Once you've found a victim, they'll need your help in beating off the flames so they can escape, but they'll only choose their own routes rather than follow you. Since some areas have multiple approaches, this means the AI might choose to try and escape through a raging inferno rather than the more docile path you had come in from. Granted, the AI will stop and wait for you to clear out the flames in front of it before forging ahead, but the fact that they'll typically ignore the mostly-safe route you came in from in favor of a much worse path is quite frustrating. And yes, in certain cases upon completing objectives, an escorted victim may decide to run out of the mission area when the appropriate script is triggered - even if this means charging through a blaze you forgot to completely extinguish earlier.

That said, the game is still pretty interesting to play. Throughout each level you can collect hidden items, such as fire-fighting equipment with custom artwork (the "Medieval Fireaxe" being my favorite) and tokens which you can use at the Firehouse later to discover the source of a given level's emergency. The voice acting is fairly solid, and the game throws enough backstory and humor your way to keep things entertaining - I cracked a smirk at the "Save the crazy gas guy" objective.

Sadly however, there isn't much beyond that which offers replayability - most of the levels are fairly linear in nature and there's only 'one way' to complete a given objective, leaving little room for creativity. There also isn't any multiplayer support, which is disappointing as I really would have enjoyed some form of co-operative multiplayer for a game like this.

Real Heroes: Fighterfighter is unquestionably the finest fire-fighting game I've ever played, but that isn't saying much given how this isn't exactly a budding genre. The price point isn't too bad either with the game's average selling price of $40 (with some of these proceeds going to the Firefighter Cancer Support Network). The non-violent, approachable nature also means it should be safe to integrate into just about any family, so if the little ones think firefighters are the coolest people ever and you've been looking for something other than a great huge fire axe to get them for their birthday, this is something that will definitely be worth a look.

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