Challenge your inner firefighter with Rescue: Everyday Heroes
An exciting holiday season awaits all fans of rescue and firefighting services: The U.S. version of the firefighting management and real time strategy game Rescue 2013: Everyday Heroes by the Finnish game developer Fragment Production and German publisher rondomedia is now available via the Steam network.
Rescue: Everyday Heroes is designed to be a challenging and realistic real time strategy game which also incorporates themes familiar from roleplaying and management simulation genres. The US version boasts many advancements over its earlier regionally released predecessors, including improved graphics and rendering, implemented completely new maps based on major U.S. cities, new characters, as well as detailed equipment and vehicles designed after real-life U.S. Fire and Rescue Services equipment currently being used in the field.
The game features 10 uniquely designed unlockable vehicles and three supporting vehicles, each available in iconic designs based on Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Miami fire departments with an exceptional level of realism. In order to catch every detail just right, the development team gathered and studied hundreds of reference photos, watched documentaries and even pored over official training manuals.
Painstaking detail has been put into creating a game as visually pleasing and enriching as possible: The U.S. version of Rescue: Everyday Heroes features entirely new maps with intricate, detailed and visually stunning planning, architecture and scenery based on major U.S. metropolitan areas, including New York, Chicago, Boston and Miami. But there are also some fictional influences that are apparent in a number of maps, including a rural Washington town, 'Smoulder Springs', which is eerily reminiscent of similar fictional towns from various sources in popular culture. In addition the Rescue: Everyday Heroes map 'The Highway', located in the American South-West, draws influences from the ruinous desert landscapes found primarily in many post-apocalyptic works of fiction.
Fragment Production Creative Director, Mikko Tyni on the sources of inspiration for the game: 'We included our homage to those things because this game is the spiritual continuum of the things we've done and things we love, including those huge personal influences. We took the opportunity to throw in a little bit of irony where permissible and paid specific detail to the iconic symbolism in our version of American culture to create believable scenes, right down to the smallest detail.'
The cast of characters has also been completely revised to showcase the personalities of the American heroes on which the game is based. Each character will have their own detailed background, personal preferences, and traits including strengths, weaknesses and personality quirks. Each character has been individually modelled and assigned their own unique behavioral personality. There are all in all 47 characters available for a player's firefighting team.
Mikko Tyni, Creative Director of Fragment Production explains why it was essential to rework certain aspects of the game before releasing it to the US-audience: “The US-firefighter culture has this strong, recognizable identity. The only way to properly capture it was to rework most of the in-game content, especially all narrative and visual elements. The American firefighter is an iconic figure, familiar to audiences around the world from movies and TV shows, and of course the news footage of the 9/11 attacks in New York."
The game contains both campaign and free play modes. Campaign play is further divided into 'management' and 'action' gameplay phases. In the game’s management mode the player will shoulder the diverse responsibilities that come with being the head of a large US-fire department: From essential administrative work such as the hiring and training of staff to the maintenance and upgrading of its vehicle fleet, as well as the continuous furnishing and expansion of the station itself in accordance to the departments financial means - including the purchase and positioning of equipment meant for training or recreation.
Once an emergency occurs in the action mode and the firefighters and rescue workers move out into the field, the player will coordinate the movements and actions of the individual crew members as well as the team as a whole. The player will also direct vehicles into tactically advantageous positions at ground zero and manage the proper use of equipment to tackle diverse sources of danger. The gameplay runs in real-time – typical for a strategy game – and the isometric 3D perspective also commonly found in this genre will help the player to keep a strategic eye on his units for the duration of the mission.
