Introduction

Fire Fight

Fire Fight is a shooter from 1996 for Windows 95. I've always loved it's soundtrack and was happy to finally get the game to work in a Windows 95 environment running in DosBox-X. [update: later got the game running in Windows 10 using the DXWnd tool]

From the MobyGames game info:

quote:

Isometric 8-way scrolling shoot 'em up. Taking control of a low flying space craft players must hunt out key objectives in each mission and take them out. Features multiple weapons, stages and enemies plus secret objectives and areas.

Some other interesting info, from an abondonware website:

quote:

One of the most underrated shareware releases from Epic Megagames, Fire Fight is an excellent, very addictive isometric shoot em-up from Polish developer Chaos Works.

Although the game did well enough to warrant a later retail release by Electronic Arts, it unfortunately did not do well in the market and disappeared in the matter of months. Fans of EA’s own Desert Strike will be right at home with Fire Fight -- in fact, the designers aren’t ashamed at admitting their influence: there is one mission in the game called "AKA Future Strike" to dispel any doubt.

You play a futuristic skimmer pilot working for the autocratic "Phantom Council" which reminds me of the Empire for good reason Your job, naturally, is to bring subversive planets back under the Council’s control by flying strike missions against air and ground targets.

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And finally, a review from PC Zone, August 1996:

How are you going to play it?

I'm going to record each level to Youtube with some basic commentary. I'm going in unprepared (not looking up secret areas etc. I finished the game back in the day, but no idea how much time it's going to take!

There are 18 levels total, and I might do multiple levels per video, depending on how long it takes me to beat them.

The player

This is us, a nifty-looking little spaceship equiped with 6 different weapons. Depending on which weapon we equip, the ship will change it's turret on top.

The ring around us shows enemies nearby and an arrow points us to the current objective.

The enemies

In the first level, we encounter the following enemies:

This is the first enemy, a small ship that fires a vulcan gun..This is not shown as actual projectiles, so it can be hard to know when you're in danger. It's best to take these out quickly, and that's usually done pretty quick.

These ships are a bit tougher, but they attack with a clearly visible plasma cannon, making it easy to dodge their attacks. They fire with pretty rapid intensity, so if you stay in their line of fire you're gonna get hurt.

These are some realy nasty critters. They stay in place until they come at you fast, trying to ram your ship and doing high damage. They fly in a straight line so are easy to dodge.

This is a spike-shooting guard tower, and it inflicts PAIN. We need to take these out as quicly as possible, preferably with rockets or other high-damage weapons.

Powerups / items

In the first level, we use the double-shield. Makes us look pretty much like a flying tank.

Spoilers

This game is pretty light on plot, the only things I can spoil are that we are going to blow up a whole lot of stuff!

Part 1: Static

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5kd6yJ4lg

Our briefing is pretty straight-forward: some remote place is sending out forbidden communications, our job is to get rid of the communication centers.