Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Difference between revisions

Subtrope of [[Scrappy Weapon]].

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* The flamethrower from ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'', humorously named the TOZT (Toaster, later used in Halo 3 as 7057), is one of the best weapons for burning up crowds, and in fact can overheat and destroy most mechanical enemies, however its range is ridiculously low, and if you're up against a shotgunner in multiplayer you only stand a slight chance if you strike first. On the plus side, people who are burned make the most over the top and hilarious scream, and the aliens sound like chickens being kicked.

* ''[[Killzone]] 2's'' flamethrower is more of a [[Not Completely Useless]] weapon; it plays all the description straight (although the range is okay) and other weapons are mostly a better bet, but the flame from it lingers a little after landing; this is very helpful in a couple of situations where enemies can be easily lured into choke points where laying down a floor of fire creates a nasty trap. Unfortunately due to the game's one-weapon inventory system, arming yourself with ''anything'' situational tends to be a bad idea.

** At the end of the game, the [[Big Bad]] pulls an "cloak and run" once you get a few shots in, and if played wrong you will run out of ammo, but if you set them on fire then you can see where they will be and you can then use the melee before you are supposed to see them. However the weapon is still completely situational.

* In ''[[UFO Alien Invasion]]'', the Flamethrower can be more effective than conventional ballistic firearms against the aliens, because their armor is less effective against fire damage. Of course, it also has ''much'' less range than most of the firearms.

** ''UFO: Aftermath'' features a flamethrower that does 3900 damage per hit (comparatively, a direct hit from an RPG does 550), but has an effective range of 5 metres and weighs more than a pregnant rhinoceros.

** Oddly, the flamethrower in ''Dead Space'' is actually one of the few chemical designs that '''could''' work in a vacuum, as [[All There in the Manual|described in supplemental material]]. It is intended as a tool for melting ice in the absence of an atmosphere, which might justify its relative weakness as a weapon. That the game does not allow it to function in vacuum is [[The Coconut Effect|something of a gaffe]].

*** Fixed in [[Dead Space 2|the sequel]], although its worth as a weapon is still somewhat debatable.

** ''[[Starcraft II]]'' is similar with Hellions (and Firebats in the campaign), which completely destroy certain early units and are very fast but tend to not hold up to stronger stuff.

* ''[[Resident Evil]] 2'' has a flamethrower which is weakened because the fuel hardly lasts any time. If you just hold and spray it will run out very soon; you have to tap it briefly to get reasonable of use out of it. That said, it is far, ''far'' more effective against Ivies then any of Leon's other weapons, including his upgraded magnum.

* In the third and final episode of the Half-life Gamemod ''[[They Hunger]]'', you finally get a hold on a flamethrower for the first time. Being a [[Zombie Apocalypse]], it would appear to be useful, but there is a unique problem: it can´t set ''anything'' on fire. Not even the enemies, who only take a small point of damage for every puff of the flames that hit them, each one with short range. It can be used to kill slowly walking zombies, but once you encounter the infected military, with their assault rifles and shotguns and helicopters, it´s suicide to attempt to attack them with it. Oh, and it runs out of ammo quickly.

* The Gargantua in the original ''[[Half Life]]'' possesses two biological flamethrowers in place of hands. The short range works to the player's benefit as you can just avoid it, which is preferable as fire still burns.

* The ''[[Ratchet & Clank|Ratchet and Clank]]'' series [[Zig-Zagging Trope|goes all over the place]] with this: the first [[Ratchet & Clank (video game)|R&C]] has your standard Hollywood flamethrower (the Pyrocitor) that has a very short range and becomes useless in later levels. [[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando|R&C 2]] introduces the Lava Gun, that ironically acts more like a ''real'' flamethrower (a gun that shoots burning liquid), has a decent range and does good damage. Unfortunately, the devs made the bizarre decision to make it transform to a drastically different meteor shooting machine gun after enough use. Luckily, they bring the gun back in [[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal|R&C 3]] without that transformation: it now transforms into a Liquid Nitrogen gun. Go figure.

** It is however, ''beautifully'' averted in [[Ratchet and Clank Future Tools of Destruction|Tools of Destruction]]; though it has the physics of an ordinary video game flamethrower, the [[Awesome Yet Practical|Pyro Blaster]] has high damage, a decent range (which you can upgrade) the ammo consumption is quite reasonable, and it evolves into a [[Up to Eleven|double-barreled helix flamethrower.]]

* The ion blaze rifle in ''[[Gun Bros]]'' smokes enough to conceal incoming enemy fire, which means you get blasted more because you can't see it and therefore won't dodge it. It's also hard to aim and quite inaccurate.

* Zigzags in the ''[[Time Splitters]]'' series, where catching on fire does serious DOT, can be caused by the smallest spark (including another burning player) and is very hard to extinguish (although this makes it less useful in story mode, where being set on fire is likely to be a death sentence). The flamethrower is tremendously deadly, but has a ridiculously tiny range. So tiny in fact, that it's a miracle if anyone you set on fire doesn't run into you, spreading the flame and almost certainly killing you too.

* ''[[Diablo]] 2'' has the Inferno spell which is a flamethrower, complete with short range at low spell levels, low area coverage at all spell levels, no persistent damage, slow-moving flames and it takes a long time to cast ''and'' roots you to the spot while you channel and stops when you get hit. Between its weak damage and the danger factor of planting yourself in front of the onrushing enemies that will proceed to stunlock you, this is the worst sorceress spell in the game. The expansion provided the new druid class with an ''Ice'' thrower which was useful for no other reason than the very long chill length, providing some much-needed crowd control until players figured out that there's a passive area effect chill spell in the druid's arsenal and most enemies you want to chill are immune to it anyway.

** There is a very cheap [[Socketed Equipment|runeword]] that averted this by giving a massive bonus to all fire spells, and to the Inferno spell in particular; like most spells, it could become [[Game Breaker|much more effective]] as you pumped its effective level up beyond 20, making it a [[Awesome Yet Practical|cheap and effective]] tool that could be acquired [[Disc One Nuke|by the end of Act 1]] and remained useful until [[Difficulty Spike|everything becomes immune to fire]].

** It's much more fun to face enemies using flamethrowers and use a sniper rifle to blow open the fuel tanks, causing a massive explosion.

*** On the other hand, incendiary ammo and incinerate are incredibly useful: they burn through armor, stop regeneration, and can cause enemies to panic for several seconds.

* Thumper's signature weapon in ''[[Twisted Metal]] 2'' is a flamethrower, and the strongest special in the game. Even the final boss takes huge amounts of damage from it... if you want to get into melee range of a giant ice cream monster truck that takes off 2/3 of your health just by running you over. Better keep a lot of energy handy for freeze missiles.

** It got worse in ''[[Twisted Metal]] 3'' and ''4'' where the developers decided to give the weapon to a very fast, but very fragile character, because this is exactly the kind of vehicle you want to carry a short ranged damage over time weapon, right? The flamer was dumped for ''Black'', although there is a boss that uses a turret-mounted one at close range. Then for ''Head-On'' we're back to the Thumper incarnation.

* While not useless in ''Battle Tanx'' gameplay, the flamethrower tanks still don't hold a candle to their real life counterparts in any area besides maybe ammo.

 

** In fact, the fully upgraded flamethrower is so broken, using it for too long will cause the game to flood the screen with other weapon powerups in an effort to force you to use something else!

* Averted in ''[[Team Fortress 2]].'' The Pyro has a much better flamethrower than its classic counterpart (its incredibly short range is also justified: it blasts propane and not gasoline). While the flamethrower's direct damage is nothing to write home about, a single puff sets the opponent on fire which does an additional 60 damage over 10 seconds (most classes only have 125 to 175 HP). Any light class will immediately be sent running back to get some healing. It also provides a way to rebound projectiles, put out burning teammates, and push enemies off cliffs or into corners with its compressed air blast secondary fire. Plus, you can [[Arrows on Fire|light arrows]] for your friendly neighborhood sniper if he's using a bow. The Backburner has a more expensive compression blast in exchange for increased base damage and instant Critical Hits when attacking enemies from behind. Or, by equipping the Degreaser, some of the afterburn damage can be traded for super-fast weapon switching. The weapon switching is handy for using the [[An Axe to Grind|Axtinguisher]], which is a one-hit kill against almost any burning enemy. All three flamethrowers are useful and the core weapon of the Pyro class.

* Averted in ''[[Army Men]]''. Plastic soldiers and fire don't mix, so the flamethrower is even more effective than in real life.

* ''[[Far Cry]] 2'' features an ''extremely'' useful flamethrower, largely due to the developers wanting to show off the game's dynamic fire effects. A couple of short bursts can result in a raging fire that lays waste to a whole checkpoint. The ''FC2'' weapon is actually ''more'' useful than it is in real life, since the real LPO-50 fires in fixed-length bursts and only has three shots. You even have to be aware of prevailing winds, because if you just start burning shit with the flamethrower, it can and ''will'' make the entire area burn up. Including you.

** The ''A Week in Paradise'' mod also adds the ''[[Blood]]''-esque "aerosol can + lighter"-style flamethrower, which shoots somewhat slow-moving puffs of flame. Very nice for area denial.

* In ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'', flamers for Imperial Guardsmen and Tactical Marines do less damage and have a shorter range than the baseline weapons they replace, but they hit in an area of effect and do a ''even more'' damage against units within cover or buildings, giving them a clear niche against opponents who you feel may be using larger squads. The burnas for the Slugga Boyz are the only weapon upgrade available to them, and are an obvious good choice with their area of effect attack, increased ranged damage over the pitiful pistols the Slugga Boyz normally use, and count as power weapons to do more damage against heavier infantry.

** It should be noted that the "flamethrower" is called a blowtorch (Explaining the tiny range), and is pretty much one of the best tools for digging yourself a hidey-hole. Yannow, if you're that sort of player.

** ''Worms: Armageddon'' features an actual flamethrower that squirts napalm over a short-medium range. It's highly effective in torturing worms cornered in tight spaces, less so in windy circumstances. In the open, worms tend to just skip and bounce over the burning fluid.

** That's because it was [[Hand Wave|modified to fire]] ''[[Hand Wave|rocket fuel]]''. The Russians you run into just before you meet The Fury also wield flamethrowers, though theirs are just normal. Still, they can do a lot of damage.

* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' has short-range flamethrowers that bypass cover. Guns outclass them if you can get a clear shot, but they're very effective if an enemy is hiding behind sandbags and you can get up close. Also hits multiple targets with a single sweep, while a gun typically only hits one target at a time. There's also a tank-mounted flamethrower, which is a very useful anti-personnel weapon.

* ''[[Red Faction]]'''s flamethrower, though typically short range and hazardous to wield, had the beneficial effect of instantly making all targets stop shooting at you [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|because they're too busy running in circles and screaming in agony]]. An additional plus was the [[Secondary Fire|ability to chuck the tank (even if it's almost empty) to produce a huge explosion that sets everything on fire]].

* ''[[Steel Panthers World At War]]'' has a flamethrower that's relatively short range (1 hex/50 meters), but devastatingly effective against whatever's in that hex. It will set whatever terrain's in that hex on fire, which is useful for screening (smoke blocks line-of-sight) and area denial (it's hard to convince infantry to move through flaming forests, and even tanks will think twice).

* In the [[Freeware]] game ''C-Dogs'' by Ronny Wester, the Flamer is a very powerful weapon in close quarters, its DPS only surpassed by explosives, [[Molotov Cocktail|molotov cocktails]], and the Knife.

* Despite being one of the first ever (if not ''the'' first) First Person Shooters to include a flamethrower, ''[[Strife]]'' does better than many. Due to the limits of the game engine (based off that of ''[[Doom]]'', another early game that had avoided a [[Short-Range Shotgun|now-common trope]]), flamethrowers acted somewhat more like "napalm squirtguns" than the useless cloud of flame seen in modern games, and had better range than most examples. Still less potent than a real flamethrower, but overall far more effective than the flamethrowers seen in today's games.