![]() ![]() The key to completing every single mission, then, is working out the quickest way to achieve each objective, because the longer you leave a fire to spread, or an office worker in a room filling with smoke, the harder your job is going to get. This class division is frustrating in many ways - why can’t every firefighter use a circular saw or a computer!?! - but like I’ve said, it’s one of the design concessions that was made to create a game out of this, and once the initial gripe wore off and I started thinking of everyone as “techs” or “rogues”, it was fine. At nearly every point in this game, Fire Commander is ditching reality in the name of making concessions towards fun and strategic gameplay, and while this is in some ways disappointing - I used to work for NSW Fire & Rescue, and would love to see someone actually get a decent simulation made - in most ways it’s understandable, and the game is all the better for it. ![]() If you wanted to get an insight into how fires are actually fought and what a day in the life of a firefighter is actually like, this is not the game for you. Sure it’s dangerous, but it’s usually also slow, and in most cases you defeat it by…pointing a hose at it.įire Commander tries to get around this by abandoning any and all attempts at simulation. And fire itself, while definitely a hazard, just doesn’t lend itself to being a great adversary in a game the way an actual enemy does. ![]() I think the main reason there’s never been a great firefighting game is because, as exciting as the subject can look on the news or in movies, in reality most fires are fought in an incredibly routine way. It works like a real-time tactics game, only instead of shooting Nazis you’re putting out fires, and between missions there’s a whole strategic side of the game that can be best summed up as “ XCOM, but with gyms for firefighters”. Fire Commander is the latest game to try and break this duck, and while it doesn’t make it, I at least admire the way it tries.įire Commander was developed by Pixel Crow - remember Beat Cop? - and Atomic Wolf, and was released last week on PC, Xbox and PlayStation. There have been firefighting games for as long as there have been video games, but for whatever reason - and I’ll speculate on this in a second - there has never been a great one. ![]()
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