40 replies to this topic

[firetruck449]

ok..but can i order it in US dollars and ship to us address?

[hunter42]

Not unless the US became part of the EU then no, sorry.

[firetruck449]

Not unless the US became part of the EU then no, sorry.

thanks for your help tho

[hunter42]

Just bought the game from Amazon.fr because it dropped to 12.29 euros. With additional VAT and shipping, came to 19.38, which is £16.70. Even if the bank decides to charge a fee, it still won't push the overall price to over 20.00 euros.
Will post again once it arrives (2-3 days).

[hunter42]

Right then, a review... of sorts.

Feuerwehr-simulator 2010 was developed/co-developed by Vstep, a Dutch company that creates training simulators for emergency services.
Feuerwehr-simulator simulator features 11 missions (including 4 tutorial missions that introduce you to the mechanics of the game), vehicle driving from the view of the firefighter, and a range of tools you'd expect to find on a fire engine.

The vehicles
There are a total of 5 fire service vehicles featured in the game. However, you will only ever drive one of them to the scene.

Fire engine

The fire engine is the vehicle you'll only ever get to drive. It will carry the four firefighters that you can control to the scenes of accidents and has all the equipment you'll need. It has a reasonable speed too, so unless you go the wrong way, you won't arrive late.

Turntable ladder

The turntable ladder is introduced about 5 missions into the game. You don't get to drive it, but it will normally arrive at the scene shortly after you do. If you're playing a mission that requires the turntable ladder, then you'll find the fire engine will only have two firemen in it while the other two travel in the turntable ladder.

Ambulance

The ambulance arrives in almost every mission once the commanding officer has called for one. The paramedics take away anyone involved in an accident for hospital treatment - simple really.

Fire chief's car

The fire chief's car carries the fire chief... as you'd expect. The fire chief is the fifth fireman that you can control ingame, but he doesn't help the four firemen with their job. The fire chief carries a radio that allows him to call control when you're on scene, call for an ambulance or for a fire boat.

Fire boat

The fire boat is only featured in the last mission and cannot be interacted with in any way. You can see the fire boat in the last mission, and it does extinguish a fire, but that's about it.

The missions
Missions are quite well varied and kept realistic - there's no dramatic events that happen half way through like in EM4. The missions are:

Spoiler

Training: Driving
Training: Vehicle rescue
Training: fire fighting
Small house fire
Autobahn accident
Car fire at gas station
Accident in tunnel starts fire
Train vs car results in fire, injury and gas leak
Training: Ariel ladder
Pipeline fire at warehouses
Cargo ship fire

Gameplay and impressions
There's a lot that is wrong with this game - mostly bugs. The fire engine appears to jump back and forward as you drive, the siren is poorly looped and firemen don't hold equipment (it just hovers next to their hand).

example: The Feuerwehrmanns are magical!

There are less obvious glitches also, such as the fire engine siren sounding for a split second while you choose the pressure level for the hoses, or if you have the Ariel ladder deployed, it can move forward an inch if you turn the commander's radio on and off. It soon becomes apparent that the game is bug ridden and much could've been improved.

covering a gas spill - now hands free!

For example, textures. They're very basic and lack detail. Here's an example:

The road is a sort of uniformed grey and there's no grass, just a green ground. No shadows, no dynamic lighting, and the lights on the fire engine don't change colour when they're on - it's just a flash that appears above the light (can't see it in the screenshot).


radioing dispatch for an ambulance.

So there's a lot that's wrong with the game, does that make it bad? Far from it! This is a great game that tries to stick to accuracy as much as possible, and it succeeds well. There are some things that don't seem very accurate, like the fire hose doesn't extend very far before you need another one (that might be accurate, not sure) and firemen don't do anything until you control them - but that happened in EM4 and it was still a great game.


Here's a good example - Stabilisers for the car have to be in place before you cut the roof and door off. Many times I have forgotten this and spent ages trying to figure out why it wouldn't let me cut the victim out. Another feature is limited water on board the fire engine. This can be resolved by connecting the water supply to a fire hydrant - not forgetting to turn the hydrant on of course.

Lots of hoses will be scattered around during a fire - just like in real life


The hoses connected to the rear of the engine - the middle one labelled "2" has two hoses connect that head off to a hydrant.

So. The big question: Is it worth buying? Well, that depends on you.
Are you the sort of person who moans that EM2012 graphics need to be much better because they're similar to EM4? Are you the sort who buys every generic shooter going just because it has better graphics? If you are, then you should probably steer clear of this game.
Or are you the person who can sacrifice graphics for a different style of game play? Then this game could be for you.

Although the game comes from a big-ish company, it is almost like an indie game. It's micro-management, like in EM4, but you get direct control over units. I find it good fun, and the glitches are hardly annoying or prevent you from playing. The only complaints I have is that there's not enough missions and no modding possibilities.

So if you can put up with bugs, a foreign language and basic graphics, then you might want to consider this.

some things I forgot to mention:
1) All firemen (minus fire chief) can equip the helmet and breathing apparatus. However, it's only the first fireman that can set the levels on the apparatus.
2) All tasks have a certain time limit, visible in the bottom right (green is good, yellow is about half way through and red means you're almost out of time). However, the game gives you plenty of time to achieve the tasks.

sorry if the quality/size seems strange - prtSc and alt-tabbing doesn't go down well with the game so I used Fraps.

[hunter42]

Some more images:

You sometimes need to block off streets for safety


Extra manpower is always good for tackling fires


Waiting for the ambulance to turn up before evacuating the house


Spilt gas discovered at a car crash scene


Medics move in the treat a victim

[nick the greek]

Nice one Hunter. It's just the kind of reviews I wanna read. The game looks good but I'm not going to buy it because I know nothing about German and this won't let me enjoy it. About the graphics. There are some 90's computer games that are still great and people play them although they have bad graphics. So this shouldn't be a reason not to buy the game.

[hunter42]

Nice one Hunter. It's just the kind of reviews I wanna read. The game looks good but I'm not going to buy it because I know nothing about German and this won't let me enjoy it. About the graphics. There are some 90's computer games that are still great and people play them although they have bad graphics. So this shouldn't be a reason not to buy the game.

Thank you
Yea, the German kinda ruined it for me too. English and German may be related to some extent, but when it comes to fire fighting, that saying just goes right out the window
Although there are still classics out there, people will probably read "2010" and expect really good graphics and what not. Then when there isn't good graphics, they moan and forget some of the best games never had amazing graphics. Shame really.

I'm trying to get round the problem of of image capture. I can't PrtSc and alt+tab cause that crashes the game (and it acts like there was no image captured). The free version of Fraps to BMP and a certain resolution I think... But anyway, I think the pictures would look better if I can get PrtSc to work - might try windowed mode.

[nick the greek]

Yea, the German kinda ruined it for me too. English and German may be related to some extent, but when it comes to fire fighting, that saying just goes right out the window

Well yeah but before that you'll need to set up some things and you'll have to read German

Although there are still classics out there, people will probably read "2010" and expect really good graphics and what not. Then when there isn't good graphics, they moan and forget some of the best games never had amazing graphics. Shame really.

Agree on that

[CMCC626]

Is it mod-able, many of these new german simulators, ie: Farming simulator, Demolition Company, etc, allow for modding, I could only hope this one would follow that trend! Downloading it right now.

[LT.SacFD]

I believe you can download off the site. It's like 911 FR. You can digitally download it. Same with this.

[aitor]

I don´t like german fire trucks, they looks like too old.

[hunter42]

I believe you can download off the site. It's like 911 FR. You can digitally download it. Same with this.

Nope. Astragon doesn't have a digital service. Correct me if I'm wrong. The only digital service I can think of that sells Astragon products is sim market, but they don't have it.

Is it mod-able, many of these new german simulators, ie: Farming simulator, Demolition Company, etc, allow for modding, I could only hope this one would follow that trend! Downloading it right now.

Not really. Haven't found a fanbase yet. The majority of stuff is in .CGR format.

[CMCC626]

Played this today, there is no freeplay, just missions, so far it is only released in german, which makes figuring out what the game wants kinda difficult if you don't know german(it is very precise as mentioned earlier), it is third person with 11 missions, and after looking at the file system it seems mod-able. Reskins would be extremely easy (and needed). I had no luck locating the files that contain the mission info, so i don't know about self translation.

Overall:
5/5 Genre (duh?)
3/5 Graphics (could use some work)
2/5 Glitches/Gameplay (lots of bugs, player tends to get stuck etc.)
4.5/5 Realism (precise in steps taken to solve emergencies)
4/5 Mod-able (easy to locate, unlocked files, readily available software)
3.75/5 Total; good game, but seems like they released it a little too early, that or the "new guys" made it.

REMOVED TEXT IN REFERENCE TO ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES
Dumb idea bud.
*contemplates adding warning*

Dieser Beitrag wurde von Newfoundking bearbeitet: 11 Oktober 2010 - 04:53
Dumb idea by someone who didn't read the TOS

[TacticalRooster22]

I'd totally buy it if there was an English translation. In games like these, you always needd to know what it's telling you, as it can be very important.

[hunter42]

I'd totally buy it if there was an English translation. In games like these, you always need to know what it's telling you, as it can be very important.

It's pretty easily actually, and a lot of it is self explanatory

"parke den feurerwehnwagen" - Park the fire engine
"evakuiere das haus" - Evacuate the house
"Sirene" - Siren
"sichere das treibstoffleck" - secure the fuel leak

Simple

[andrew2007]

It's a good game, just sucks I can't read/understand German all that well (or what ever language it's in)

I just can't get past that tunnel mission, I fail by 5 seconds!

[CMCC626]

It's a good game, just sucks I can't read/understand German all that well (or what ever language it's in)

I just can't get past that tunnel mission, I fail by 5 seconds!

Why do you fail so soon? You have to go down the second ramp when you respond.

[andrew2007]

Why do you fail so soon? You have to go down the second ramp when you respond.

I probably worded that badly, I mean I complete 99%, but there's always one part left that takes a few seconds longer than the clock.