Monday, November 24, 2008

Fire Fighter

The text reads:

Rick Colby Thought He Was Hot Stuff.

Too bad about Rick. He was sure he could beat almost any game made for his Atari Video Computer System. Then he played Imagic's Fire Fighter.

Rick knew he was in trouble the second he leaped off the truck and began hosing down the flaming warehouse. As the fire leaped from floor to floor and the panicked victim climbed higher and higher, Rick tried desperately to reach the top floor with his ladder.

But it was too late. The warehouse was turned into a burned out shell. And so was Rick.

Please don't let this happen to you. Fire Fighter and all of Imagic's games are created by experts for experts. Do not play this video game if you are a weaselly, weak uncoordinated nerd. Unless you want to wind up like Rick.

Imagic. Created by experts for experts.
A potent cautionary tale from the gaming culture of 1982. Rick's fate is tragic, but it's hard to feel sympathy for him once you understand that he was actually rather crap at videogames. Imagic's Fire Fighter is generally remembered as one of the most kitten-pamperingly easy titles in the Atari 2600 library.

Fire Fighter was created by Brad Stewart, better known for his Atari 2600 ports of Breakout and Asteroids. Stewart's version of Breakout is notorious for being significantly easier than the original, and when he came to Fire Fighter he followed a similar formula.

In the end, it's fair to say Fire Figheter isn't the best firefighting game ever made, which is funny as it doesn't exactly have a lot of competition. In fact, it's not even the best firefighting game on the Atari - it loses out to the marginally superior Towering Inferno.

I have to say that the print ad featured above is vastly more entertaining than anything contained in the game itself. Also, I vote that we go back to referring to the Atari 2600 as the "Atari Video Computer System" which is a much more awesome name and doesn't include any unnecessary zeroes.

4 comments:

Morgan said...

I'm sure primary school children will find the omitted zeroes to be an upgrade.

The number of digits attached to the end of a gaming console's formal title is directly linked to it's success - why else did the Playstation 2 beat the Xbox, and why now is the Xbox 360 defeating the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii?

[Note: It doesn't quite account for the PS1 defeating the N64. But it does explain why the PC Games market is so terrible.]

Greg Tannahill said...

It's all clear now. This is why Google does so well.

Grant said...

I think Burning Rangers is probably the best firefighting game. Or maybe The Firemen on SNES, that was pretty cool.

Wasn't there a firefighting arcade game a few years back with firehouse peripherals you pointed at the screen?

Greg Tannahill said...

I played that arcade game. It looked awesome when you were watching other people work it, it punched nuns when you tried it yourself. Can't immediately remember the name.