Frontlines: Fuel of War (THQ) was my pick for the most underrated online game of 2008, and now it's selling in used-game stores and online for $15, a steal. It comes with a solo, offline war, of course, where you move from point to point on battlefields, shooting rival soldiers with machine guns, tanks and bombs. That action-adventure is pretty good, pretty simple and fairly short. But online, it's just amazingly addictive.
You play as part of an army against another army, trying to capture flag points. That's nothing new in online gaming. What is superb are the brilliantly staged battlefields, with tanks, Jeeps, helicopters, bombs, machine guns and sniper rifles. So you and your team rush in to command one of several flag stations, only to run into the other team doing the same thing. You kill each other a lot. That also is routine in games, but what makes "Frontlines" so incredible is the smooth balance -- the realistic ease of movement and the smart layout of each battlefield. The only caveat: The game has been on the market so long, there aren't many people playing it online anymore. This is a shame, since "Fuel of War" is one of my all-time favorite multiplayers. It's rated "T" for blood, language and violence.
Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas.
Subject: Still true 
Sun Aug 19, 2012 7:47 am
