11 June 2007
Would 1st Person "out scare" 3rd Person perspective?
I was listening to the last podcast the David and I recorded and something that David said made me think. Im a huge survival horror gamer and as I think back over the years and all the horror titles that I have played, I can't recall many (if any) titles that used the first person perspective. Most of the games, especially the big franchises like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Fatal Frame, didn't choose to use the first person perspective but have opted for a third person perspective instead (Im not including Resident Evil Dead Aim because im talking about SCARY games). So I just wanted to pose the question, "why do game developers usually opt for a third person perspective when the main strategy used for scaring the player is to try and put YOU in the character's shoes?" If for no other reason but to see if it works, I would love to see a game developer create a brand new survival horror game that uses first person 100% of the game. Just thought I would throw that out there. Later.
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2 Responses to “Would 1st Person "out scare" 3rd Person perspective?”
I've never been much into the survival horror games but i think that a big reason that the third person perspective is used is maybe cause it plays sort of like a movie.
I do have to say that i think the scariest FPS game i have played is F.E.A.R. i basically got chill bumps from playing this game.
The thing is a lot, if not all horror games do use weapons. When a survival horror game uses a 1st person veiw it tends to be labeled as an FPS or a FPAdventure game.
Alot of FPS games in the past have been considered some of the scariest games ever. System Shock 2 is always brought up when people talk about scary games. Doom 3 and more recently Condemned and F.E.A.R. are also considered very tense/scary games. The way FEAR plays with your limited vision in certain scripted sequences is especially creepy.
I think the first person view is great at building tension and is perfect for the genre. I played (or tried to play) the Silent Hill 4 demo and got too freaked out during the parts where you are just walking around the room. Being in the eyes of the person you are controlling and having your eyes round a corner not knowing what to expect is a great tenion building effect. You see this 1st person view used like this quite a lot in horror films. Also, for me, the scariest parts of Fatal Frame are when you are in that 1st person camera view and you can't really see what could be behind or beside you.
...scary stuff.
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