First Person Ghost : Othor Games

» Fri Jul 27, 2012 7:00 am

Okay, so if you're unsure of what I'm talking about, this explains it pretty well:

In many First-Person games, you might notice that something...odd about your character. You don't seem to have much in the way of a bodily presence. Instead of feeling like you're actually there, in the game, you almost feel instead like you're simply controlling a RC helicopter with a camera attached. For example, you can see your arms holding your gun in front of you, but everything else about your body appears to be non-existent. Looking down, you don't see your torso or legs; rather, your whole body seemingly "rotates" with your view, making it appear that you're not touching the ground at all.

This must be one of my biggest pet-peeves when it comes to modern games. Back in the days I accepted this, because I assumed we didn't have the technology/capacity to improve the first-person view. I strongly belive this should be a thing of the past, and that we no longer should be floating arms pretending to be a person. This is definitely one of my biggest immersion killers in first-person games. Nowadays, I know we are capable of doing this, because some games already have. Still we see games that uses the traditional first-person ghost style, and I'm not impressed with that. Obvious arguments against this would be: "Takes too much effort to implement something no one cares about", or "Doesn't add anything to gameplay" et cetera.

I'm interested in hearing your opinion on this topic. I know a lot of you will be going "I don't need a 'physical' presence in a video game, I can simply ignore it and pretend I'm there", but personally I really believe this is a thing of the past, and that we should leave this behind us. We should get rid of this, and start implementing physical bodies to first-person views, as well as giving us a better feel of bodily presence ('eyes' moving as your body moves around, instead of feeling like you're floating).

Many games have already been giving us bodies in first-person mode, some more successfull than others. I hope more games in the future will do this as well, so we can get rid of this trend once and for all. This is an aspect of gaming that is in dire need of improvement, but we won't be seeing any if we are going to stick with this outdated style of first-person representation. It should be made obsolete!

Tell me how you feel about this subject.

» Fri Jul 27, 2012 6:08 am

I vastly prefer it and wish developers would implement it more often. My favorite application of it was in Thief: Deadly Shadows, as you could look around without Garret's body moving (to an extent) and it gave me the feeling that I was really looking through his eyes. I'd often look down as I pulled out the club or knife, as it showed him pulling both out in the first person view. I think it's a vastly underused and under-appreciated feature in first person games.

» Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:06 pm

Battlefield 3 did bodies great. I'd like to see morre like that.

» Thu Jul 26, 2012 8:15 pm

It looked great in Mirror's Edge, I'd like to see it used more. It'd really aid immersion in something like Fallout, I think.

» Thu Jul 26, 2012 8:26 pm

I don't really care about being able to see my legs when I look down. It works in some games, but I don't think it is necessary in most. The one pet peeve I have is that the first person view is too narrow most of the time. I think a wider FOV or peripheral vision would be nice.