Pyromaniacs beware!

The Wii has had some real shovelware titles come out over the past year or so. I know because I have reviewed several of them. I am glad to say that Real Heroes: Firefighter is not one of them. The game doesn't have the greatest graphics or sound or even the best story but for what it lacks in those areas it makes up for in game play. I had a great time playing Real Heroes: Firefighter. The firefighting feels natural, it seems ridiculous I know, and the fire is a true adversary that seems to live and breathe. Putting out the fires is very rewarding and is constantly a challenge; the game very rarely allows you to let your guard down.

RH: Firefighter is an FPS unlike any other that I have seen. There is no real "bad-guy" to speak of. No one to shoot. No one to kill. This begs the question, is it really a first person shooter when you are not shooting anyone? The answer is absolutely. The reason is that you are shooting, just not a person. Instead your enemy is fire. On the walls, on the ceiling, on the grass; it can be just about anywhere.

The point of the game is to save people and property just like a real firefighter does. You travel to major events, like a warehouse fire, pretty much automatically. You can choose to replay a previous mission but otherwise you will be taken directly to the next emergency. Once there, you will be guided through the tasks that need to be accomplished by a commander or someone on your team. Unfortunately, this is pretty much all scripted; so there isn't too much replay value. The tasks may consist of putting out individual fires (of course), keeping fire from reaching a target, recovering property or merchandise, getting trapped people/animals out of dangerous areas or shutting off gas or power lines.

The firefighter is controlled by pointing the Wii remote in the direction you want to look and using the control stick on the nunchuck to move your character in any direction. You can equip different pieces of firefighting equipment, which you will use to get into and out of fire damaged areas, as well as to rescue trapped victims. While controlling some of the pieces of equipment is unique, most are not. To use the fire hose, fire extinguisher, saw and a few others you press the B button. To use the pry bar you will need to force it into the door jam using a forward motion on the controller. While this did add a bit of challenge to the game, it mostly just got in the way. Luckily there is a way to make the pry bar operate just like the other pieces of equipment in the options menu. To change from one piece of equipment to another you press the directional pad up, down, left or right. Equipment selection can be set to automatic to alleviate the need to choose the proper piece. This means that if you walk up to a piece of wood that needs to be cut out of the way, then the game will automatically equip the axe.

Unfortunately, the game is marred by a few flaws. First of all, and most importantly, in my opinion, is the sound. The sound isn't terrible but it is only stereo. The game would have been much better served by being in surround sound. Imagine, if you will, being a real firefighter. You are stuck in a building and someone yells for help but you can only tell that the sound is coming from the left 180 degrees or the right 180 degrees of your current position. This would be a huge disadvantage. The game gets around this by putting an icon on the screen when someone shouts out for help but it would have been so much more exciting if you had to find your way by sound alone. The second flaw is the graphics. But this is the Wii we (pun intended) are talking about, so graphics end up taking a back seat as with pretty much every other game made for the Wii.

In the end the game ranked pretty high with me for its new take on the first person shooter genre. Add to that some intuitive controls and a non-violent foe Real Heroes: Firefighter surprised me. Sure it has some flaws but to me they were not enough to hamper my experience.