Keep that fire burning!
As soon as you arrive at the scene you need to be fast; it is absolutely vital that you get moving immediately, deploying your vehicles to start combating the fire, then try to figure out how to proceed. You'll often chase fires spreading in different directions towards cars and other explosive objects that will cause even more mayhem. Sometimes you need to be thorough and at other times you must cut a path through the inferno to reach civilians boxed in by flames, risking to have your brave squad of firemen emptying their extinguishers deep inside a building. This sort of tension keeps you on your toes at all times and makes the gameplay very satisfying.
What is less impressive is the fact that scripted events will occur as your squad completes an objective or passes a checkpoint. Fires that you had completely extinguished will suddenly appear out of nowhere, reigniting large areas in a blink of a second, taking you out of the experience and making you feel this is more of a puzzle than a simulation.
The major caveat though, is that the box claims the game to offer 34 missions in ten different environments; this in fact translates to a mere ten missions with various sub goals. It is great that the ten missions are all very diverse and make use of different equipment, but this also means you only get to use certain vehicles or skills one on or two occasions only. The game cries out for more scenarios for you to practice what you've learned during the campaign.
All in all though, this is an absolute blast to play!
NOTE: This game is being distributed in Europe by Infogrames under the name Fire Chief.