How many of us haven’t at least one
time in our life, hopefully as a child, exclaimed, “I wanna be a fireman when I
grow up!” Well, Konami is giving us our chance with Firefighter FD 18
(FFFD18 from now on). FFFD18 puts you snugly in the heavy, rubber boots of
Dean “DON’T SAY CASUALTIES AROUND ME, AND WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, DON’T YOU DARE
WEAR RED DRESS SHOES EITHER” McGregor. Other than a couple of disturbing
instances of extremely neurotic behavior, Dean is an all around good guy and
possessed firefighter for FD18 in Port Serena. His neurosis is easily
explained a little way into the game when you learn the reason he became
firefighter. Don’t worry; I won’t ruin the story for any of you. The
game starts with Dean and his house being called to a fire in a highway tunnel,
at first believed to have been started by an overturned fuel truck. There
are tons of people trapped within the tunnel and Dean with his “don’t say
casualties” neurosis runs head long into the fire to rescue each and every human
life in the tunnel. The opening level serves mainly as a training mission,
giving you the opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of his various equipment,
as well as teaching how best to combat each fire. You quickly learn that
your soul mission in this game is not necessarily putting out the fires, but
rather to cut your way through the infernos to save the victims. Keep this
in mind as you play because each victim has a life meter that slowly drains as
they wait to be rescued, due I’m sure to heat and smoke exposure.
Shortly after the first mission you
are introduced to a mysterious burn victim known as Jason Hunt, who just happens
to be a bit neurotic himself, considering he’s a serial arsonist for hire, who
soon becomes bent on bringing around your fiery demise. Needless to say,
every fire in the game is the handiwork of Jason. The story of the game,
which is pure “Hollywood” all the way, is told through some pretty slick CG
movies, almost on par with the ones from Konami’s Silent Hill series. The
story while interesting enough to keep you compelled to see the game through,
features some laughably bad lines in the movies, but more on that later.
The controls of the game are pretty
straightforward. You move with your left stick and aim your hose with the
right. Face buttons are used for climbing, dodging, opening doors, and
altering the type of spray from your nozzle. The D-Pad has your other
firefighting equipment hot-keyed to each direction, making it quick and easy to
change your hose to an axe to a disposable fire extinguisher. The shoulder
buttons are used for spraying the hose and using any of the other equipment you
have and for crouching, which you’ll need not only for ducking under low hanging
debris, but also for ducking under the smoke for better visibility. The
ducking also has another very nice use, but I’ll leave it to you to find out
what on your own. (Anyone smell gas?!?) The controls as a whole are set-up
in an easy and efficient way, which makes controlling Dean and his equipment a
breeze.
Before I move on to the technical
merits of this game, I’d be remiss if I did not mention the fact that this game
has bosses. Bosses in a firefighting game? YES, BOSSES! And
they’re pretty dog gone intimidating. The bosses are fires, very specific
types of fires, which I believe to be mostly based on real life fire phenomena.
Fighting these boss fires takes a lot of strategic spraying, dodging, and
especially patience, because while you’re draining the bosses’ life meter (yup,
they’ve got those too) they’re busily trying to burn every square inch of real
estate around you, including you. It is a must that you stop from time to
time to put out the smaller fires bursting around you, lest they blossom into a
towering inferno.
Now, it’s time to discuss the
graphics. I’ll get the bad out of the way first. The interior
walls/environments are bland without much detail, but to be totally honest, you
rarely ever notice simply because you are forever surrounded by raging infernos.
Now, for the good, the fires and characters models look great. The fires
look and behave just like real world fires and being surrounded by it is a sight
to behold. As mentioned before, the CG scenes are also really well done
doing a great job of progressing the story.
The audio, like the graphics, has
good that goes along with the bad. The bad is the voice acting, there’s no
two ways about it. The problem is that you can’t tell if it was just the
material they were working with, or whether they were just bad voice actors.
It doesn’t have too bad of an effect on the game as a whole, but it does tend to
break up the pacing and emotion the game is trying to convey when you bust up
laughing. The good, however, far outweighs the bad. The fire
crackles, pops, and sizzles all around you, making you really feel as if you’re
in the middle of a fire. The hoses sound great, as do the explosions, but
the way Dean sounds as you’re guiding him around is especially impressive.
You hear every jingle of the metal on his boots, you hear the way his heavy duty
coat folds and twists with his movements, and you can even decipher what kind of
surface you’re walking on, even if you don’t always see it ie…wet, dry, weak,
slick, and so on. I should also mention the way that the Boss fires scream
and hiss as they’re extinguished is very cool, if not a bit spooky, giving you
the sense that you really have just extinguished a living entity. The game
also features some really high quality music to its name. Klaus Badelt of
“Pirates of the Caribbean” and “K-19: The Widowmaker” fame arranged the music,
and it shows. Fighting fires this epic in nature deserve to have music
just as epic in its scope.
In closing, FF FD18 is really great
at what it does. It is a compelling, fun, and stressful look at what so
many brave men and women willingly do on a daily basis. It’s a bit short
in length, eight to ten hours for most gamers, but it’s a very intense,
rewarding ride, making it seem as if it has lasted much longer than it really
has. Really, the only draw back to the game is that it’s a niche game and
it does feature a sometimes-maddening amount of trial and error. It’s not
all of the time, but you will find missions that require quite a bit of it.
It’s frustrating at the time, but when you finally get past it and start making
progress again, you soon forget about it. If you’re like the 99.9% of
those of us that aren’t firefighters, but once dreamed of being one, give this
game a chance, you won’t be disappointed. Even if firefighting is not your
cup of tea, at its most basic level, FF FD18 is a shooter at its core that
requires an amount of strategy and thought not normally seen in shooters.
Beyond all of that, whether you buy the game or not, make sure you tell the next
fireman you see, “Thank you!” They deserve it.
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Review Scoring Details |
Gameplay: 8.0
The control is spot on, easy to learn, and easy to master. The game as a
whole is a pleasure to play, but the trial and error bits detract at least one
whole point from the score.
Graphics: 8.5
The fires, characters, and CG movies all look great. The structures
themselves are bland, as are the various items strewn about, but you’re not in
there to admire the architecture, you’re there to save victims from the fire.
Sound: 8.5
If it weren’t for the bad voice acting/lines, this score would have easily been
a bit higher. Everything else in the game sounds fantastic and realistic.
Difficulty: Medium
There are various difficulty settings, so everyone should find something that
suits their styles and abilities.
Concept: 9
Konami has created a unique and fun game. Never has firefighting been
portrayed to this degree in the world of videogames and Konami should be
commended for trying something new. We as gamers are always looking for
something “new” and “innovative”, and FF FD18 has achieved both.
Overall: 8.5
FF FD18 is unlike anything else on the market and it has a high degree of
quality to boot. Anyone interested in firefighting or someone just looking
for something different should really give it a chance. I’ll be honest, I
really didn’t know what to expect going in, I mean, “How fun can spraying water
at fire be?” Turns out its pretty darn fun and compelling. Give it a
shot.
