Fuel

This game is not worth spending any money on. I traded in some games inclusing the excellent Racedriver Grid and took Fuel back the next day.
Poor vehicle handling physics.
Poor engine sound effects. Beefed up offroad vehicles shouldn't sound like epileptic asthmatic wasps.
No in game music, just an irritating guitar loop.
No crash damage.
No sense of speed even when hurtling down hill chasing a rather slow Helicopter.
Slow loading times.
No great change in handling in relation to terrain/weather.
Basically they seem to have sacrificed every great racing game element in place of having a vast open map.
Overall it feels unfinished, poorly executed and vastly overpriced.
If I had been buying it for the PS2 5 years ago I might have been impressed. I didn't and I wasnt.
Really...save your pennies and buy something else.

this game is amazing the handling is perfect and the variety is awesome, the graphics are really good and theres a 16 player online mode. the weather effects the races, creating obstacles and makes it alot better than other offroadish style games, it will last a long time so its definetly worth buying for ANY racing fan. ( it isnt just offroad.)
the one bad thing is that it get a bit tedious in a more-ish addiction, just one more race, one more camp. and theres to many collectibles around the map. WHICH IS HUGE!

Just got this game today, played 4 hours so far and think its excellent. Impressive visuals and great scenery, the racing is fast paced and you never play the same track twice in the whole game.
The game itself is huge, the map is sized more like a flight sim than a racing game and has plenty of detail.
Think of this game as Burnout paradise meets Motorstorm meets fallout(in terms of the playable arena) and that sums it up.
It does however lack a human presence in the same way burnout.
Only downsides so far are the soundtrack is a bit rubbish, MotorStorm,Burnout,Pure ect..soundtracks are much better and It does however lack a human presence in the same way burnout did.

I was shocked to see IGN only gave it 5.5/10 and other reviews have been similar, Even if not to everyone's taste its still worth a 7.5+/10 at minimum!!
I was a big fan of Motorstorm and i think this is better by far!

Overall:
Graphics = 8
Sound = 7
Gameplay = 9
Longlevity =8

Ok. If I'd paid 40 quid for this, I wouldn't have been over the moon. At under a tenner or even for under 20 quid, I've played a lot worse games. The map is stupidly big. You don't get a feeling of the scale until you drive off in one direction for 30 mins and find you've hardly moved across the map at all.
The controls of the various vehicles vary from the overly twitchy to the driving through concrete, but there is enough variety of cars, bikes, quads, buggies, trucks etc to make you come back again and again.It's like the lovechild offspring between burnout and motorstorm. If you liked any of those games, there's no reason why you shouldn't like this.
Plenty of races and challenges, trophies and hidden items to keep you coming back for just one more go.
Definitely worth a punt - especially if you're on a tight budget.

Out of all the racing games I have played on PS3, FUEL is the most intelligent. It has you by the bull's horns and keeps you gripped within a tight white knuckle drive from start to finish and start again and try harder! - that's what this Codemasters title does. It is by far the biggest driving game on PS3 and deserves utmost credit. I have been playing it for 39 hours - actual gaming - and I just want more, and MORE! I've got to the point where I am 19 stars away from unlocking Dustbowl City. There are many reasons why you might not be taken in by this title to begin with, but, worry not, just think of the competition: MotorStorm Monument Valley and Pacific Rift, both of which are intense also - even more so. Yes, they are two great alternatives, but they are different, as is Pure [only ATVs and no first person perspective]. I'm strictly race rather than freestyling and I would suggest that you forget about Sega Rally [it's too limited] and, please, don't consider MX vs ATV Untamed [ever], which, in my opinion, is the worst racing game I have ever wasted a tenner on. DiRT2 is comparable with FUEL in some ways, but, nonetheless, for sheer unbridled wild west expansive free roam, open your mind, kit back and enjoy, learn and be apprehensively excited, this has got to be top of the pile. One thing to note: Codemasters forgot to say in their instruction manual that you can play this game from first person perspective by pressing the R3 button, which is a fundamental aspect to this game's appeal. FUEL IS fast, very fast and exhilarating from drivers' eye - don't listen to the critics who say FUEL is too slow. They say that tosh because they have only tinkered on it for perhaps an hour or so. The range of vehicles is vast, seventy five in total and you unlock these faster vehicles as the journey goes on. FUEL is indeed a journey - a flaming massive one! Through dark winter starlit nights, lonely on the highway, to full-on tornadoes, high winds and thunderstorms on tricky dusty windswept tracks, yes, FUEL keeps you fully occupied. The game's racing engine is a fair one and the AI is all about who is in front - just like in real life - once you take the lead you tend to get nervious by having no one to follow. FUEL provides the thinking man's brain with enough feedback to want to have another go and try to win each stage - it's all about winning those precious stars to further your career. There are also many 'Challenges', as well as 'Free-roam' where you can find essential fuel to buy more powerful vehicles, which, in turn, helps you to progress quicker. Spend time with this amazing game and check the vistas out, find new liveries and generally drive into the sunset with free abandon. I simply love FUEL because you can drive Bikes, ATVs, Buggies, Muscle cars, Mud Pluggers and Trucks, all of which are totally renegade and ill, perhaps the only vehicle class missing is Go-karts. Bravo to the makers of FUEL.