‘Fireburst’ Review – Burst Or Bust?

Though I’m not a big racing guy, I’ve played my fair share of Need for Speed and Gran Turismo, often shadowing my brother — the older, far more superior racer and overall car enthusiast in the family. But the point stands: I have a relatively good amount of experience with racing games, though I may not enjoy them as much as RPGs. Fireburst was a challenging game to review, precisely because I was unsure of where it stood in the racing scene or whether it offered something new. Fortunately, Fireburst has a boost mechanic that keeps gameplay fresh and perhaps more original than the average racing game. Unfortunately, it really falls short of making an impact because there’s rarely a reason to keep going back.

On the outside, Fireburst is an extremely gorgeous game. The Unreal engine really works wonders, and the game’s design benefits from its performance. Environments, character models, car models — even the menu design — are pretty. Furthermore, in aesthetics, Fireburst outperforms a number of other indie titles I’ve played because it has an almost AAA polish and finish on it. Clearly, exDream spent a lot of time on the models and designs. The characters are distinct, a rather obnoxious and boisterous bunch of 16: hot chicks with big boobs, a little person (let’s try to be politically correct, eh?), and so forth, all spouting one-liners that eventually get old as you hear them for the umpteenth time. exDream also did a good job with music selection, as the overall appeal of the game seems akin to the music: much of it is screamo or some punkish alternative. It doesn’t necessarily fit the style of play, which is a little more playful, but it fits the art style most certainly. I’m not a huge fan of the genres they’ve picked the soundtrack from, but I can appreciate that there is a crowd for this sort of thing.

For as much effort that went into the game’s aesthetics, however, I truly wish the same could be said for gameplay. It’s not that Fireburst is unbearable or even bad, it’s simply bland and lacks entertainment past the first half-hour of playing it. There are a number of game modes, but they really boil down to two: Race and Destruction. You can play either in single-player or multiplayer. There are also, fortunately, a series of challenges to complete with the game’s different characters in order to unlock skins and the like.  Unfortunately, though, these challenges are not fun regardless of actually being challenging. You rarely feel that there is a purpose to some of the ridiculous objectives you’ll have to complete. Races are just that: races, and the destruction mode is basically a lacking version of Twisted Metal in which you try to use the game’s superb boost mechanic.

It is probably most worthy of mention, because the boost mechanic is at the center of the core gameplay mechanics and it adds some much-needed depth to the game: boost to destroy your opponent’s vehicles as you’re close to them and make your own vehicle travel faster; boost too long, however, and your car explodes. For as cool as this boost mechanic truly is, it kind of ends there. Races become dull after you play just a couple and so do the destruction matches.

Where Fireburst really had an opportunity to shine was in its splitscreen and online multiplayer. For a decent racing game with an intriguing core gameplay mechanic, this should be a good one to play with your buddies. Unfortunately, this is again made difficult by the fact that it’s not all that enjoyable for 4 friends to hunch over a 22″ (or however big) screen. And to make matters worse, online multiplayer isn’t very enthralling either — considering I couldn’t find a single lobby with any other gamers. It seems exDream and IndiePub were banking on Fireburst to be one of those fun party games, but that really does not work well on the PC.

In the end, Fireburst sure is pretty. It makes good use of its artists and the Unreal engine, but it falls short of being a great game because it lacks in content, depth, and multiplayer — which is probably something that it was supposed to be really good at doing. Unless you’re really looking forward to this one, want to see a pretty game, or have some friends that actually own it and want to play, then it is my solemn disappointment to report that perhaps you should steer clear of Fireburst.

You can find out more information on Fireburst over on their official website or Steam.

Review summary Pros:

Gorgeous graphics; solid presentation; boost mechanic is fresh.

Cons:

Lacking in single and multi-player; little replay value.

Rating: 60%