Fire Attack

A burning fort, attackers with torches from all sides, and a single defender with a hammer in hand. Fire Attack from the Nintendo Game & Watch line places the player in the role of a guard who must fend off marauders trying to set fire to a wooden structure, and it does so with a rough, Western-tinged charge that you would not expect from a pocket LCD game.

The mechanic is purely reflexive: attackers run up to four sides of the building and the player must switch to the correct position in time and deliver a blow before the enemy puts a torch to the wall. Missing means a fire and a lost life. As the pace speeds up and attacks come from several directions at once, the game turns into a desperate effort to douse the situation, where every fraction of a second decides.

Fire Attack is among the Game & Watch titles, pocket electronic games that Nintendo began producing in 1980 according to the concept of the engineer Gunpei Yokoi. These were devices with an economical LCD display and a permanently printed image, where the illusion of movement was created by lighting up individual segments. Alongside the game, each unit could also handle the basic functions of a watch and an alarm.

The cultural significance of the entire line is fundamental. Game & Watch launched the global market for pocket games, tested the business model on which the Game Boy later stood, and helped turn Nintendo into an entertainment giant. Titles like Fire Attack, moreover, show that the creators also experimented with rougher, more action-oriented themes, not just harmless catching and juggling.

Today Fire Attack captures attention with its uncompromising difficulty and a theme that stands out among the cuter Game & Watch games. No story, no levels in the modern sense, just you, the hammer, and an endless wave of attackers. A pure arcade challenge for the highest score.

Why play: For a brisk, unexpectedly hard game of reflexes with an unconventional theme that recalls the experimental era of pocket electronics.