andrewducker | Tell me how you play computer games

Cheers for posting it, Andy :)

To give a little context, the conversation that prompted this was based on a gut feeling I have that players on consoles tend to play third-person-over-the-shoulder view rather than PC/Mac players who go for first-person. I admit this is based on nothing more than seeing a few folks over the years playing Oblivion/Skyrim on different platforms where you have the option of both views but it piqued my curiosity.

From there it snowballed a bit into spatial awareness (or lack of - one friend gets horribly lost and disoriented when playing first-person RPGs but is fine if they can see over-the-shoulder) and possibly even a gender-correlation with the viewing preferences.

Do people have different preferences in different genres of first/third-person games - e.g. Fantasy/RPG (Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, etc.) as opposed to Shooters (CoD, Half-Life, etc.) as opposed to Racing games where the choice is usually in-car, bonnet-cam or chase-cam and does it depend on platform?

For example, as a rule, I generally play my racing games with either the bonnet or in-car cameras on the PC but if it's on a friend's console then it's more likely to be chase-cam. It's something about the "feel" of the car and where the back end is. I'm not sure why I get that feedback from PC games but need the extra visual cues when on a console controller.

In my case, I'm primarily an Xbox gamer these days.

- Racing games; prefer in-car for Forza; the only other racers I play are arcade titles with fixed POVs, usually chase-cam

- Shooters: I'm big on Halo and enjoyed Half-Life/Portal (FPS) but also play Gears of War, Fallout, Mass Effect (3PS)

- Platformers: I like sidescrollers fine but also enjoy 3PS and FPS too. (I'd love to see a sequel for Mirror's Edge.)

- RTS: though I enjoyed Halo Wars, I reluctantly agree that no interface yet developed trumps mouse+keyboard in the genre.

-- Steve also plays board and card games as well as strategy titles on various platforms.

Shooters: Generally first-person, but conversely I had no problem playing the Max Payne games which were over-the-shoulder.

RPGs: Generally over-the-shoulder, but zooming into FPS where you can for archery or sniping, or those occasional times where your in a cramped space and need to see what is directly in front of you (such as picking items off a table).

Racing games: Cockpit view. (I especially like games like Forza where they make the effort to give each car a proper dashboard -when I got Forza 3, I still had my S2000, and it was a genuine thrill when I realised that they had properly modelled the electronic rev counter (see userpic)). I find chase cam difficult because the turn-in point feels wrong.

Interesting that you have that difference between Shooters and RPGs. I suspect it's simply a ranged vs. melee thing. I can never get the accuracy trying to do anything at range in an over-the-shoulder view but then I tend to play FP for both types so don't get the practise.

Ranged v melee is definitely a part of it. In melee, the person you need to attack next may well be to your character's side already hitting you, whereas in ranged combat you're only going to be firing at things in front of you.

It might partly be a speed thing - shooters are faster, so somehow my brain processes the change of direction quicker when the screen is showing what my character can see. Or something like that. Perhaps.

It might partly be a habit thing. I've been playing shooters since Wolfenstein 3D. (Actually, although you couldn't actually shoot anything, I've been playing 3D first-person perspective real-time movement games since 3D Monster Maze on the ZX-81 (see userpic)). And those shooters are usually first-person. Whereas with RPGs, there's an obvious progression from say Fallout (top-down isometric) to Fallout 3 (3rd or 1st person) and so my instinct is to see that sort of game as a third person game.

[I'm annoyed now that it's too late to edit out the ungrammatical "your" (which was a typo rather more than poor grammar) in my above post. I apologise. Normal service will be resumed at a later date.]

RPGs often have more character customisation options than in shooters, so your clothing/armour/character creation choices (whichever you're given in the specific game) might change how you look so give you a reason to want to see your character. If I reset the game mid opening cutscene three times just to tweak the shape of my character's nose, I damn well want to see it!

The issue with third person (whether console or PC) is that even at the best of times the camera can drive me mad.

The best games for me are those that use first person at times and third person at others (eg. Rainbow Six: Vegas that used a third person camera in cover).

Not played Rainbow Six:Vegas but I think that's the reason for my general dislike of third-person too although now that you mention it you've reminded me that Deus Ex: Human Revolution blended the two so well (third-person for cover) that I barely notice it these days.

I still wouldn't play DX:HR 3rd-person all the time but there's clearly a knack to it that some game developers have got and some don't, some of which, I guess, is down to level design. All the cover in DX:HR is positioned so that there's room for the camera and it doesn't clip objects/walls behind it - makes for a much smoother experience, less camera-jumping (unlike some games that move the camera to avoid clipping - I'm looking at you here, Tomb Raider) and a less intrusive feel to the switch of angles because you know exactly where your point of view's going to be when it changes.

(edited for typo)

Edited 2012-03-16 16:59 (UTC)

Actually DX:HR did the same thing and probably did it better.

Third person works brilliantly for melee combat however.

DE:HR did it very well. Also the way it had separate UIs for KB&M or joypad, and switched immediately if you touched the other control method. That was awesome.

I was very annoyed in Assassin's Creed 2 that they manage to have the focus of the game be on free-flowing cool movement, and then completely fuck up the camera for timed puzzles that needed quick reflexes in the temple puzzle bits.

I don't play many games of this style, but the one that comes to mind is Fatal Frame (and its successors), where you're looking at the character from the side most of the time, except than when she looks in her camera, you go first-person there. I personally find first- and third-person games pretty disorienting, all told; I'd rather see the whole body of the person I'm controlling.

And my 'something else' on the third question is that I like to play video games with lots of people in a room, only where only one of the people has a controller, and the rest of us are talking, giving pointers, and watching the story. But my friends and I play a lot of plot-heavy games, and very few that are primarily shooters.

I do feel like PC controls are more responsive and that that might account for some of the preference.

The over-the-shoulder view is something I associate with consoles primarily because a lot of the games that popularised that view have been big flagship console games, even if I've played some of them on PC (GTA if it counts, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, Resident Evil as examples)

In Fallout New Vegas, I used 1st person for combat and switched to 3rd person when I was wandering around the Strip etc talking to people. That said, on entering the Strip, my Courier also changed out of her armour and into a nice day dress and hat...

The thought that occurs to me here is that it being possible to see your character in the game environment at all in Tension: the Void would not really work. (One is playing a disembodied soul in what appears to be a peculiar quasi-afterlife.)

I seldom play shooters; partly because first person can make me feel sea-sick but also because I just find shooters of themselves a bit boring!

I'm an RPG chap mainly, so that tends to gravitate towards 3rd person anyway (except the Oblivion and its ilk, which I can't get on with - see comment on sea-sickness above! I don't find the 'over the shoulder' option works terribly well.)

Other than that I tend to play (badly - I have the reactions of a small, dead whelk) 3rd person action games.

I'm a female PC gamer; very occasionally I play on other people's consoles but generally I prefer to watch them play as I've never got the hang of controllers at all.

I prefer to be able to see my character when I'm playing a game with a character to be able to see (I count the car as the character in racing games).

I am ridiculously bad at computer games, especially from a spatial awareness perspective - I really like CRPGs of many stripes, but I regularly just stick things on God Mode to be able to play through them without all the inconvenient dying, and anyone who's seen me trying to pilot a FPS can attest to my complete inability to sensibly control a character from a first person perspective; jumping puzzles literally make a game unplayable for me as I just cannot solve them in any view.

Tell me how you play computer games

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject