Screenshot: Nuclear Blaze
I really like the concept of
Nuclear Blaze. Made by the creator of
Dead Cells for his son,
Nuclear Blaze is a game about the most diligent fire fighter ever. Seriously. There’s nothing that will stop this person from going in and getting the job done—and in this case the job is putting out a fire in a strange underground facility.
Nuclear Blaze is a game that was a made for a kid—it’s obvious, even beyond the in-game dedication: it has firemen, trucks, and well, the most absurd story involving firefighting that I’ve ever encountered. But that’s not a bad thing.
Nuclear Blaze is a side scrolling action adventure game. In it, you fight fires and discover the mystery of a sprawling underground facility—that’s on fire. That “on fire” part is essential, because as a fireman, you really don’t have a reason to keep venturing further and further in. And it’s good you do, too, because you’re the only one who can get the job done.
Screenshot: Nuclear Blaze
Firefighting is the main draw for
Nuclear Blaze, and it’s done well for the most part. You have a hose that you carry around with you with a self-contained water tank. Water fills automatically when y you’re next to a fill spot. Running out of water still allows you to shoot a little bit, but not to the degree needed to put out large fires.
Water actually runs out frustratingly fast—to the point of it not being fun.
Nuclear Blaze takes some notes from games like
Celeste, however, and has multiple different options for difficulty adjustment. And that’s a relief, because
Nuclear Blaze can actually be a pretty tough game. If you die, you sometimes have to replay chunks of gameplay. And on the default setting, death is easy to come by.
Screenshot: Nuclear Blaze
There are a few tricks to avoid combustion. Dodge rolling gives you invincibility frames and actually enables you to roll through electricity and blazing fire without taking damage. You can also shoot water over yourself to ward off deadly flames, especially when met with a backdraft that would otherwise incinerate you.
Nuclear Blaze is mostly about fighting the fire spread throughout the underground facility, but there is a mystery to discover down there, too. There are even SCP-style references throughout, with a logo that looks like it was almost copied directly from that popular user-submitted creepy pasta website.
Screenshot: Nuclear Blaze
I liked my time with
Nuclear Blaze. It’s a solid game with solid mechanics—and it even ends up being pretty difficult. There are variable difficulty settings, however, and even a difficulty setting designed for very young kids—because what kid wouldn’t want to play as a fire fighting putting out a
Nuclear Blaze?
Nuclear Blaze is available
on Windows via Steam.
A Steam code was provided to us for this review.
