(do they now...): Videogame Flamethrowers Suck

The list of aversions is longer than the list of examples, and a good chunk of the examples are 'partial examples', so really, what's this article all about?

It's like Short-Range Shotgun. It doesn't matter whether the flamethrower is good or bad, video game versions are unrealistically crippled.

I think this should be reworked to be more like Short-Range Shotgun, and expanded to non-video game examples.

Title suggestion: Lamethrower.

Article suggestion: Scrap the aversions list, shorten the description. Don't we already have a trope for things that are good at killing things with fire?

Short Range Flame Thrower is what many of the examples are.

But flame throwers that suck against armored vehicles are just as much of an example, since if nothing else, they make the crew uncomfortable and usually kill the engine or electronics.

Really, most of the so called aversions ARE examples, as long as the flamethrowers are less effective in the game than they are in real life. Being good in the game is not a free pass.

Weapons are usually less effective in video games than they are in real life.

I seriously can't even figure out what the trope is intended to be. If you deleted the description at the beginning and retitled it 'list of video game flamethrowers' it would make about as much sense as it does now. There's not much of a pattern.

edited 5th Jun '11 10:11:35 AM by ActuallyComma

Right, "list of videogame flamethrowers" isn't a trope.

If you wanted to make it a list of poofy flame throwers, where there's no sticky liquid and just a fireball, that's a trope (probably Hollywood Flamethrower).

I like the name "Lamethrower".

The current trope name says, to me, that flamethrowers are bad weapons in-game as compared to other weapons in-game. I don't believe that's usually the case, nor is that really much of a trope. On the other hand, flamethrowers in-game not working the way they do in real life sounds viable to me, e.g. as a sub-trope of Acceptable Breaks from Reality.

Also strange that one example that I'd list (the Flamethrower in the original Contra) is listed as an exception. I think they confused how it worked in the original (in which it fired a bullet that would spiral and could spiral around enemies or bet blocked by floor outcropping) with how it worked in the sequels (as described in the trope page).

Whoever wrote that was talking about the Contra 3 flamethrower (which is pretty good) and thought it was the same in 1 and 2, when in reality it's completely different in each of them (1's being pretty much crap).

We do have a Fireballs article.

edited 6th Jun '11 10:20:27 AM by MetaFour

Nthing the name Lamethrower.

How about we split? Flamethrowers as a Weapon Of Choice, and then flamethrowers that are treated as far less effective than in Real Life (which could include things other than games).

Lamethrower is a catchy name, but not really what the trope is about. Video game flamethrowers aren't so much worse than the real-life devices as they are Exactly What It Says on the Tin - instead of throwing burning liquid, they throw jets of unadulterated fire, with all the connotations thereof - short range before the fire dissipates, expansive bursts of flame instead of focused jets, etc. The trope doesn't require them to suck, despite the name.

Fireball Thrower?/

Fireball Flamethrower, to clarify that it's about flamethrowers and not Fireballs?

I don't like it. Just call it Video Game flame throwers and leave out the sucks part if you're that touchy about it, even though most of them do suck compared to the real life counterpart, despite what the lengthy list of aversions would have you believe.

But just calling it Video Game Flamethrower gets the point across that its different in real life.

The problem is that people will just start listing flame throwers that show up in video games.

We could always go for Unrealistic Flamethrower (since none of the examples are from Hollywood, I think Hollywood Flamethrower would be a misnomer... oh, and Mis-blamed to boot). That way, we wouldn't have every video game flamethrower ever dumped into one trope (which would be People Sit In Chairs, except someone burned the chair with a realistic flamethrower... Oh, the Humanity!).

Consider Contra 1-3

1) In each one, the flamethrower works completely differently

2) In one of them it sucks, in one it's average, in one it's very good (imo)

3) All three are unrealistic in completely different ways (and aren't really less realistic than e.g. the machine gun or the laser now that I think about it)

In summary: I can't find the alleged trope here.

edited 6th Jun '11 2:20:05 PM by ActuallyComma

I think flamethrower-as-fireball is probably tropable. It also doesn't seem like a videogame-specific trope.

I think the idea is the Nerf required for a video game flamethrower to not be as effective as one in Real Life would be under standard video game conditions (i.e. if you never had to worry about fuel weight or volume), as it would be way too devestating in many games if the flame behaved like it did in real life.

Of course, that does lead to the Fridge Logic about just requiring video game flamethrowers to have the same conditions as a real life flamethrower... but then the point does stand that reality left this topic ages ago, before it was troped.

Stepping back, it seems to me that we might want to look at a different trope to define mid-range video game weapons (which flamethrowers frequently represent). But we may want to settle what happens with this trope first.

edited 6th Jun '11 2:25:08 PM by 32_Footsteps

Just skimming the "aversion" section I can see that silent hill, cave story, C-Dogs, Dues Ex, Strife, Alien Soldier, Mass Effect, Time Shift, Twisted Metal, Banjo-Bioshock, Company Of Heroes, Metal Slug, Gorky, Bloodlines, The Thing, Red Faction, and Half-Life are all not examples. Half of them are only situational and the other half, while somewhat useful ingame, suck compared to their real life counterparts.

Pokemon, Bioshock and Banjo Kazoie don't even have flamethrowers, so don't even belong on the page. Pokemon has a move named flame thrower but.

I'm not even sure how many other examples aren't using real flamethrowers or are just being exaggerated by tropers who love to expose the "aversions" they found in their favorite shows. I saw we name it Video Game Flame Thrower.

edited 7th Jun '11 8:28:27 AM by Cider

This is a further confusion of the trope's actual meaning, I suppose, and another problem with it. I suggested "Lamethrower" because what I'm referring to (and what I thought the trope was trying to convey, and failing at) is flamethrowers that are pathetic as weapons, in any given medium, despite being considerably more powerful in real life.

The trope of flamethrowers that fire jets or cones of flame, sans sticky liquid, is separate from this. If people want that, then we're looking at at least two different tropes in this thing.

edited 6th Jun '11 2:34:03 PM by GoggleFox

Video games at least have excuses for this trope other media do not. Namely Balance and coding for all the actions players may take. That's why I say it should remain specific to video games. Clean up the examples and remove "Sucks" from the title. Video Game Flamethrower.