S.T.A.L.K.E.R's flashlight is one of those instances where using the flashlight is a liability more than an aid simply because the enemies will see it and proceed to shoot at the giant ball of light in the dark. Of course the enemies that use them almost never turn off their flashlights so it goes both ways.
And then SWAT 4 has a really bright and useful flashlight, but it's not visible to the enemy AI at all. Definintely helps out a lot in some missions, for all the wrong reasons
This is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, NPCs don't react to your flashlight in Vanilla S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at all. Secondly, saying that it's a liability because somebody can spot you is nonsensical in a game where stealth is practically non-existent so you'll be spotted anyways. Finally, this claim also makes it sound like the whole game is about fighting enemies and avoiding them while in reality it's an open world game where a lot of time is spent on exploring locations without any forced encounters... and where you can always use a flashlight to help you see better, especially in darker areas.
@@abohachuk4765 I have been trying constantly to reply to your comment but YT seemingly keeps removing it so if this appears in your feed for 3rd or 4th time I'm sorry. There is stealth. . . Just *_very_* difficult to pull off stealth, thats why theres a noise meter in all of the games so you track how much sound you're making while *_trying_* to stealth. You also have a visibility meter so you can determine how detectable you are, when you are *_trying_* to stealth. Also, direct quote from the fandom wiki; "One downside is that NPCs will spot the player more easily if they have their flashlight in use, making night vision better if avoiding detection is preferable." A quick search of "Can enemies see your flashlight in 'S.o.C' " provided that answer. And ". . .a lot of time is spent on exploring locations without any forced encounters. . ." Virtually every area you go to you'll encounter something. Be it "monsters", "Bandettes", Monolith or so forth. And a large chunk of the games do involve pitched fights. And many of those explorable areas are usually being guarded by enemies making exploration dangerous unless properly equipped. The only times I can think of combat not being a constant is when your navigating a hotbed of "enviromental hazards" which doesn't mean there isn't a "monster", "enemy human" or zombie nearby ready to catch you unawares. In the end The Zone is meant to be an incredibly "nasty" place.
And said flashlight is slower than the fists, has even shorter range for god knows what reason, makes very unsatisfying sounds and the beam is horrendously off-center. Thanks but no thanks.
@@plugshirt1762 I love it as anything _except_ a Doom game... but only after I mod the shotgun into the classic mid-range, low-damage version. I can forgo Duct Tape, I can forgo graphics upgrade mods, I can play almost vanilla _as long as I fix the shotgun._ Luckily it's extremely easy to fix, in the original game at least. Never tried it with the BFG Edition.
6:11 FINALLY, SOMEONE SAID IT! I swear, these small flashlights start to give me a lot of headeaches (literally) because I have to keep focusing in that small circle and it starts to hurt a bit. L4D also has the same problem imo, honestly, Valve doesn't know how to make flashlights lmao. And we don't talk about GoldSrc flashlights....
Growing up we had this massive hand-held beam-searchlight. Thing had a motorcycle battery in it. We'd shine it at an island a quarter-mile away and see it perfectly illuminated. Loved that thing. Also, the searchlight in Unreal was awesome.
Oh yeah, I remember those big honking searchlights. Even saved my money as a kid to buy one for myself. To think now you can have that same amount of reach in a pocket light running off one battery that'll last hours? Technology has come an absurdly long way with li-ion cells and LEDs. Also Unreal's Searchlight is freakin' goated. It is everything that the Half-Life 1 flashlight should have been.
Fun Fact: Night Vision Goggles actually can't/won't/don't ever work in any sort of complete darkness, such as inside a cave/cavern or a mine. This is because NVGs work by amplifying or stimulating and highlighting environments or areas that are just slightly lit up in very low light. This is why the NVGs in Half-Life Opposing Force doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since soldiers also carry and use flashlights, binoculars, emergency flares, and sometimes even portable or mobile handheld lamps or lanterns, plus quite a whole lot more as well, and not just NVGs alone.
@@cyberspacesupersoldier I'd say you wouldn't really want to be using UV though as well UV isn't the safest form of light depending on wavelength as it has fun times with some organic molecules like DNA & that isn't very good for us also we can see UV light better than we can see infrared light (not that we can see it but something is reflected that we can see if you've messed with weak black lights or seen a decontamination room in action you should understand) Infrared is impossible to see for us as you can't see the weak one on a TV remote despite the camera's on stuff being able to see this form.
Before I played Half-Life, (the original not the "remaster") I always thought the flashlight was normal like in Half-Life 2, but nope, I was like, "Da fuk? How can they not make a proper flashlight?" lol
Doom 3's flashlight works because there's a combination of things going for it - the swap is fast enough, every enemy attack creates ambient light so you can see where to shoot anyway, most enemies also have some kind of elements that highlight them in the dark (red visors for zsecs, glowing eyes for zombies, etc), many map areas have some kind of ambient light, firing your weapon lights up the area in front of you as well. Plus it's immersive to pull out your flashlight, scan the area, memorize enemy positions and then fire away. But why must it be a vintage heavy ass flashlight instead of a shoulder mounted one? Well, have you seen the state of the base? Nothing works on it properly, they cut the budget so hard your armor barely protects you anyway, and you want working lights, oh you silly... But seriously, the moment you try to "fix" stuff you think are wrong with Doom 3, the game kinda starts falling apart. A lot of things are in it the way they are for a good reason.
Finally someone else that gets it. Whether they were well-received or not is irrelevant, the flashlight and its associated mechanics were _integral_ to Doom 3's design as a whole. The only good mod solution out there is the headlamp in Sikkmod. Unlike the vanilla flashlight, it's conveniently centered and can be used with any weapon, but to offset those advantages it is basically an incandescent penlight: the beam is VERY narrow, dim and yellowish. The two lights don't compete, as neither is decidedly better than the other.
In a couple of years, when our sons and daughters be studying videogame development in college, this will definitely be thesis material. Great video man, as always.
Doom 3's flashlight being changed from item to shoulder mount turns it into a completely different game. Instead of having to choose between more visibility and firepower, now you always just get both. The original flashlight forced you to make a difficult choice, which gave the game more depth. The BFG Edition flashlight removes that and lets you focus more on shooting. Now you know the arguments on both sides.
Sometimes a flashlight feels more like a gamma/brightness slider than a gameplay feature. I also hate automatic flashlights when you're in dark and it just blows everything up by how bright it gets (yes I'm talking about you far cry 5)
in HL2 there also is one section where you wait for the elevator and the lights are out, and you have to fight off hordes of enemies in pitch black, and your flashlight is battery-powered so you have to conserve power deciding when to use it. there are also flares you can turn on to temporarily light up areas
I don't remember if Alan Wake's flashlight sucked or not but I do love the concept of actually using it in combat while also illuminates bigger and is stronger based on the flashlight you have.
Yea. I think Alan wake deserved a mention since it did flashlights a a but diferently from most of the games. And Alan Wake 2 improved the flashlight in my opinion.
The issue of the doom 3 change wasn’t fully the flashlight. Swapping to a weapon gave some extra suspense sure but the remake made the whole game brighter and have more ammo so you can’t JUST have the new flashlight change
I remember when Doom 3 came out and making the flashlight separate made a bunch of people angry. Everyone was asking why it couldn't be dual wielded with a pistol or strapped to a gun with duct tape.
i thought the video was gonna be about how video game flashbacks suck until i saw the thumbnail lol. thanks for the new vid, i thought you were on some 20-year stasis like gordon.
The flashlight attachments in shooters always interest me the most. For example, the other day I replayed Battlefield 3 on the PS3, no it doesn't hold up as well I remembered but the flashlight was something I never noticed before in the game. It's somewhat small, and I don't think you can turn it off and on, but it's got a pretty cool effect and can be useful for some darker missions, where it's usually already turned on. It also functions as a beacon to show where enemies or allies are, as when you look in the direction of an NPC with the flashlight turned on on their gun, the light will beam into your eyes, showing you there's someone in front of you. Many shooters do this, especially with snipers to help players find these well-hidden enemies. GTA 5 is another interesting beast in this topic, the flashlight it uses is much brighter and larger.. depending on how you use it. For example, many guns have a flashlight accessory you can buy, some with varying sizes, however there's also a straight-up full flashlight you can buy as a melee in GTA Online. The flashlight accessories on the guns are usually okay, but the aren't perfect, they are pretty dim and don't have a massive radius, and they also aren't persistent, meaning the second you stop aiming with the gun they turn off (unless you install a few mods like I have). The fully fledged flashlight melee is much better though, having a bigger radius, being brighter, though keeping the weird non-persistent problem.
When Dead By Daylight back in the day had really bad tutorial, I first thought flashlights were used to see better in dark places at cost of being seen quicker by the killer, but when survivor treated flashlight as if it was holding a gun, slowing down dramatically and set up in almost a combat stance… something was wrong. Also the duration of the flashlight… then I discovered flashlights are actually used to BLIND the killer (that’d explain why I was the main target in my first match with a flashlight).
Doom 3's flashlight being its own "weapon" was a design choice, you were choosing between vision and your weapon in the dark areas, some of the games encounters are balanced around that, forcing you to hot swap and using sound to help figure out where enemies are approaching from. Some areas in the BFG edition don't hit because there's nothing to fear when your light is always on.
@@CoralCopperHead Like it or not, it _was_ vital for the design they were going for. It may not have been well-received but no one can claim it was thoughtless.
@@AmelpsXett Didn't know that hating the flaslight so much that ignoring it was the best way to fight effectively during a Nightmare run on the original release was something cowards did, but alright, if it's something they do, I guess I'm one of 'em.
@@CoralCopperHead lol and? You just brought up something completely irrelevant to the conversation even though nobody uses it this way on their first playthrough
I wish Doom 3 would have let you use the flashlight alongside the pistol (The marine holds both of them with one hand too lol). That way the pistol isn't immediately discarded after the next weapon but making them annoying to use. Alternatively, _some_ of the weapons could have a flashlight attached (maybe as an upgrade later in the game) but the thing is that you still have to consider the seconds you can't see because of the recoil or the reloading.
This. This so much. Dual wielding pistol and torch, Harries grip style, would have been a godly fit for Doom 3. You wouldn't be annoyingly defenseless, but you'd still be vulnerable and not packing much firepower. Kinda like how Quake 4 did it with only having flashlights on basic weapons, except Q4 really didn't commit to the light-and-darkness game.
I agree. At least in games with raytracing they look right. But like even if you don't have raytracing, just increase ambient (diffuse) lighting indoors if the player is using a flashlight.
This. Please this. Now that raytracing is becoming more common with RTX and Vulkan, there's little reason not to use it just for the flashlight. Just a simple flashlight is not gonna make a PC melt. Also yes to diffusion, as light scatter is a critical aspect of real lighting even discounting raytracing, as you can create a convincing effect with cubemaps.
If you think about flashlights sometimes in horror games makes it a bit nerve wracking when everything around is pitch black it creates suspense to the player knowing something is lurking in the dark can make it a unpleasant experience
Plenty of comments here mentioning the hitscan point light type of flashlight some late '90s games like Half-Life 1 had. Nice to see those not being forgotten. Subnautica is a fun example of having multiple different flashlights with pros and cons. There's the dedicated handheld flashlight which is bright white and has a wide cone but occupies your hand. The Seaglide, the game's underwater equivalent to a sprint button in item form, also has a light so you're not rocketing around in the dark, but it's narrow and teal colored making it harder to see anything besides where you're going. The vehicles also have their own lights, including the PRAWN's forward lights which are weirdly tied to a specific power cell slot and can't be switched off normally. Vehicle lights also have a habit of switching to basic texture cones instead of full detail projected lights when you get out of the vehicle, I guess to save performance. All of these and the stationary lights you can build on your base come with the gameplay element of consuming power, a resource that can be put to other uses that you might consider more important to your survival in an emergency. And then there's No Man's Sky's flashlight... which is automatic by default, turning itself on and off whenever it _thinks_ you need it. The problem being it's not very smart. The good news is you can turn this feature off and control it manually. The bad news is the keybind to turn it on manually is disabled whenever the automatic feature thinks you don't need it, forcing you to use the quick menu instead. - _ -
The Last Of Us flashlight is I think a good example. The game is a lot of times dark so you need the flashlight very often especially if you are trying to find things like ammo or extra secret things the game has. It also does its job as a flashlight.
I'd like to bring up Deep Rock Galactic's flashlight, which i think is intentionally bad or bad-ish: this makes your flares more important, both the throwable ones and scout's flare gun
since i play doom 3, i use the flashlight as a whacking tool. after that, it was no longer since Doom Trilogy (2 2D Doom games and Doom 3) was released.
It's always funny to me when flashlights in games just suck away ungodly amounts of energy and drain batteries within minutes. Even Gordon Freeman's HEV suit somehow can't keep its battery alive for 3 full minutes. Meanwhile, I can leave my phone flashlight on overnight by accident and it'll be fine the next morning. I get it, games aren't about realism, but they are about gameplay. In a horror game, I can get behind that. How it benefits Half Life's gameplay to have to wait for 5-10 seconds every once in a while is lost on me.
Runtimes are an iffy subject for sure. It's especially absurd i science fiction setings now that we have LEDs and lithium ion batteries that will last _days straight_ at useful brightness levels. I like the runtime to be limited, but generous, not "oh god I'm using an Eveready Daylo from 1910 running on batteries from 1910 and life is pain".
It's funny how games that take place in the future don't have super bright flashlights. I mean, today we can have super bright flashlights that have insane lumen counts.(like as bright as car headlights)
for faith i think there's a way to go around the spider man jumpscare, im not sure if thats how it works but ive seen how someone tried pausing game during spooder man attack and instead of regular pause it played the jumpscare, indicating that spider man is near, so you can just spam pause button and always be aware
The flashlight being useless in the Halo CE remaster is actually canon because Master Chief and other Spartan-IIs have heavily augmented eyes so they can see in the dark. I actually prefer the remastered graphics despite growing up with the originals on the old Xbox, maybe because I already played Half-LIfe around the same time I played Halo CE and so Halo CE's graphics were never very impressive to me. Then obviously HL2 and Doom 3 came along and took its lunch money. Speaking of Doom 3, I do think the hand held flashlight was kind of a neat idea for the time, but I also agree that it didn't fit perfectly well with the way Doom 3 ends up playing after the first 2-3 levels, so the BFG edition basically added the famous 'Duct-tape mod' as default for the better.
if you’re looking for more older games, 1987’s Metal Gear has a flashlight item you had to collect to see in pitch black areas. It basically just works as a light switch though. Selecting the flashlight would basically just turn all the lights on in the room.
For me the worst flashlight is in "the Forest" game It has a massive dark spot in the middle of it It run on battery When you turn on your flashlight, the game is darken due to the flashlight brightness
Can't speak for all of the games. But some older ones have a small flashlight cuz the flashlight texture and/or the intended(at the time) playing resolution are pretty small(cuz back then less pixels)
Flashlight in Manhunt is straight up death sentence. No, it doesn't have a holdable flashlight, instead they are an attachment to shotgun. And if you aim with that shotgun (yeah just aim with it) the flashlight will turn on and your enemies will detect you and now you're dead. In a game like Manhunt, where hiding in shadows is a major stealth method, using the flashlight shotgun is like holding a neon sign which says "Kill me."
The reason why Doom 3 BFG Edition's flashlight got a lot of hate by the community because in the OG Doom 3, the flashlight was to show the lighting capabilities of the ID Tech 4 engine and it was also part of the game since Doom 3 is much slower-paced, darker and scarier compared to old Doom games 😎
By having light go through the retina, then the photo receptors in the back layer will turn the different wavelengths into.... Trying to decipher the "How the eye works" part, It's good though ngl.
It's: "By having light go through the retina, then the photo receptors in the back layer will turn the different wavelengths into electrical signals and send it through the optic nerve to the brain to form a picture". I sped it up much more than I thought lol.
(original) deus ex's light was weird: instead of a cone of light originating from the player, its a sphere of light originating from the surface of the object meeting the center of the viewport. so you magic mouse a lightball across surfaces. and it drains your 'mana' that you need for your abilities
My biggest gripe with video game flashlights is honestly just how they seem to have basically no range at all, comically so. You can be a soldier using what's probably meant to be a high grade flashlight but as soon as the light travels more than 5 meters, the photons seemingly just vanish into the void. At least games with lanterns light up the general area around you instead of just a cone ahead. It's not even a realism issue for me, I just hate how game designers seem allergic to giving you a flashlight that isn't complete garbage.
I real life, You can see your Surroundings with the Flashlight. (Kinda) But with Games like Half-Life and others, It's just a White circle with Pitch black around it. Plus, they can drain power easily, You have to literally find Batteries around the base to recharge or use it again. Also In early 3D games (Like ROBLOX in 2008 or so.) the Flashlight tool in horror games, Is just a big Cone on a flashlight Model, But now they have a Gear for the flashlight which is (a bit) better. But the Half-Life's series flashlights really suck. In Half-Life 2: Episode One, There is the 3rd of 4th Level that you have to go through a Parking garage, While it's dark.. I hated that level because the Flashlight kept on draining and I have to wait in the dark for it to go up. Every time Alyx is with you, when the flashlight stopped she commented about the flashlight saying "Kliner should really fix the flashlight." But he didn't fix it just like Barney never gave us that Beer. Thank god Opposing force stick with the Night Vision goggles than a Flashlight because Gearbox had a problem with the Normal flashlight while making the game. EDIT: Jeez, I am just talking too much about a Damn flashlight in games.
A flashlight i kinda liked and hated was the one in amnesia the bunker in which you are trapped on a WW1 bunker with a fucking Monster who is a stalker enemy who react to sound and if you don't have ammo to gain time or not manage to run in the safe room you are fucked this game have a generator mecanic in which you need fuel to turn it on temporarily and this will turn on devices you need for objectives and light to reduce the chance to met the monster but he still react to sounds and the flashlight you use work with a wire you need to pull it to use it to gain visibility and more time to use it but you take the risk that the monster will come for you so you have to complete objectives as fast as you can without drawing to much attention so you don't end up in the dark with a more active bunker beast
So i was watching the Silent Hill 2 remake gameplay showcase and thinking about the flashlight... I think they did it good (as far as we saw at least for now)
You could do a sequence reviews of the most played games by decades - 80s, 90s, 2000… etc. Some of the oldies are still played widely. Maybe include them in the review.
It's crazy how almost no one talks about how trash the flashlight horror game is. In fact, you're the first person I see that said this. Everytime I play horror games, I have to turn my phone brightness up to 100%, and even that I could only see slightly. The worse one is when the flashlight's light is SO tiny that it doesn't make any difference if you turn it off and on again.
You should do a video on "The Coffin of Andy and Leyley" It's a psychological horror game about a codependent relationship between siblings and u think you could enjoy it
What's funny is that a lantern's usefulness depends on the game, based on how lanterns usually work. Flashlights are designed to be focused beams of light ahead of you, allowing you to see a fair distance away while not really being able to easily see things at your feet or your sides. Lanterns sacrifice distance in turn for having everything lit up around you. This is even more useful in multiplayer where only one of you has a light source, so now you don't have to depend on the person with the flashlight quickly flicking it around the room unexpectedly. HOWEVER, in certain games such as Pressure on Roblox, there may be an incentive to *not* having a light source out. With flashlights, you can quickly look away from squiddles to avoid making them attack, but with lanterns, you can't look away, you have to either shut the lantern off or hope you can run out of range. Goldsource somehow did both of these things and made it possibly one of the worst flashlights I have dealt with in games. A small "ball" of light that appears where you are looking, like a weird crossbreed between a flashlight's distance with a lantern's coverage.
It's kinda weird how opposite my opinions here is. HL2's flashlight is great, though perhaps adding bounce lighting would have improved it had that been possible, but it has good range and casts shadows. Halo, on the other hand, ticks me off because of how short the light's range is. I forget which game it is where the vehicles' headlights are kinda important at at least one point but they don't illuminate more than maybe a couple yards in front of you making them rather completely useless. I do know that flashlights have a falloff in real life, but I feel like when they do in games it's typically ridiculously short.
I thought ready or not was interesting in that in the graphic settings, you can enable light bounce. This helps light up massively but can also impact performance :/ I'm also not sure how it determines how light bounce works, since in some custom maps I worked on for it, light would bounce no problem. Others surfaces wouldn't and my material set up is the same. But that's probably more on me and the game technically has no official mod support or SDKs even if the devs acknowledge modding.
Source flashlight: 😅
Gold Source flashlight: 💀
Gold source flashlight is basically invisible rockets lighting up the area as small as your crosshair
@@The_whalesgoldsrc is just you lighting where your looking at
Goldsrc fl@shlight is a ball of light
black mesa: well yes, but actually no
half life opposing force night vision:
Halo: Anniversary is a perfect example of why aesthetics are just as important as graphical fidelity.
4:08 i think what you wanted to say is 'dark and gritty'
wait noclick knows this guy?
@@powersik. noclick knows anyone that make videos on source games
@@powersik. sooooo?
My mistake 😞
@@Engineergaming1010 i just didnt think he could have know him
S.T.A.L.K.E.R's flashlight is one of those instances where using the flashlight is a liability more than an aid simply because the enemies will see it and proceed to shoot at the giant ball of light in the dark. Of course the enemies that use them almost never turn off their flashlights so it goes both ways.
Same for F.E.A.R. as well
Can't argue with facts
And then SWAT 4 has a really bright and useful flashlight, but it's not visible to the enemy AI at all. Definintely helps out a lot in some missions, for all the wrong reasons
This is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, NPCs don't react to your flashlight in Vanilla S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at all. Secondly, saying that it's a liability because somebody can spot you is nonsensical in a game where stealth is practically non-existent so you'll be spotted anyways. Finally, this claim also makes it sound like the whole game is about fighting enemies and avoiding them while in reality it's an open world game where a lot of time is spent on exploring locations without any forced encounters... and where you can always use a flashlight to help you see better, especially in darker areas.
@@abohachuk4765 I have been trying constantly to reply to your comment but YT seemingly keeps removing it so if this appears in your feed for 3rd or 4th time I'm sorry.
There is stealth. . . Just *_very_* difficult to pull off stealth, thats why theres a noise meter in all of the games so you track how much sound you're making while *_trying_* to stealth. You also have a visibility meter so you can determine how detectable you are, when you are *_trying_* to stealth. Also, direct quote from the fandom wiki; "One downside is that NPCs will spot the player more easily if they have their flashlight in use, making night vision better if avoiding detection is preferable." A quick search of "Can enemies see your flashlight in 'S.o.C' " provided that answer.
And ". . .a lot of time is spent on exploring locations without any forced encounters. . ."
Virtually every area you go to you'll encounter something. Be it "monsters", "Bandettes", Monolith or so forth. And a large chunk of the games do involve pitched fights. And many of those explorable areas are usually being guarded by enemies making exploration dangerous unless properly equipped. The only times I can think of combat not being a constant is when your navigating a hotbed of "enviromental hazards" which doesn't mean there isn't a "monster", "enemy human" or zombie nearby ready to catch you unawares. In the end The Zone is meant to be an incredibly "nasty" place.
If horror games had a good modern flashlight, the enemies would be running from you.
In DooM 3 you can also use ur flashlight as a meleeweapon, knocking zombies over
And said flashlight is slower than the fists, has even shorter range for god knows what reason, makes very unsatisfying sounds and the beam is horrendously off-center. Thanks but no thanks.
@@DinnerForkTonguegod I hate doom 3. I could accept everything else if they didn’t ruin the shotgun lol
@@plugshirt1762 I love it as anything _except_ a Doom game... but only after I mod the shotgun into the classic mid-range, low-damage version. I can forgo Duct Tape, I can forgo graphics upgrade mods, I can play almost vanilla _as long as I fix the shotgun._
Luckily it's extremely easy to fix, in the original game at least. Never tried it with the BFG Edition.
6:11 FINALLY, SOMEONE SAID IT!
I swear, these small flashlights start to give me a lot of headeaches (literally) because I have to keep focusing in that small circle and it starts to hurt a bit. L4D also has the same problem imo, honestly, Valve doesn't know how to make flashlights lmao. And we don't talk about GoldSrc flashlights....
Hey, at least Valve makes up for their inability by making flashlights easily moddable. The Workshop has some insanely good flashlight mods.
Growing up we had this massive hand-held beam-searchlight. Thing had a motorcycle battery in it. We'd shine it at an island a quarter-mile away and see it perfectly illuminated. Loved that thing. Also, the searchlight in Unreal was awesome.
Oh yeah, I remember those big honking searchlights. Even saved my money as a kid to buy one for myself. To think now you can have that same amount of reach in a pocket light running off one battery that'll last hours? Technology has come an absurdly long way with li-ion cells and LEDs.
Also Unreal's Searchlight is freakin' goated. It is everything that the Half-Life 1 flashlight should have been.
6:21 everyone does that at least once when they are a child Lamwarp
Fun Fact: Night Vision Goggles actually can't/won't/don't ever work in any sort of complete darkness, such as inside a cave/cavern or a mine. This is because NVGs work by amplifying or stimulating and highlighting environments or areas that are just slightly lit up in very low light. This is why the NVGs in Half-Life Opposing Force doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since soldiers also carry and use flashlights, binoculars, emergency flares, and sometimes even portable or mobile handheld lamps or lanterns, plus quite a whole lot more as well, and not just NVGs alone.
To be fair, NVGs are paired with IR flashlights that only produce infrared light that the goggles can catch.
@@DinnerForkTongue Yes, and the same goes for ultraviolet as well.
Thats why you use a ir flashlight
@@cyberspacesupersoldier I'd say you wouldn't really want to be using UV though as well UV isn't the safest form of light depending on wavelength as it has fun times with some organic molecules like DNA & that isn't very good for us also we can see UV light better than we can see infrared light (not that we can see it but something is reflected that we can see if you've messed with weak black lights or seen a decontamination room in action you should understand) Infrared is impossible to see for us as you can't see the weak one on a TV remote despite the camera's on stuff being able to see this form.
@@cyberspacesupersoldier Are we giving soldiers cancer by making them use ultraviolet flashlights?
Watching a LamWarp video without subtitles feels cursed
Watching a LamWarp video without Opposing Force - Planet at the end feels completely ridicilous
@@СтасСтафеевfr
Before I played Half-Life, (the original not the "remaster") I always thought the flashlight was normal like in Half-Life 2, but nope, I was like, "Da fuk? How can they not make a proper flashlight?" lol
Doom 3's flashlight works because there's a combination of things going for it - the swap is fast enough, every enemy attack creates ambient light so you can see where to shoot anyway, most enemies also have some kind of elements that highlight them in the dark (red visors for zsecs, glowing eyes for zombies, etc), many map areas have some kind of ambient light, firing your weapon lights up the area in front of you as well. Plus it's immersive to pull out your flashlight, scan the area, memorize enemy positions and then fire away.
But why must it be a vintage heavy ass flashlight instead of a shoulder mounted one? Well, have you seen the state of the base? Nothing works on it properly, they cut the budget so hard your armor barely protects you anyway, and you want working lights, oh you silly...
But seriously, the moment you try to "fix" stuff you think are wrong with Doom 3, the game kinda starts falling apart. A lot of things are in it the way they are for a good reason.
Finally someone else that gets it. Whether they were well-received or not is irrelevant, the flashlight and its associated mechanics were _integral_ to Doom 3's design as a whole.
The only good mod solution out there is the headlamp in Sikkmod. Unlike the vanilla flashlight, it's conveniently centered and can be used with any weapon, but to offset those advantages it is basically an incandescent penlight: the beam is VERY narrow, dim and yellowish. The two lights don't compete, as neither is decidedly better than the other.
Half-Life’s flashlight is like summoning a ball of light above the place youre looking at
In a couple of years, when our sons and daughters be studying videogame development in college, this will definitely be thesis material.
Great video man, as always.
They also won't be able to relate to flashlights with horribly short battery life.
Doom 3's flashlight being changed from item to shoulder mount turns it into a completely different game. Instead of having to choose between more visibility and firepower, now you always just get both. The original flashlight forced you to make a difficult choice, which gave the game more depth. The BFG Edition flashlight removes that and lets you focus more on shooting.
Now you know the arguments on both sides.
Good the entire game was dark so no reason to have a flashlight weapon
Fallout 4 does a “lantern light” style in first person
hl2's flashlight is so small bc your fov is set so goddamn high
Sometimes a flashlight feels more like a gamma/brightness slider than a gameplay feature. I also hate automatic flashlights when you're in dark and it just blows everything up by how bright it gets (yes I'm talking about you far cry 5)
in HL2 there also is one section where you wait for the elevator and the lights are out, and you have to fight off hordes of enemies in pitch black, and your flashlight is battery-powered so you have to conserve power deciding when to use it.
there are also flares you can turn on to temporarily light up areas
Isn't that in Episode 1, not base HL2?
@@Monody512 yes
I don't remember if Alan Wake's flashlight sucked or not but I do love the concept of actually using it in combat while also illuminates bigger and is stronger based on the flashlight you have.
Alan Wake flashlight was amazing, it interacted with the world extremely well
In Alan Wake light was a weapon. I love this concept.
Yea. I think Alan wake deserved a mention since it did flashlights a a but diferently from most of the games. And Alan Wake 2 improved the flashlight in my opinion.
The issue of the doom 3 change wasn’t fully the flashlight. Swapping to a weapon gave some extra suspense sure but the remake made the whole game brighter and have more ammo so you can’t JUST have the new flashlight change
I remember when Doom 3 came out and making the flashlight separate made a bunch of people angry. Everyone was asking why it couldn't be dual wielded with a pistol or strapped to a gun with duct tape.
I remember when I was a kid I analyzed how the flashlight in Luigi's Mansion 1 worked, I thought it was pretty good and realistic
i thought the video was gonna be about how video game flashbacks suck until i saw the thumbnail lol. thanks for the new vid, i thought you were on some 20-year stasis like gordon.
The flashlight attachments in shooters always interest me the most. For example, the other day I replayed Battlefield 3 on the PS3, no it doesn't hold up as well I remembered but the flashlight was something I never noticed before in the game. It's somewhat small, and I don't think you can turn it off and on, but it's got a pretty cool effect and can be useful for some darker missions, where it's usually already turned on. It also functions as a beacon to show where enemies or allies are, as when you look in the direction of an NPC with the flashlight turned on on their gun, the light will beam into your eyes, showing you there's someone in front of you. Many shooters do this, especially with snipers to help players find these well-hidden enemies. GTA 5 is another interesting beast in this topic, the flashlight it uses is much brighter and larger.. depending on how you use it. For example, many guns have a flashlight accessory you can buy, some with varying sizes, however there's also a straight-up full flashlight you can buy as a melee in GTA Online. The flashlight accessories on the guns are usually okay, but the aren't perfect, they are pretty dim and don't have a massive radius, and they also aren't persistent, meaning the second you stop aiming with the gun they turn off (unless you install a few mods like I have). The fully fledged flashlight melee is much better though, having a bigger radius, being brighter, though keeping the weird non-persistent problem.
I wish you had touched on the "flashlight" in Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye DLC since that too is interesting!
When Dead By Daylight back in the day had really bad tutorial, I first thought flashlights were used to see better in dark places at cost of being seen quicker by the killer, but when survivor treated flashlight as if it was holding a gun, slowing down dramatically and set up in almost a combat stance… something was wrong. Also the duration of the flashlight… then I discovered flashlights are actually used to BLIND the killer (that’d explain why I was the main target in my first match with a flashlight).
The crazy part is, the flashlight _is_ useful for walking around... when you're on a match with a Dredge and its power makes the whole map dark.
Doom 3's flashlight being its own "weapon" was a design choice, you were choosing between vision and your weapon in the dark areas, some of the games encounters are balanced around that, forcing you to hot swap and using sound to help figure out where enemies are approaching from. Some areas in the BFG edition don't hit because there's nothing to fear when your light is always on.
Yeah. A _bad_ design choice.
@@CoralCopperHead Like it or not, it _was_ vital for the design they were going for. It may not have been well-received but no one can claim it was thoughtless.
@@CoralCopperHead coward detected
@@AmelpsXett Didn't know that hating the flaslight so much that ignoring it was the best way to fight effectively during a Nightmare run on the original release was something cowards did, but alright, if it's something they do, I guess I'm one of 'em.
@@CoralCopperHead lol and? You just brought up something completely irrelevant to the conversation even though nobody uses it this way on their first playthrough
I wish Doom 3 would have let you use the flashlight alongside the pistol (The marine holds both of them with one hand too lol). That way the pistol isn't immediately discarded after the next weapon but making them annoying to use.
Alternatively, _some_ of the weapons could have a flashlight attached (maybe as an upgrade later in the game) but the thing is that you still have to consider the seconds you can't see because of the recoil or the reloading.
This. This so much. Dual wielding pistol and torch, Harries grip style, would have been a godly fit for Doom 3. You wouldn't be annoyingly defenseless, but you'd still be vulnerable and not packing much firepower. Kinda like how Quake 4 did it with only having flashlights on basic weapons, except Q4 really didn't commit to the light-and-darkness game.
They actually did that in Resurrection Of Evil’s Xbox port.
I agree. At least in games with raytracing they look right. But like even if you don't have raytracing, just increase ambient (diffuse) lighting indoors if the player is using a flashlight.
This. Please this. Now that raytracing is becoming more common with RTX and Vulkan, there's little reason not to use it just for the flashlight. Just a simple flashlight is not gonna make a PC melt. Also yes to diffusion, as light scatter is a critical aspect of real lighting even discounting raytracing, as you can create a convincing effect with cubemaps.
flashlight in horror games: you can't barely see what Infront of you
Next video about fleshlights
Have i came to a point where the most anticipated video I'm waiting for are LamWarp's ? Sure does keep going bro.
Lamwarp release different type of video and it's about flashlight from each games. Awesome
Finally, Lamwarp post a video about flashlight
If you think about flashlights sometimes in horror games makes it a bit nerve wracking when everything around is pitch black it creates suspense to the player knowing something is lurking in the dark can make it a unpleasant experience
Plenty of comments here mentioning the hitscan point light type of flashlight some late '90s games like Half-Life 1 had. Nice to see those not being forgotten.
Subnautica is a fun example of having multiple different flashlights with pros and cons. There's the dedicated handheld flashlight which is bright white and has a wide cone but occupies your hand. The Seaglide, the game's underwater equivalent to a sprint button in item form, also has a light so you're not rocketing around in the dark, but it's narrow and teal colored making it harder to see anything besides where you're going.
The vehicles also have their own lights, including the PRAWN's forward lights which are weirdly tied to a specific power cell slot and can't be switched off normally. Vehicle lights also have a habit of switching to basic texture cones instead of full detail projected lights when you get out of the vehicle, I guess to save performance.
All of these and the stationary lights you can build on your base come with the gameplay element of consuming power, a resource that can be put to other uses that you might consider more important to your survival in an emergency.
And then there's No Man's Sky's flashlight... which is automatic by default, turning itself on and off whenever it _thinks_ you need it. The problem being it's not very smart. The good news is you can turn this feature off and control it manually. The bad news is the keybind to turn it on manually is disabled whenever the automatic feature thinks you don't need it, forcing you to use the quick menu instead. - _ -
Now make a video about fleshlights.
0_0
Half life is worse of them all.
Especially in the first game
Half life 1 literally has a circle texture
Heavy really like it
isn't it just a point light that's placed at wherever you look?
In half life 1 you can increase the gamma 😂
"flashlight are useless"
Escape from Tarkov: *laughs*
4:13 no one tell Noodle
Lol
Arma’s flashlights, and lights in general. They are either:
- babies first night light
Or
- pocket sized collapsed sun
When I first played Half-Life, I thought the flashlight was broken
The Last Of Us flashlight is I think a good example. The game is a lot of times dark so you need the flashlight very often especially if you are trying to find things like ammo or extra secret things the game has. It also does its job as a flashlight.
The Resident Evil flashlights especially the ones in re2/4 remake were amazing and felt so good to play with in the dark sections
i dont know what is more terrifiyng, the GoldSrc flashlight or a Lamwarp video without subtitles
I'd like to bring up Deep Rock Galactic's flashlight, which i think is intentionally bad or bad-ish: this makes your flares more important, both the throwable ones and scout's flare gun
I forgot LamWarp does exist until I saw the video
The flashlight in the suffering was awesome fadding as it lost power with a shrinking light raidus and it was shoulder mounted.....
Fleshlight > Video game Flashlight
Aw hell nah 💀💀
This one is compelety different compared to your other videos and a nice change.
since i play doom 3, i use the flashlight as a whacking tool. after that, it was no longer since Doom Trilogy (2 2D Doom games and Doom 3) was released.
The torch shown in the thumbnail is actually one I have irl lol
What brand?
Please get a better one then xd
I like to watch your videos while eating
Reminds me of the Atari game With Flashlight that has a stickman *i haven't finished the video -_-*
It's always funny to me when flashlights in games just suck away ungodly amounts of energy and drain batteries within minutes. Even Gordon Freeman's HEV suit somehow can't keep its battery alive for 3 full minutes. Meanwhile, I can leave my phone flashlight on overnight by accident and it'll be fine the next morning.
I get it, games aren't about realism, but they are about gameplay. In a horror game, I can get behind that. How it benefits Half Life's gameplay to have to wait for 5-10 seconds every once in a while is lost on me.
Runtimes are an iffy subject for sure. It's especially absurd i science fiction setings now that we have LEDs and lithium ion batteries that will last _days straight_ at useful brightness levels.
I like the runtime to be limited, but generous, not "oh god I'm using an Eveready Daylo from 1910 running on batteries from 1910 and life is pain".
Half-life (first one) has the best flashlight in all of gaming. It's so realistic, I love it.
🧢
It'd be realistic if it was trying to imitate an iPhone's flashlight
As a game developer, I agree 100% with what you said. By the way, your narrative style and video editing made me laugh a lot. :)))
It's funny how games that take place in the future don't have super bright flashlights. I mean, today we can have super bright flashlights that have insane lumen counts.(like as bright as car headlights)
The greatest flashlight analysis I have ever seen
I fw your videos heavy bro. Just found you been watching all night
Interesting video, the first half life's flashlight is bad, but I rather have that one than the opposing force night googles 😅
for faith i think there's a way to go around the spider man jumpscare, im not sure if thats how it works but ive seen how someone tried pausing game during spooder man attack and instead of regular pause it played the jumpscare, indicating that spider man is near, so you can just spam pause button and always be aware
The flashlight being useless in the Halo CE remaster is actually canon because Master Chief and other Spartan-IIs have heavily augmented eyes so they can see in the dark.
I actually prefer the remastered graphics despite growing up with the originals on the old Xbox, maybe because I already played Half-LIfe around the same time I played Halo CE and so Halo CE's graphics were never very impressive to me. Then obviously HL2 and Doom 3 came along and took its lunch money.
Speaking of Doom 3, I do think the hand held flashlight was kind of a neat idea for the time, but I also agree that it didn't fit perfectly well with the way Doom 3 ends up playing after the first 2-3 levels, so the BFG edition basically added the famous 'Duct-tape mod' as default for the better.
if you’re looking for more older games, 1987’s Metal Gear has a flashlight item you had to collect to see in pitch black areas.
It basically just works as a light switch though. Selecting the flashlight would basically just turn all the lights on in the room.
For me the worst flashlight is in "the Forest" game
It has a massive dark spot in the middle of it
It run on battery
When you turn on your flashlight, the game is darken due to the flashlight brightness
Oh god, the dreaded donut hole. The flashlight in this very old and small indie game Ildefonse also had a torch like that, and it was atrocious.
Doom 3 did it in an interesting way where you have to choose between using a flashlight and weapon
Lamwarp realised he has a channel :
I hate how doom 3's flashlight is off center. I always point mine where I look irl.
i Deadass have the flashlight from the thumbnail
What brand? I hope it's Meco and that you weren't scammed.
Can't speak for all of the games. But some older ones have a small flashlight cuz the flashlight texture and/or the intended(at the time) playing resolution are pretty small(cuz back then less pixels)
Flashlight in Manhunt is straight up death sentence. No, it doesn't have a holdable flashlight, instead they are an attachment to shotgun. And if you aim with that shotgun (yeah just aim with it) the flashlight will turn on and your enemies will detect you and now you're dead. In a game like Manhunt, where hiding in shadows is a major stealth method, using the flashlight shotgun is like holding a neon sign which says "Kill me."
It only good when on gmod horror maps with nothing inside because it dark and you pull out flashlight then get jumpscare my loud ass tf2 buff men
thank you lamwarp for the new amazing video!!! 😉
The reason why Doom 3 BFG Edition's flashlight got a lot of hate by the community because in the OG Doom 3, the flashlight was to show the lighting capabilities of the ID Tech 4 engine and it was also part of the game since Doom 3 is much slower-paced, darker and scarier compared to old Doom games 😎
I remember I got stuck in vents in Half Life because the flashlight is so damn bad
metro games: "I HAVE NO WEAKNESS"
By having light go through the retina, then the photo receptors in the back layer will turn the different wavelengths into....
Trying to decipher the "How the eye works" part, It's good though ngl.
It's: "By having light go through the retina, then the photo receptors in the back layer will turn the different wavelengths into electrical signals and send it through the optic nerve to the brain to form a picture". I sped it up much more than I thought lol.
(original) deus ex's light was weird:
instead of a cone of light originating from the player, its a sphere of light originating from the surface of the object meeting the center of the viewport. so you magic mouse a lightball across surfaces. and it drains your 'mana' that you need for your abilities
My friend: Why are you watching a guy's yapping session about flashlights?
Me: Hear me out. The dude has a point.
My biggest gripe with video game flashlights is honestly just how they seem to have basically no range at all, comically so. You can be a soldier using what's probably meant to be a high grade flashlight but as soon as the light travels more than 5 meters, the photons seemingly just vanish into the void. At least games with lanterns light up the general area around you instead of just a cone ahead. It's not even a realism issue for me, I just hate how game designers seem allergic to giving you a flashlight that isn't complete garbage.
Slender: *and i took that personally*
0:00 Funny how both me and my dad have that exact same flashlight.
I real life, You can see your Surroundings with the Flashlight. (Kinda) But with Games like Half-Life and others, It's just a White circle with Pitch black around it. Plus, they can drain power easily, You have to literally find Batteries around the base to recharge or use it again. Also In early 3D games (Like ROBLOX in 2008 or so.) the Flashlight tool in horror games, Is just a big Cone on a flashlight Model, But now they have a Gear for the flashlight which is (a bit) better.
But the Half-Life's series flashlights really suck. In Half-Life 2: Episode One, There is the 3rd of 4th Level that you have to go through a Parking garage, While it's dark.. I hated that level because the Flashlight kept on draining and I have to wait in the dark for it to go up. Every time Alyx is with you, when the flashlight stopped she commented about the flashlight saying "Kliner should really fix the flashlight." But he didn't fix it just like Barney never gave us that Beer.
Thank god Opposing force stick with the Night Vision goggles than a Flashlight because Gearbox had a problem with the Normal flashlight while making the game.
EDIT: Jeez, I am just talking too much about a Damn flashlight in games.
Half life's flash light is a crime against technolgy
A flashlight i kinda liked and hated was the one in amnesia the bunker in which you are trapped on a WW1 bunker with a fucking Monster who is a stalker enemy who react to sound and if you don't have ammo to gain time or not manage to run in the safe room you are fucked this game have a generator mecanic in which you need fuel to turn it on temporarily and this will turn on devices you need for objectives and light to reduce the chance to met the monster but he still react to sounds and the flashlight you use work with a wire you need to pull it to use it to gain visibility and more time to use it but you take the risk that the monster will come for you so you have to complete objectives as fast as you can without drawing to much attention so you don't end up in the dark with a more active bunker beast
So i was watching the Silent Hill 2 remake gameplay showcase and thinking about the flashlight... I think they did it good (as far as we saw at least for now)
Drg uses flares as well as a flashlight which i really like
You could do a sequence reviews of the most played games by decades - 80s, 90s, 2000… etc. Some of the oldies are still played widely. Maybe include them in the review.
They don't suck, they're just shy.
It's crazy how almost no one talks about how trash the flashlight horror game is. In fact, you're the first person I see that said this.
Everytime I play horror games, I have to turn my phone brightness up to 100%, and even that I could only see slightly. The worse one is when the flashlight's light is SO tiny that it doesn't make any difference if you turn it off and on again.
the opposing force nightvision is pretty much a lantern too since all it does is bright up the ground around the player and paint the screen green
Hello. This video is interesting *i haven’t finished it yet* . Now I’m going to eat breakfast.
the first videogame I remember seeing with a torch (flashlight) was Zelda3.
You should do a video on "The Coffin of Andy and Leyley"
It's a psychological horror game about a codependent relationship between siblings and u think you could enjoy it
What's funny is that a lantern's usefulness depends on the game, based on how lanterns usually work.
Flashlights are designed to be focused beams of light ahead of you, allowing you to see a fair distance away while not really being able to easily see things at your feet or your sides. Lanterns sacrifice distance in turn for having everything lit up around you.
This is even more useful in multiplayer where only one of you has a light source, so now you don't have to depend on the person with the flashlight quickly flicking it around the room unexpectedly. HOWEVER, in certain games such as Pressure on Roblox, there may be an incentive to *not* having a light source out. With flashlights, you can quickly look away from squiddles to avoid making them attack, but with lanterns, you can't look away, you have to either shut the lantern off or hope you can run out of range.
Goldsource somehow did both of these things and made it possibly one of the worst flashlights I have dealt with in games. A small "ball" of light that appears where you are looking, like a weird crossbreed between a flashlight's distance with a lantern's coverage.
It's kinda weird how opposite my opinions here is. HL2's flashlight is great, though perhaps adding bounce lighting would have improved it had that been possible, but it has good range and casts shadows. Halo, on the other hand, ticks me off because of how short the light's range is. I forget which game it is where the vehicles' headlights are kinda important at at least one point but they don't illuminate more than maybe a couple yards in front of you making them rather completely useless.
I do know that flashlights have a falloff in real life, but I feel like when they do in games it's typically ridiculously short.
Now this is Game Journalism
You sound, more... happy i this video
*Is everything alright XD*
I thought ready or not was interesting in that in the graphic settings, you can enable light bounce. This helps light up massively but can also impact performance :/
I'm also not sure how it determines how light bounce works, since in some custom maps I worked on for it, light would bounce no problem. Others surfaces wouldn't and my material set up is the same. But that's probably more on me and the game technically has no official mod support or SDKs even if the devs acknowledge modding.