Firefight review

Lunchtimes in our household have become a lot more pleasurable lately thanks to two products: Innocent’s banana, pineapple and coconut smoothie, and Sean O’Connor’s WWII skirmish simulation Firefight.

Neither the drink or the game look all that appetizing. The smoothie is the color and consistency of baby puke; Firefight is all gaudy top-down countryside and miniscule misshapen sprites. Fortunately once you’ve gulped your first mouthful/assaulted your first hill, you forget all about appearances.

Firefight is reminiscent of Atomic’s classic military RTS Close Combat, but has a cleaner, more refreshing edge. Unlike CC or CC’s slower, smarter 3D cousin Combat Mission, Firefight doesn’t bother with any fancy order types. Basically you just click a squad or vehicle, grab the blue arrow that appears and place it where you want the unit to go. There is a separate fire command, but most of the time you can rely on your pocket-sized soldiery and tanks to pick their own targets.

The closest thing to a complication is the radio net concept. Sometimes you’ll select a squad and see a black rather than a blue arrow. These units won’t respond to orders until you move your HQ closer or shift it onto higher ground. Actually, they might not respond even then. As in Close Combat, grunts are sensitive souls: under fire they can freeze, flee or throw in the towel. The positive side of this instinct for self-preservation can be seen every time a tank backs out of trouble or a group of grunts fidget around to take full advantage of a hedge or wall - the negative each time a pinned-down platoon refuses to move and gets clobbered by an inevitable artillery salvo.