2069
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 6:56:55 PM
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this is very relevant to my interests

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Jed
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 7:04:18 PM
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Sounds like Smuggler's run to me, one of my favorite games. That is enough to get me really excited about it.

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Karosso
Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 7:36:06 PM
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Loved Smuggler's Run so I will surely give this one a try!
Wish they'd make another Smugglers Run game, that would be great with an online mode...

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Jed
Saturday, May 23, 2009 @ 1:15:23 AM

Hell ya, that would be great

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556pineapple
Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 4:17:27 PM
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I'm reminded of the old PC game Monster Truck Madness. Each level was completely open (though I'm sure significantly smaller) and if you drove far enough in one direction, you'd eventually make it back to the track as if each track was its own mini-planet. This sounds like a game I'd have fun playing.

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Jian2069
Sunday, May 24, 2009 @ 11:48:39 AM
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this comes out in 6 days?

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