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Dean McGregor is a fireman on the edge. Tortured by feelings of guilt over a rescue that went wrong, he extinguishes flames but, as he unselfconsciously explains in the opening CGI sequence, he's really trying to... extinguish... the... past.

After this fantastically overwrought opening, Konami's fireman sim treats us to some quite spectacular effects as you lumber from mission to mission, dousing flames and saving victims. The inferno roars around you, billowing across the floor, engulfing objects and rippling along the ceiling with a richness of colour and sound.

Such a shame then, that all this overlays a very traditional third-person shooter - except you wield a hose rather than a gun. You enter a building, rescue all the people, 'shoot' at flames, then you even get to fight end-of-level boss fires! This is not the first fire-fighting sim (remember Sega's Brave Firefighters coin-op?) but it could have made the disaster sub-genre its own with an innovative free-roaming setup - something like Irem's earthquake adventure SOS.

True, the game oozes atmosphere - especially when ceilings collapse and trapped office workers scream for help beyond clouds of suffocating smoke - but it's all wasted on a structure that couldn't be more conventional. We wanted Towering Inferno, but we got a reasonably entertaining, instantly forgettable episode of London's Burning.

Graphics 70%
Will actually make you sweat.

Sound 70%
Atmospheric music and effects.

Gameplay 50%
Disappointingly formulaic.

Lifespan 50%
More flash in the pan than eternal flame.

Overall 60%
With some more imagination and courage applied to the design, this could've been a top interactive drama. Hot, rather than burning...