Flashing Lights (Early Access PC Game)
The Emergency Services genre is starting to fill up as games like EmergeNYC, Police 1013 and Flashing Lights compete for gamers money. EmergeNYC and Flashing Lights are playable at this moment but gamers have to be incredibly patient as there are a million bugs and unfinished areas of the game to complete. Flashing Lights is a game by Nils Jakrins and is published by Excalibur Games. Excalibur Games published the game Enforcer a couple of years ago which was a Cop game but it was abandoned to great anger from buyers and so Excalibur has given Enforcer owners 30% off Flashing Lights but only for a couple of weeks. I owned Enforcer and so decided to take the 30% off deal to try Flashing Lights despite wanting to keep away from Early Access games due to their seemingly low percentages of making it through to completion. As of this moment (2nd day of Early Access) there is 1 Police call out and around 10 call outs spread between the EMS and Fire Services.
I selected a cop and then got into the game, you walk up to a squad car, aim for the door and click before clicking on the seat to get in. There is no animation for getting in and out of cars so it looks a little weird but there is no doubt they'll fix that later on in development. A call comes in looking for an aggressive driver in a red car, you accept the call and drive off by pressing K to start the motor and then W for acceleration then S to brake. Lucky for me the driver was pushed between a building and a fence and so I drove behind it and waited for 'Suspect Compliance' to hit 100 and then he popped out of the car, he was cuffed, frisked and then led into the squad car.
As you can see below the cars at the moment have a tendency to flip much like the trucks in EmergeNYC are prone to do.
You drive back to the station, get out, open the door then grab the driver and walk him into the station, you register him and you get Reputation Points and an Arrest added to your stats. You can do other things such as stopping vehicles for breath tests etc or write up tickets for parking in front of a hydrant etc. Next I tried the EMS, the good thing is that the Ambulance does not turn on a dime so it is realistic unlike some games where you can drive and turn with ease. Like the Cops, you accept a call out and go to the scene, a man is injured in a car and so you get the medical kit out of the back of the Ambulance to check the man for injuries before getting out the stretcher to get him on it, after getting him on it you go take the stretcher to the back of the ambulance, load him up and then drive to Hospital.
Then I tried the Fire Service, pretty straight forward, you get in the Fire Truck, get a call for a vehicle fire, arrived at the fire to find no hydrant but put the fire out with a couple of extinguishers.
The next fire was close to a hydrant and so the fire was put out with greater ease, all you have to do at the moment is get the hose from the truck, take it to a hydrant, connect it and then fight the fire.
After the Vehicle fire, there was a Building fire and it was pretty easy to extinguish, the fire was just on the side of the building wall so there's no actually blaze eating a building just fire spots.
Flashing Lights is a game that holds promise, it has everything a casual gamer could want but at the moment is it lacking optimization, buildings that truly burn, proper animation, proper traffic, more call outs and more. Patience and faith is required with Early Access games so remember that when you play it, there is the risk that the game will never be completed but so far the signs are good that gamers will get a complete game in the end. At the low price, you could even buy the game, keep it in your collection for a couple of months and then play when the game is further developed. Rating so far: 3 out of 5.
