Fire Panic Review (DS)

Falls apart in the heat of it all

The subject of trial and error is one that’s completely void of the general populace of Fire Panic. With all the innocents featured burning down buildings every two or so seconds, you can’t help but feel you should leave the town to a fiery fate and when questioned, deem it a live and learn policy about fire prevention for the survivors. Who knows, perhaps the frustration of Fire Panic will make you a sociopathic saviour doomed to take on a seemingly impossible task.

Armed with two fire engines, an overhead view of a city in need and no qualifications whatsoever, your objective in Fire Panic is simple. When you see a fire, put it out. Starting up Fire Panic greets you with a flurry of garish flames filling the screen accompanied by blaring sirens that threaten to break your speakers. It feels like you’re the guest of honour on Crackerjack for having a fork in your eye. Enter the game, however, and despite the simple 2D overhead, the cartoon graphics are vibrant and when accompanied with the comic retro jive soundtrack, it almost manages to create an amicable charm to proceedings. The thumbs up turn into nothing but charred remains however, once the stylus hits the screen.

Controlling your fire truck duo through the disturbingly empty streets is simple, as both are guided by routes that can be drawn with the stylus. Once a truck is close to a fire, it will automatically battle to put it out, the amount of time devoted to the blaze depending on how long you let it grow.

Such an unsteady difficulty pace is enough to put you off.

Through progression more hazards will crop up making your already ridiculously bad day even worse. Tornadoes tear through in an effort to spin your vigilant vehicles out of control, and UFOs will do a bit of sight seeing before blasting buildings into fiery pieces simple for poops and giggles. Amongst the chaos, the odd cat stuck in a tree will appear, and although the surrounding crisis seems more dangerous to ignore, good will in rescuing these provide you with score multipliers.

Though rewarding in the short term, the multipliers prove to be a constant Judas in your battle with the blazes. On one hand, the only premier objective in the whole game is gain the highest score you possibly can, making it the only rewarding feature of Fire Panic. On the other hand, the difficulty seems largely dependent on how high your score is, and so can easily sky rocket upwards very early on. It’s not long after starting till it starts looking as if the Devil himself is trying to break out from Hell and onto the mainland. Such an unsteady difficulty pace is enough to put you off after only a few ‘Game Over’ screens, and doesn’t do much to favour its lifespan.

With only two cities of fire hazards, it feels like there’s wasted potential in Fire Panic’s arsenal. Even if the gameplay seem flawed in practicality, another city map would be nice to reward the persistent and attempt to lure players in for a replay. Even an additional mode adapting and presenting the initial concept a little differently would spice things up a little. Alas, the minor additions make this a title that will only really appeal to high score junkies from the Game & Watch era.

For the cheap price, Fire Panic is a vibrant enough looking package from the outset. Unfortunately with little delving into its depths, it is too simple to be deemed interesting, and too unbalanced to embrace longevity. A great asset in training your peripheral vision, it’s a short lived blast that does little to promote itself in the long run.

Fire Panic is available on DSiware for 200 Nintendo Points