Review: Against The Fire

Overview

From the creators of Alive 4 Ever comes Against the Fire. It’s a dual stick shooter like Alive 4 Ever, but instead of killing zombies, you’re putting out fire. Instead of using guns, you have a hose at your disposal. You play as a firefighter, and your goal is to save all of the trapped people inside of a building. You work your way up saving people on each floor until you clear out the entire building. Fire balls come from all over, and you only have a hose, so can you battle against the fire?

Features

In each level your objective is to find the trapped citizens and return them to the safety zone. There are 50 levels in this game, meaning you have to save everyone on all 50 floors of the building. There are five power-ups to help you along your way including power boost to your hose, oxygen increase, and speed boost. Also included are varying fireball enemies from standard, to huge ones, and even purple exploding fireballs. In each level you get medals depending on the time taken to complete the level.

The Good

Against the Fire has really fun gameplay. It’s a great change of pace to the dual stick shooter by using a firefighter theme, rather than more mindless killing. It’s fun and simple dosing the fireballs floating toward you from all directions. In each level it takes time to find the citizens, as the layout is similar to a maze. Once you get a citizen you have to take them back to the safety zone, and make sure to keep them protected, as the fireballs really intensify and focus on the citizen. It really feels good playing as a firefighter, and saving lives. The visuals are really well done with everything in the level very finely detailed. You have a 2D birdseye view of the floor you’re currently on, and every floor is designed differently from the hallways to the bedrooms and even the restrooms. The fireballs are very nicely animated, as they extinguish appropriately as the stream of water hits them. The sounds are nicely done with an intense background song going appropriately with the life and death theme. The water spray and extinguishing of flames sound perfectly as well. Then there are the cries of help and thank you as you progress and save the trapped citizens. The fifty levels amp up in difficulty nicely, and there are three difficulties to play through. The save system works perfectly picking up in the exact point you left.

The Bad

As great as the gameplay is, it does get a little repetitive as all dual stick shooters do. Against the Fire does provide a different landscape for all 50 levels though, and provides an objective rather than just surviving. Another problem is that there are no online high scores for a mainly score based game. It’s neat to beat a level in time to get a gold, and a huge score bonus, but there are only local high scores.

The Verdict

Against the Fire is a unique take on the dual stick shooter. It brings a boat load of fun to the tired genre, and the game is very well done. Playing as a firefighter spraying various fireballs is great fun, and then on top of that, the difficult objective of saving citizens adds so much more. Against The Fire is a great game, and is better than Meridian's other title Alive 4 Ever. This is a must buy, so start dousing the flames. [gallery link="file" columns="4"]

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