Wildfire Fighter, a new path-drawing game from People Operating Technology, is available from the app store. You’ll need quick wits, precise movements, and a bit of luck to keep the fires at bay and save the towns from certain disaster.
Wildfire Fighter contains three different maps (Idaho, Oregon, and Montana) and three difficulty levels (Cool, Warm, and Inferno). Your job is to control the helitankers and airtanker, drawing line paths to the fires that randomly break out. The quicker you arrive on the scene, the easier it will be to contain the fire. Take too long and the blaze will spread… fast. If you let them spread a bit, you can also take out multiple fires at once, so there is a balance to strike. Your helitankers hold enough water to make three drops before needing to refill at a nearby lake. Simply trace a path with your finger to the location where you want to drop the water and the aircraft will follow. Be sure you are right above the fire, as small differences could see you wasting water on green grass. Double-tap the craft to drop your payload. A red craft indicates that you have a full load. A white craft is empty. When you run out of water, draw a path to a lake and your craft will automatically replenish as it hovers over. Your airtanker circles the map until needed, at which time it will extinguish anything in its path. Draw a line from the airtanker that passes over any number of fires and they’ll be out before you know it. Each map is unique in its physical characteristics and town placement. Environmental effects, such as wind direction, can have major effects on how the fire spreads and the strategy needed to control it. If you endure a midair collision or allow the fire to reach a town, the game is over.
The graphics are decent, on par with some of the earliest line-drawing games such as Flight Control. The fire animations are pretty fun and add to the tension of the spreading fire. The original soundtrack is good, though difficult to hear with all of the fire-crackling and water-splashing sound effects. Controls are simple, but don’t feel like they work as well as other games in this genre. The tap-to-drop feels repetitive and sometimes repositions your craft instead of dropping your payload. The need to be precise is a little frustrating, too. We missed a few fires even though we were pretty sure we were right above the blaze. Some tweaking may need to be done to shore up this area of gameplay.
Wildfire Fighter utilizes OpenFeint for leaderboards so that you can compare your successes against those of other players. Replay value is good because of the leaderboards and the natural tendency for these games to become addictive as you constantly modify your strategy and improve upon past performances. Wildfire Fighter is a mere $0.99, a nice bargain for this unique 4-Dimple addition to an ever-expanding genre.
Wildfire Fighter gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
