Beowulf-Themed Firefighter FPS Thread

The premise: lead an elite team of firefighters in tactical FPS battles against 'hordes' of fire, which function like real fire but aesthetically 'fight' you as you assault their ranks with ranged attacks (fire hoses) and close-quarter combat (fire blankets). Fire extinguishers, oxygen-sapping phosphorus grenades, and other high-tech specialties aid you in your fight against the flames. Most missions consist of fighting your way to, and extinguishing, the source of each fire.

The setting: A technologically modern but culturally Anglo-Saxon America, in which firefighters are viewed as paladins/exorcists and fires are a sentient enemy, the physical manifestation of Hell's fury. You are no mere civil servant; you are the clenched fist of God, poised to scatter the forces of Satan wherever they seek a foothold. The nation is divided into a collection of city-states ruled by clan councils and monarchs, and roughly mirrors the settings and events of Beowulf. 

The game can run on virtually any FPS engine, but I'm going to favor Fallout because of the tactical potential of V.A.T.S. mode. Instead of simply choosing between real-time and V.A.T.S.-based combat, the system instead lets you set some characters on 'auto-pilot' in V.A.T.S. while you manage the actions of other characters in real-time. For example, your front-liners are advancing toward a door that needs to be breached, but the fire on the other side is too intense. In V.A.T.S., set the front-liners to advance through the room for 20 seconds, and use that time to switch to your 'archers' (hose operators) and reposition them to douse the flames in the room you're advancing into. Now set them on V.A.T.S. auto-pilot and switch back to the front-liners as they kick in the door and advance.

Of course, there are plenty of tactical FPS engines that can produce similar results (in some cases, superior results); Fallout is simply the one I'm most fond of. The fire will function just like regular fire, and will present a unique challenge to FPS players who are used to enemies who simply hold their positions (sorry, Halo players; even on Legendary, the Covenant just sit around waiting for you to come kill them). Here, the fire is constantly advancing, and combat is a race against time. The key is to isolate the advancing fire into pockets that can easily be eliminated (for example, spraying around a desk to isolate the fire to that location, then dousing it with a fire blanket) while advancing aggressively upon the source. No fire can be fought indefinitely, and the key is to press forward as quickly as possible while maintaining avenues of escape in case things go wrong. Anyone can simply run through a burning building, but what happens when you need to run back?

The game will be divided into a number of missions mirroring events in the Beowulf epic (the actual poem, not necessarily the recent movie). This means the three main chapters are the battle against Grendel (which takes place in Southern California during a drought), the battle against Grendel's mother (which takes place on a sinking Oil Tanker in the Gulf of Mexico), and the battle against the dragon (which takes place in the ever-burning mine under the ghost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania).

Missions showcase a variety of settings, such as:
Suburban houses (search-and-rescue)
A Firework Factory (fireworks are shot off on a holiday similar to Halloween, glorifying the 'evil' flame spirits)
A Skyscraper (the legendary 'mead hall' battle against Grendel)

A Packed Stadium (tower defense-style mission)
The Golden Gate Bridge (survival mission)
An Oil Tanker (the legendary 'lair of Grendel')

Your Fire Station (the dragon's attack upon Beowulf's estate)
The National Archives (another search-and-rescue mission in which you must save certain books)
The Centralia Mine (the legendary 'lair of the dragon')

Additionally, there are a series of bonus missions from other epics, such as an Odyssey reference in which you fight a forest fire in a national forest and encounter 'giants' (ancient redwoods and sequoias) reminiscent of the Cyclopes.

Centralia, Pennsylvania is an actual ghost town whose mine caught on fire about 50 years ago and is expected to burn another 200 to 250 years. The fire was so intense it prompted an evacuation of the town and cracked open many of the major roads from pent-up pressure. In the words of David DeKok, "This was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn's. At the heart of the fire, temperatures easily exceeded 1,000 degrees. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers." There's also roughly $1 billion worth of coal in the mine, a treasure hoard worthy the Beowulf's dragon.

Wow, nice catch. I didn't realize the movie had been filmed there (I'm not a huge fan of videogame-based movies), but it's as fitting a location as any.

Any questions or comments pertaining to the game itself? Recommended engines, maybe?

Edited by: SAAj