This is one positive game. There’s no murder, robbing or disrespecting other people; there’s some reckless driving but that’s absolutely fine as speed is of the essence when you’re the driver of an emergency service vehicle, as you are in Emergency Heroes. Set in the near future city of San-Alto you assume the role of Zach Harper, a cadet with a flair for driving who must speed around the streets to various man-made and natural disasters that have befallen the city.

Each of the rescue vehicles is high-tech. You don’t swing a cumbersome fire truck around the streets here - this is a fast-paced action driving game that blends free-roaming with quick-fire missions. It’s deliberately targeted at ‘young rescuers’ but that shouldn’t mean the action is dumbed down - the developers made Stuntman and Driver too. For multiplayer it has two-player co-op, although we don’t know exactly how that plays out.

We await to see how the Wii remote is used, not just for the handling but also for dealing with the fires, crimes and accidents that you’ll have to attend to. With its futuristic presentation, it looks a bit like Crackdown. But we’ll have to see if it’s got the same freedom and fun. If it can capture the same spirit and madness of Crazy Taxi but add greater variety to the missions then it could be a hit. We hope it’s not too kiddy, or along the same level of quality that Emergency Mayhem reached.

May 15, 2008