Think you’ve got what it takes to be a modern-day hero? Emergency Fire Response — known in Europe as Fire Department or Fire Chief — is a squad-based strategy game that challenges you to control a team of skilled firefighters and their vehicles.

Missions range from the somewhat easy (quenching a warehouse fire caused by arson; freeing a celebrity trapped in his burning villa) to the near-impossible (curbing the spread of a forest fire; preventing a national disaster at a flaming nuclear plant). Each of the 10 environments offers a handful of non-linear objectives, and a scripted introduction tells the story of each scenario.

As in many strategy games, the camera hovers above the action and your job is to manage resources. Using the mouse, you can select individual firefighters or “lasso” a number of them before clicking on a destination, such as rescuing a trapped secretary on the second floor of a building. But each firefighter type has its own abilities, so a technical officer defuses explosives, a paramedic aids victims (which may include firefighters), and extrication specialists remove large obstacles or debris. Knowing when and how to use these heroes is key to completing objectives.

Medals are awarded after each mission, along with a readout of stats such as total time needed and number of firefighter injuries, victims, and vehicles destroyed.

Unfortunately, while using vehicles is imperative to beating missions, they can be difficult to control because they get stuck in walls and other objects. Also, it can be tough to manipulate the camera when the view needs to be rotated. Sure, onscreen arrows let you swivel the perspective clockwise or counterclockwise, but when you’ve got to break down a door to douse a fire before it spreads, being able to move the camera via a simple mouse command would be much simpler.

Still, for $20, this European import is quite a steal, and should provide plenty of hours of heated gameplay.
— Marc Saltzman