This game I think will be the hardest for me to review... I can't decide whether I like it or if I hate it, if it's well done or poorly done. I'm caught in the middle and I don't really have an answer. This game fills a void in the Atari library, that void being firefighter games. The only other firefighter game on the Atari was Imagic's aptly named Fire Fighter, which is regarded as the weakest game in Imagic's stellar lineup, can Towering Inferno trounce the mighty might of Imagic? I think it does... at least when compared to Fire Fighter, lets start where we always do... the graphics.

This game looks... Okay... The flaming building when the game starts is impressive, and so is the amount of fire sprites they managed to put on screen in the indoor segments, but everything is monochromatic, just one color each. Even the rooms consist of a black floor and a second changing color for the walls. The fact that there is so little sprite flickering in the indoor sections I find to be incredible, while there is some flickering it's hardly noticeable. The little firefighter you control is hilarious looking, he has the stereotypical firefighter hat on, you can tell that from the sprite, but that goofy little hose just cracks me up, and the fact that it only sprays about five feet in front of just makes it all the funnier. It's like you're trying to fight a building fire with a garden hose. So the graphics are basic but technically impressive, how are the sounds?

Ear grating, absolutely ear grating, that's how I would describe this game's sounds. A low chunky sound is used to simulate the roar of the fire, but it's just awful to listen too, it sounds like combat! The other sounds are not very noteworthy, mainly little blips, and whooshy noises. There isn't really too much to critique here. Onto gameplay.

In this game you fight a building fire by moving floor to floor dousing flames and rescuing trapped survivors. The goal of the game is to reach the top of the building without losing all of your lives and saving at least one person per floor, if you let everyone burn on a floor it's game over. You navigate around several different rooms while fire jitters horizontally around the screen, your goal on every floor is to either extinguish all the flames, and spray a white square on the far wall, or to just simply spray the white square on the far wall, for a game about fighting fires, fighting fires is quite optional. You start out with four survivors on each floor, the longer you take the fewer survivors you can save per floor. I'ts rather difficult to decide whether I want to bum rush to the other side of the room in a desperate bid to save as many survivors as possible, or to slowly and methodically douse the fire completely in order to save fewer survivors but keep a hold of my precious lives, but then again if you take too long it's game over anyway. This game makes you think, especially on the later levels when the fire really gets fast and the time limit is much shorter than before, I don't think I've ever actually beaten this game, even on the easiest setting it will provide a challenge. My main problem is that darn hose, it can't hit anything due to it's short range, and you can only spray it up or down, no side to side that's cheating. The collision detection is rather goofy on the fire, sometimes you'll extinguish a row perfectly, other times you'll spray right on it and nothing will happen and you'll get nice and crispy.

I don't think this game is bad, but i don't think it's too great either. While the concept is original, and the graphics are impressive on a technical level, everything just ends up falling a little short. If you can find a copy for cheap enough, probably less than five bucks for a loose cart, pick it up, it's a nifty little game to add to your collection.