Frontlines - Fuel of war

In the not too distant future, oil reserves are running low, and those who have oil have power. The wars are therefore inevitable. You are fighting on the side of the Western Coalition against the Red Star Alliance to secure the remaining reserves for your own side. Graphically not excessively equipped, but it eats a lot of power. Basically quite a pleasant game, which knows how to capture the flair of the battlefield very well.

Even though it's no longer a good idea for the multiplayer to buy the game, the single player is actually quite nice. You can buy the game via Steam. Or just second hand, or from other retailers as CD. The situation with the CD keys is a different matter. But after the online platform has been closed sometime and the game still works, there will probably be no check for double use.

In principle, as always, first install the game, then the patches, then copy the crack over. However, the game wants to install PhysX in a rather outdated version. Please don't use this one, but the PhysX Legacy which you can find in the Downloads section. With newer versions of PhysX the game doesn't work anymore. However, newer games need the newer version. Newer versions then unfortunately flattened the old one again. The only way out is the legacy version, which is not removed by newer versions during installation. As annoying as it is, the patches have to be applied in the logical order, i.e. a total of four patch steps. Please do not block Punkbuster in the firewall during the installation and patching process. You will only get into trouble with this. After the installation including patching is finished you can block Punkbuster in the firewall if you like. However, it is only an anti-cheating tool anyway. So it's a matter of taste whether you want it or not. But during the installation it's necessary that PB can get out. Otherwise the patch will mess up.

You may have to be more careful with the brightness settings. If you turn it too far up, the colors will change, especially in the cutscenes. If, for example, the loading hexagons are bordered with purple instead of silvery, then the brightness is probably turned up too much.

In principle, one also has the option of activating English instead of the German language. However, this is user-dependent. The file C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\Frontlines - Fuel of War\GCGame\Config\GCEngine.ini must be changed at the line with Language=deu to Language=int. Now all texts, sounds and videos are in English.

One game mode is a bit like Onslaught in UT2004: You have to take certain points but advanced ones become available only when others are already taken. You have to be at their position for a while to capture them. Depending on the position, it can also take a very long time until the position is captured.

There's no more playing via Internet, at least not with the crack. Via LAN, on the other hand, it is. You can then select the faction, i. e. Red Star or Coalition. Another info from the net, which is still untested: „so online servers hosted by the kiling crew are also still available (connectable via ingame console). lil sidenote: retail and steam version frontlines cannot play together in lan iirc.“

• PhysX Lagacy Version (this older version of PhysX is required for the game)

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