Fire Captain: Bay Area Inferno

While we were impressed with this game's great graphics, issues with stability and missing in-game tutorials forced us to throw a bit of cold water on this firefighter adventure. As Fire Captain, you command a brigade of fire fighters, medics, and vehicles to contain fires and protect the city. We were impressed with the game's many features and game scenarios. There's quite an assortment of fires you'll face, from electrical fires to overwhelming infernos. Break doors, save victims: there are plenty of challenges for even the most seasoned adventure fan. Yet don't expect to download this game and start saving lives immediately. Even the beginning levels of Fire Captain are very challenging, and the lack of in-game help option is a serious drawback. We also were disappointed, given the level of difficulty, that there's no option to save a game; if you fail a mission, you'll have to start from the beginning. Great graphics and impressive detail make Fire Captain visually stimulating, yet it also slows down gameplay. Even when we adjusted the screen resolution to its lowest setting (and running a Pentium 4, with a Radeon 300 video card) we still experienced long lags and delays. Overall, if you're a fan of action and have the patience of a saint, Fire Captain might just light your fire.