Nerd Mentality

REVIEW - Real Heroes: Firefighter

Posted September 29th 2009 by Adam Glasgow.

Let me get this out of the way early on – Real Heroes: Firefighter is not a great name for a game. Combined with visuals that are right at home on the Wii (meaning that they look about a generation old), you have yourself a title that most would probably graze over and forget about. Those who decide to actually give it a try, though, are in for a pleasant surprise. Not only does it not suck, it's actually a solid, fun, rewarding game.

Epicenter Studios is a small development house founded by a couple of guys who worked on the Call of Duty games over at Activision. They decided they were tired of making games about shooting people and decided to try something crazy – making a game about saving people instead. Hearing this anecdote made me immediately drawn to Firefighter. I'm not opposed to video game violence; my attraction has nothing to do with some kind of moral issue with the violence that practically oozes out of the medium, it's just a refreshing notion. Most time playing games these days is spent brutally killing people, why not, every once in a while at least, have the option to play something about saving lives instead of taking them?

Even the best idea in the world means nothing without proper execution. Luckily Firefighter is more than just a cool idea – it's a legitimately fun and varied game. You axe down doors, contain and extinguish fires both up close and with a giant firetruck-mounted water cannon, you save lives (not always human), and you even get to use the Jaws of Life, even if they legally can't call them by name. The fire itself is extremely well done and can get pretty intense, especially on harder difficulties. It spreads quickly and even climbs up walls and ignites ceilings. Getting trapped in a corner surrounded by fire is an awesome experience, at least in game. 

Where Firefighter really shines is its attention to detail. For example, there's one level where you have to run into a closed off room filled with smoke. Rushing straight in is a bad idea, if you want to live you have to smash the windows to ventilate the room and make it slightly less deadly. Little moments like this make Firefighter a surprising joy to play and help it to avoid feeling like some inane arcade game.

Despite or perhaps because of the game's somewhat realistic handling of the firefighting profession, there are a few parts of the game that feel surreal and out of place. Take for instance the burning movie theater level. You find a blocked door leading into one of the theaters and can hear people clearly in peril on the other side. You scramble to find an alternate route to free them and end up meeting a teenage theater employee who implores you to move some reels of film to a safer room. Instead of telling to kid to screw off and that you have lives to save, and by the way what the hell are you still doing inside of a burning building, you comply and safely escort canisters of film to a non-burning location. "That one's my fav," the teenage boy says. "Aww, that one's just a sequel, but it's cool you saved it anyway." I get that the developers were trying to keep the gameplay varied, and I can respect that, but there is only one proper way for a rational person to respond when faced with this scenario. Which is, of course, o_O.

Other than this there really isn't a lot to gripe about. Like I mentioned the visuals aren't great, but I think the development house is comprised of like 14 people so that's easy for me to forgive. The motion controls work well, most of the game stands up to even the best FPS style games on the Wii. Prying open doors with crowbars can be a little tricky, but not frustratingly so, so again it's an easy annoyance for me to shrug off.

Final Thoughts

After I finished writing this review I went around and looked at some other reviews for the game, worried that I would find a lot of people who quit caring about the game as soon as they heard the name. I was happy to discover that most people feel the same way as I do – that the game is a great surprise and a lot of fun. It might not be as frantic and intense as actually fighting a fire, but it's certainly the closest any game has ever come that I've played. If you need an excuse to dust off your Wii, you could do a lot worse than Real Heroes: Firefighter. I'll be keeping my eyes on Epicenter Studios from here on out, I see good things in their future.

Tags: Nintendo-Wii, Real Heroes: Firefighter

Posted in: Reviews, Gaming

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