The Firemen (SNES)

I'm not optimistic to be honest. I've played firefighting games before and I don't have fond memories of them. Or any memories at all in fact.

Well that's depressing.

Hey, Christmas Day 2010! I'm only a few months too late. Aww crap, is that timer counting down in the top left there? I hate time limits.

These two are our heroes, sent into this inferno alone to save the day. You play the old guy with the moustache and the fire extinguisher, and your friend with the axe is computer controlled.

But this ain't no escort mission, as far as I can tell your friend is indestructible. And see him swinging that axe? He's not chopping the tree, he's chopping the FIRE. He's pretty much the perfect AI helper, staying out of your way, always making himself busy and constantly stating the obvious. "THIS IS DANGEROUS!" he yells out as we enter the 10th burning room in a row.

You've got a close range water spray, a longer water jet and a couple of, uh, anti-fire grenades, but sometimes the best you can do is hit the deck and just try to make it through.

This first boss is a weird fire creature that bounces around, making it really hard for you to hit him.

Wait, a FIRE CREATURE? What the fuck game? None of the characters seem particularly surprised by it and there's no attempt to justify it that I can remember. But if it bleeds, we can kill it!

Oh, wait... fire doesn't bleed. Duh!

I respawned in the same room, so taking the guy down was less painful than it could have been. Killing the boss gives you a new timer, so you're not THAT rushed for time.

I'm fighting fire, what are you doing? Short dialogue scenes happen every couple of rooms, with the characters chatting to their support team on radio. They're always pretty brief and don't screw up the flow of the game, and it's nice to have a bit of story to it.

See, THAT's how you do it. I go under a walkway, and there's a cutaway to show where I am. No walking around blind.

Well this is nice. There's little fires that seem to home in on you, jumping fireballs, walls of fire that rush towards you, exploding barrels that fly up from the floor below... it's all going on.

Second boss! This is a slower moving fire creature than the first boss, but he's not the only fire you have to worry about this time so you have to keep moving. Yes I died to this one too...

Hey, a survivor! The pixel art in this really isn't bad at all, but the fire effects stand out as being particularly well animated.

It's 2010, the distant future, so of course there are crazed burning robots to deal with too. The fire on the ground will spread and grow if you don't extinguish each patch of it, but it seems possible to get rid of it all. Or you could just get rid of the stuff blocking your path and keep moving, we are on a time limit after all.

We're out! But because we're BIG DAMN HEROES, we're only hitching a ride to get to the next section of building. These fireballs keep jumping up at you though, so you've gotta keep your head down.

I stood up and died though. Oh well.

That was actually a surprisingly good game. If you ever have an urge to play a game where you're a fireman, this may be the one to go for.