Best fire

[Doclector]

Remember that short time when fire was the big thing in proving how technically impressive your game was? Y'know, it was water effects, then it was all about jungles, then it was all about fire. And now apparently it's erm, dogs.

Anyway, as someone with a fond appreciation for how awesome setting things the fuck on fire in videogames feels, I wondered, what is the most awesome fire in a game you've ever seen? And what about the most awesome fire based weapons?

Personally, it's gotta be far cry 3 for me. Fire was not only an awesome weapon with molotovs and the mighty flamethrower for setting people directly on fire, it was a great way to draw enemies out of hiding or put them under pressure. Bunch of annoying pricks hiding in a house? Burn it the fuck down. Want to direct a bunch of people towards the nearby hungry bear? Nothing says "start running" like a flamethrower.

Honorable mentions go to "alone in the dark" for sheer realism (shame they didn't get anything else right) and tomb raider. Which isn't realistic at all or even that commonly used in combat, but my god, that torch looks pretty.

I really wish someone could get a heat ray right in a videogame, though. Just so I can pretend to be a martian.

 

[Dopubalimatu]

Problably Metro : Last Light. The way fire reacts to the environment and just feels real the way it looks and changes.In a particular level you have to move around an area of houses on fire which felt and looked very much like actually being in an inferno.

 

[Mordekaien]

I would say that in Skyrim, fires and fireplaces look great, they really convey a sense of warmth for me. Bethesda really nailed the feeling of going through a stormy night only to enter a tavern lit with giant fire burning in the middle of the room.

 

[MrCollins]

The best fires I have seen were in a Fully modded version of Morrowind, I forget its name but it was pretty damn cool.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I think I am in the minority when I say that explosions and flame effects in most games disappoint me. I think the problem has to do with smoke effects still being rather awful. Volumetric Smoke is cool, but it is so hardware intensive that it just isn't feasible. Proper smoke explosions are these huge plumes of black or brown, not smudging the screen and popping recycled sprites where smoke should be.

The worst recent offender has to be Space Marine. Beautiful game, insanely detailed character models, and the explosions suck an Asexual fungus monster's dick.

Watch the cutscene with Titus free falling through the air battle. That corvette split along it's spine looks horrendous with those muddy explosions and 2D smoke effects

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

I would probably have to say GTA4, not just because the fire is pretty realistic, but so are the, erm... reactions to being engulfed by it.

 

[Stryc9]

Probably Postal 2. It wasn't graphically pretty but they put quite a bit of work into the behavior of the fluid and the fire so that you could leave trails of gasoline and then light them, or pout it down hills or stairs and set massive fires.

 

[White Wizard]

Far Cry 2, was the game where I first sat up and took note of how well done Fire was implemented.

 

[Random berk]

You know personally, I've never been a firebug in videogames. I've favoured a lot of weapons to lesser or greater extents in more video games than I can count, but one of the few constants (besides how awesome I am with an assault rifle) is that I completely eschew the use of flamethrowers and flame weapons of any kind. I've never paid attention to flames in the environment that much either.

 

[octafish]

Both the Ubisoft Far Crys have terrific fire. A great tactical tool in either game, however I have to give the edge to Far Cry 2 as fire in an African Savannah just has more impact than in a lush island jungle.

 

[Altorin]

I think I am in the minority when I say that explosions and flame effects in most games disappoint me. I think the problem has to do with smoke effects still being rather awful. Volumetric Smoke is cool, but it is so hardware intensive that it just isn't feasible. Proper smoke explosions are these huge plumes of black or brown, not smudging the screen and popping recycled sprites where smoke should be.

The worst recent offender has to be Space Marine. Beautiful game, insanely detailed character models, and the explosions suck an Asexual fungus monster's dick.

Watch the cutscene with Titus free falling through the air battle. That corvette split along it's spine looks horrendous with those muddy explosions and 2D smoke effects

Space Marine had decent gun feel... but when I try and play it on my laptop, whenever the fighting becomes pitched the noises the game makes are completely garbled. That being said, I didn't dislike the explosive effects enough to dislike the game.. I just wish my laptop was better equipped to handle it, lol


On topic, I really like Gears of War in terms of gun feel and design (although I wish the Locusts would have just settled on one gun design and stuck with it - having the Locust Rifle change drastically in usefulness 3 separate times (maybe 4, haven't played the new one) was really annoying)

 

[The Wykydtron]

I liked the fire in the first sequence of Bioshock. I just find fire burning atop the sea to be really cool. It's a little suspicious how there's one tiny gap in an otherwise complete ring of flames right next to the lighthouse... It's actually aged well whenever I boot it up on my 360.

Yeah the flames in FC3 were great. The flamethrower was too impractical of a weapon for me though, use it in that badass mission where you're literally handed a flamethrower and told to burn some shit to some pounding dubstep then dropped it right after.

It's not just dogs in the graphic spotlight now. It's all about high res, super realistic ARMS! LOOK AT THE MANLINESS MULTIPLY TENFOLD! BRUISING! DIRT! MANLY ARM HAIRS!

 

[PBMcNair]

Have to go with far cry 2 for overall usefulness, and far cry 3 for allowing me to use fire arrows on marijuana fields.

Honourable mention to the old Army Men games, fire effects were nothing special but your enemies actually melted, so that was pretty cool.

 

[skywolfblue]

I like flaming enchanted swords a lot... But apart from WoW no other games I've played (skyrim doesn't, nor does Dragon Age) have really done those right in my experience. Which is a shame, because a flaming sword with realistic flames and dynamic lighting would be sweeeeeeet!

I'll say the torch from Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare. It killed the framerate on my xbox 360 pretty bad, but it had pretty nice lighting effects, and burninating zombies with it was quite fun, if difficult.

 

[Bellvedere]

And now apparently it's erm, dogs.

I would seriously love if the next gen was all about which game had the best dogs. Dogs are awesome...

OT: I'm normally not great at noticing this stuff. I'm even worse at noticing fire. Water was great because they'd be oceans or waterfalls or rivers which were huge and looked awesome.

 

[Trololo Punk]

Far Cry 2 really was a game where fire felt like it was effecting the environment. And it didn't look half bad either.

 

[Doclector]

I like flaming enchanted swords a lot... But apart from WoW no other games I've played (skyrim doesn't, nor does Dragon Age) have really done those right in my experience. Which is a shame, because a flaming sword with realistic flames and dynamic lighting would be sweeeeeeet!

Dragon's Dogma actually did that pretty well, I think. They don't have flames, but they have a nice effect of looking red, burning hot with a few sparks coming off of it.

 

[FalloutJack]

The best fire has to be the one that you make on your own.

So, in GTA: San Andreas, I'm there with CJ and a load of grenades on the highway. I have set it up so that there is a big car jam and alot of cars that can't escape. Time to throw the grenades... The best fire...with fuel that panics as you throw bombs at them before they explode, again and again, practically feeding itself because the NPCs have to go forwards and try to plow through the blackened wrecks while other cars explode around them. I watch, and it is so much fun.