I've been following Flashing Lights since about the time it first entered early access, and at first the game seemed rather promising, yet after owning the game for eight years, I feel more disappointed than anything, especially more so in recent years.
Flashing Lights in the past couple of years especially has been dedicated towards adding new content frequently accommodated by paid DLCs while neglecting to fix or address the primary issues that plague the game and make it extremely difficult to enjoy. First of all the driving mechanics in the game are abysmal and extremely unresponsive. It often feels as if there is notable input delay between the input and response of a vehicle, making driving often frustrating. The UIs are inconsistent and largely annoying with some of them requiring navigation by keyboard and not allowing any mouse input while others allow mouse input. Gun mechanics are also not enjoyable just being a case of aim and spam until the target surrenders or is incapacitated, this paired with NPC AI often staying put and never moving makes engaging with NPCs not particularly eventful.
The NPC traffic, backup, and pedestrians are beyond frustrating. Often the NPC traffic will get stuck, crash into each other at intersections and never move, this paired with NPC backup vehicles and services causes ambulances, tow trucks, and AI partners to get stuck in traffic, contribute to the issue and never arrive on scene in the first place. The interactions with the radio for AI backup is difficult to cancel out of in a panic should you need access to anything else, and the AI backup often just stand there and struggle to obey orders. The pedestrians also only seem to be able to walk, run, or stand doing, many of times where combative suspects just stand there and do nothing besides shoot, never taking cover or attempting to flee.
The game's performance has seemingly gotten worse over the years, often being slow and clunky, especially multiplayer desync making multiplayer more of a headache than an enjoyable experience, issues which never seem to be addressed.
Ultimately the best part of Flashing Lights is the vehicle editor which allows rather comprehensive customization and configuration of lighting flash patterns for those like myself who are into those things. But unfortunately many of those customizations have been locked behind paywalls for different vehicles or lighting equipment which despite understandable to support the game, is rather annoying the constant reminder.
The recent introduction of the DOT update has not gone over well with many it seems given its reviews, and honestly, I think making a new core feature to the game an optional paid update is unacceptable. While the development team needs to make money to continue development, I think fixing the game should be a higher priority than forcing me to download and install core content to the game that I can not even use without paying for.
Ultimately while it was fun at first, the game has largely grown stale due to a lack of commitment for bug and performance issues and its often annoying to interact with systems. If you just want to solo being a police officer and own GTAV, you'd likely have a better experience and a lot more options playing LSPD:FR, and if you want to run Fire/EMS you're likely better off playing a proper firefighting or EMS simulator. If you want all services at once mixed together and in multiplayer, you're likely just best off finding a FiveM server to play on.
