Go Go Rescue Squad is a very challenging puzzle game. It feels very much like lemmings, but instead of herding them by giving them abilities, you control a few firefighters who interact with the level and the characters (Darwins). Interaction usually involves picking them up and throwing them. The goal of each game is to help the Darwins get to the doorways by whatever means possible. There are fires (you're firemen, right?) as well as creaky wood, ice, locked doors, long drops, and shutters between the Darwins and victory.

To complicate the problem, there are three different types of Darwins: Twonks, Screebs, and Funzies. Twonks are basic Darwins, they walk back and forth, won't fall, won't climb ladders, and won't interact with anything. Twonks are the safest Darwins to leave alone and come in handy when you need someone to be somewhere.

Screebs are the toughest Darwins to keep in line. They run frantically (faster than all the others, but not faster than you) and ignore edges. If they run off an edge, they will fall. If the fall is too far or ends in fire, they will die. To finish a level, you need all of your Darwins, so Screebs are the hardest Darwins to save.

Funzies are the cool Darwins. They climb ladders, will pick up items, and if they have an item they can use, they will. This is necessary in some levels and can be a real annoyance in other levels. Funzies are the most useful Darwins as long as you have a purpose for them. No purpose and they're almost the same as Twonks.

Your firefighter is able to climb up and down ladders and jump off of platforms (sometimes onto platforms across, sometimes onto platforms below). Something you have to be aware of is that your firefighter won't jump unless there is an edge. If you fall into a hole that has walls on both sides, your firefighter is stuck and won't ever be able to get out (sometimes this is necessary to complete a level). Knowing when it's safe to fall into a hole and when it isn't is a very important skill to learn.

To move around, you just touch the direction you want to move (up, down, left, right, up-left, up-right, down-left, down-right -- I'll explain in a second) and the fireman you control will move that way. You can move a different fireman by tapping him. When you have actions you can do, thought bubbles will appear above your fireman's head. The affirmative bubbles are always above and the negative bubbles are always below (throw item vs. put it down, aiming complete vs. stop aiming). You are able to pick up fire extinguishers (put out fires), keys (open doors), and also Darwins.

To zoom in or out you use the standard zoom gesture. It's also possible to two finger drag to move your viewport around the playing field. There's also an eye button in the bottom right that puts you into viewport drag mode.

If you touch up-left, your firefighter will walk as far as they can left until they hit a ladder, then climb the ladder, then continue walking left. This can be a little bit frustrating when you're trying to get up to a platform but your finger is a little bit too much left and not enough up (you won't climb the ladder). Just as annoying is when you wanted to get off of a ladder but you hadn't climbed high enough and suddenly left actually starts you climbing down the ladder (you tapped slightly down left). If movement was based more on actual quadrants (up, down, left, right), there would be less of these sorts of issues.

The controls seemed excellent and intuitive, at first, but I found I was misclicking more and more often. Sometimes I would want a fireman to walk across a platform but another fireman was too close, so it would select that fireman. Another even more annoying problem was when I tried to tap an action but a fireman was underneath the action. In this case, it would take control of the other fireman. That is, until I clicked my original fireman, then it would execute the original bubble I clicked. This led to times where I would accidentally throw something I didn't want to or pick something up or even put something down. In a puzzle game like this, such misactions can be catastrophic. It's possible that I would have had less problems if I'd zoomed in more, but I find it easier to plan when I can see as much of the puzzle field as I can.

Luckily (or possibly not) there is a rewind feature. This was a little confusing for me. If you use rewind, you're able to go back to before you threw that item or before you jumped into the hole, but every rewind you use lowers your medal rating (gold, silver, bronze) for that level. Ignoring timing issues, all the puzzles should be completable without using a rewind. If you restart a level, it's not held against you. As long as you have the patience to keep restarting when you screw up, you can always be assured gold. Because of this, I used rewind very infrequently.

The levels start off fairly challenging, forcing you to think ahead before doing anything. Often there isn't an obvious way to solve the level and each one is more frustrating than the last. It can be very fulfilling to finish a level, but there are always more to solve.

This game isn't for the puzzle game amateur, the levels are all quite difficult and progress is really slow. The control problems I had were frustrating but not enough to dissuade me from this game. It is a fun game and has great graphics and sound. I really enjoyed reviewing it and suggest any serious puzzle players to try it out.