Review by: Dave VanDyk

Ducking under the twisted remains of the gate with my trusty fire hose firmly in hand, I cautiously navigated the burnt-out hallways. A young boy who couldn't have been more than ten or eleven years old timidly grasped my other free hand as I led him ever-closer to the front entrance of the building, beyond which waited the loving embrace of his family. When we finally made it, my heart sank; the vicious fire which I had previously put out of had now returned to life with a completely new level of fury.

Not only was the lot outside the front of the building completely engulfed in flame, but nobody else was bothering to do a god damned thing about it. Even more shocking however was the child's reaction to this - rather than running away in fear, he broke loose and charged blindly forwards into the flames, as if driven by some form of arcane scripting or guided hand. My astonishment deepened when I realized he had actually made it to the other side unscathed, and my own team mates had even charged through those same flames from the other side to shake my hand, pat me on the back for a job well done, and tell me it was time to go home. It all felt like some horrible dream that I couldn't wake up from...

Real Heroes: Firefighter is a fresh game from the hands of Epicenter Studios which (oddly enough) portrays the challenges of fighting fires. You play the role of a probationary addition to the team of Engine Company 13 as they deal with one of the hottest summers in the history of Los Angeles. Throughout the game, you'll be given the opportunity to interact with the fire station and its crew, get involved in a wide range of accident scenes, and learn what it's really like to be a firefighting champion - or at least, get as real an impression as one could interpret from a game. But as alluded to in my dramatic prologue for this article, there are a few things about Firefighter which aren't quite... right.

At its core, Firefighter is a mix between a fire-fighting 'simulator' and a straight-up FPS action game. The game will thrust you into all sorts of situations that require you to use firefighting procedures and equipment, such as breaking out windows to ventilate a room of smoke before charging in, calling out to locate victims in need of help, working with halligan bars, the "jaws of life", and cutting tools to facilitate extraction or infiltration into an area, and (of course) using fire hoses and other extinguishing tools to take out flames. At the same time, actual fire-fighting requires you to approach things a bit more like an action game, using any available extinguishing gear to try and isolate and eliminate pockets of fire before they spread out of control, and watching out for explosions (which spread the flames further), damaged electrical equipment, and falling debris. The game incorporates a regenerating health system, so you'll be good to go after a few seconds of cover if you wander too close to the flames.

And surprisingly, the firefighting experience actually isn't bad. The developers put a huge amount of effort into fleshing out fire as a truly crafty 'opponent'. In order to properly get the upper-hand on a blaze, you'll need to carefully and methodically pick off all outside traces of the fire before working your way inwards to stop it from flaring back up again - which can be a challenge for some of the complex environments the game throws your way. You'll often find it far too easy to miss a little piece of burning debris, turn your back for a few moments to go work on some other fire, and then find that you've been surrounded by a resurgence of the original blaze again. Fortunately the game's FPS-oriented controls are very simple - anybody who's played Metroid Prime 3 will instantly be at home.

However, since the game mainly focuses on escort objectives (which involve going into a burning locale, saving someone, and fighting to get them back out again), this often introduces you to intense situations where you'll need to fight off the flames just enough to slip in, grab the victim, and get back out again. Unfortunately, this is where things get a bit weird.