Fired Up review - Kamikaze firefighting
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| Fired Up

Seeing as they literally run into burning buildings for a living, firefighters are unfairly overlooked as video game heroes.

Shooting down planes and blowing out brains might be better for a quick thrill, but wouldn't we find it ultimately more rewarding to douse flame ravaged buildings and rescue imperilled citizens?

On the evidence supplied by Fired Up, the short answer to that is 'no'. But that's not to say there's no fun at all to be had here.

Taking an unconventional approach to the job, our protagonist opts not to venture inside the burning building, instead propelling himself on a jet of water up the side of it and putting out fires as he goes.

It's a wildly reckless and predictably ineffective way of getting the job done that results in the poor chap's death 100% of the time.

Suicide mission

The aim, then, is to make your way as far as possible up the seemingly infinite high-rise, saving as many civilians as you can before burning to a cinder and splatting on the pavement.

It all sounds pretty unsavoury when you put it like that, but this cheery, colourful slice of kamikaze firefighting is, in essence, a vertically-scrolling take on the endless runner genre.

Jab the screen and your hose will shoot a stream of water. This propels you upwards as you weave between fires in some of the building's numerous windows, as well as extinguishing any flames in its wake.

This sounds simple, but is made trickier by the fact that the hapless hose-jockey flies at an angle, erratically switching directions as he attempts to gain control over the spewing pipe. It's not got a steering wheel, after all.

Ups and downs

It's simple, one-thumb fun with plenty of neat little touches.

Your previous, average, and best scores are all marked on the building as you ascend, for example, punctuating each flight with mini air-punch moments.

Daily and session records are also logged, allowing you to always feel like you're making progress - even if only in context with recent performances.

Its long-term appeal is slightly more questionable, however.

Earning in-game currency allows you to unlock up to 30 new residents, each individually designed and appearing randomly in the windows as you rescue them.

But it's difficult to care. When you're going at such a fast pace and focusing on beating your high score, it hardly matters whether a tiny head at a window is wearing a baseball cap or a chef's hat.

And ultimately, it's that failure to establish a meaningful progress layer outside of the stellar, score-chasing gameplay that prevents Fired Up from being any more than five minutes of fun at a bus stop.

Fired Up review - Kamikaze firefighting

Fired Up is a fun little arcade game with a unique theme, but one that burns out quickly
Score
Matt Suckley
Matt Suckley
Achingly contrarian. Proud owner of an N-Gage and a PSP Go. Matt spends most of his time writing about indie games of which you've never heard. Like that one, yes. Matt is an English student, and largely terrible at games. Go figure.