Flashing Lights is an open-world emergency services simulator from solo Latvian developer Nils Jakrins. With the ambitious goal of offering not just one, but three fully fleshed-out simulators in one neat inter-connected multiplayer package can Flashing Lights provide an experience a cut above its competitors in the genre, or is the almost £12 asking price highway robbery?
Jack of all trades:
One of the most compelling draws of Flashing Lights is its versatility. As the game’s subtitle indicates: “Police, Firefighting, Emergency Services Simulator”, Flashing Lights isn’t just a police simulator. Rather, it offers players the opportunity to dip into the roles of a police officer, firefighter or medic and experience a whole new set of scenarios whilst trying to master a whole new set of skills.
The open world design helps make switching roles a breeze. You start the game with the option to start in the service of your wish, but from then on changing jobs is as simple as walking into the relevant building and hitting a convenient button. The online aspect of the game has different services interacting with one another, and this in conjunction with the plethora of mission scenarios that are selected at random and presented as calls for you to respond to, which helps keep things refreshingly different each time you play.
Crime and punishments:
Playing as a police officer in Flashing Lights is functionally what you would likely expect going in to any typical police simulation. Once you have created your character and chosen a your preferred vehicle, each with subtly different functions and aesthetics, you’re thrust into an open world town.
You can patrol by foot or car, looking out for erratic drivers to stop or waiting to respond to calls. Each call is entirely optional, handy as they are frequently repeated, and cover a wide variety of scenarios. From pursuing a speeding driver to a tense shootout with armed robbers Flashing Lights lets you simulate a wide range of plausible scenarios. You can approach the scenarios in any way you see fit, and have quite a few tools at your disposal.
Whether you want to professionally and calmly resolve a violent situation in a non-lethal manner by tazing and arresting wrongdoers or, in what some would argue is a more accurate depiction of the American police force, just simply mow down everything that moves with a shotgun – your specific play style is catered to.
It is worth noting however that good conduct is rewarded with reputation points which serve to fill a reputation meter in the top left of the screen. Conversely, bad behaviour causes points to be deducted. Whilst I haven’t suffered any repercussions for letting my reputation drop too low, it provides a nice incentive for those of us who like a score challenge.
Fire and rescue:
The game-play for the fire route is very similar, also centred around free-roaming and responding to calls. Of course, the equipment on offer for someone playing as a firefighter is very different from that of a police officer and the scenarios you tackle are based around extinguishing fires rather than catching criminals. In addition to tackling various types of building fire, you’re faced with vehicles collisions and of course rescuing house cats from trees.
The firefighter game-play is the most vehicle focused of the three, requiring mastery of various types of unwieldy fire-engine. Unfortunately, these vehicles are often a little too hard to control to be enjoyable. Whilst the engine’s various features, like ladders or hoses, are fairly intuitive, actually driving to a call-out is an absolute nightmare with plenty of winding rural roads and steep hills to get stuck on.
You are given the option to drive a small fire car but, unless you’re in a game with other players driving the large vehicles for you, it is woefully under-equipped. Although they may be annoying to drive, the fire vehicles stand out as particularly well modelled; displaying many small moving parts and little delightful details.
The doctor will see you now:
The medical simulation was a very pleasant surprise. Although it still has a foundation in the same call-based core game-play, a lot of effort has clearly gone into the individual scenarios which house the titles’ most dramatic and challenging game-play shift.
With a wide variety of medical equipment at your disposal, it’s your job to successfully diagnose and offer first response treatment to patients. Examining limbs, applying a neck brace or bandage while frantically running between your car and your patient for equipment is an awful lot of fun.
Unfortunately, the medical route is more linear by nature, with one correct “solution” for each scenario which causes it to suffer a lot in the replayability department. With little in the way of progression or an unlocking system present in the game yet, it’s quite hard to justify continuing to play as a medic once you have seen every situation the path has to offers.
Luckily, the games’ frequent updates are adding more and more scenarios and game-play features which should help to the great number of different mission required to rectify this in future.
A long way to go:
“In future” is really the core takeaway from Flashing Lights in its current early access state. The game manages to only just justify its current asking price by the sheer variety of simulation it offers and as a result has a surprisingly active community – with servers that are frequently packed – but things still feel very bare-bones. From the floaty vehicle handling to the visuals that can be described as “choppy” at bests, there’s a lot to improve.
Pleasingly, the developer is doing an admirable job keeping the game up to date, offering frequent Steam blog posts and even a content road-map. If you’re a die-hard emergency simulator fan, there’s a lot of to like in Flashing Lights and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it even in its current state. For the average player however, it might be best just to hold off a little longer and wait until the game has a few of its creases ironed out.
Want to pick up your own copy of Flashing Lights? You can click the link below to reach the store page.
Just so you’re aware! To aid this review a copy of Flashing Lights was provided free of charge by Excalibur Games.
