Today, I would like to discuss the first person view mode in games and my point of view on their affect on a game's immersion and realism. I know most people claim that the first person view mode brings a sense of realism and enhances immersion. I have a little different take on this stance. Brace yourself as I will be making statements in dis-favor of first person view. If you have a rebuttal, feel free to chime in.

To start out, I would like to say that I have really tried to get into many games that were made to be played in first person view; Mirror's Edge, Skyrim, Far Cry, Deus Ex, Dead Island, Battlefield, Crysis, Halo, and a couple of others. Now, before you get your panties in a knot. I'm not saying these are bad games, I'm sure they're great games. But, personally, the first person view breaks immersion and the sense of realism for me and feel very restricted and limiting. The reasons for this are many but I would like to discuss a few.

First, the mechanics and movement of your character. I don't mean to brag but I'm quite an athletic person myself, :). I do gymnastics, dance, rock climbing, and some other sports. Anyway, the case is that in most first person game I have played. The character's movement is limited to run forward, backward, strafe side to side, and jumping. I believe in the art of movement and the freedom to express your body in anyway you wish. I understand it's a game and there are limitation but simple things such as strafing and jumping shouldn't be so limited. What if I don't want to strafe left and right, but I'd rather sidestep or cartwheel or run side to side or hippity hoppity while singing a tune left and right. What if I want to press my back against a wall, such as Deus Ex, this has to break out of first person mode to be effective. This is a deal breaker as the mechanics feels limiting and that is an immersion breaker for me.

Second, the presentation of what's going on on-screen. Many people feel as though the first person view makes a game more immersed and realistic because it brings you closer to the action and prevent you from being able to see behind you. I disagree. While it is true that it brings you closer to the action, from all the first person games I have played. Your view is a tunneled vision of the surrounding being block by an object with a hand in the middle of the screen. In real life, I have peripheral vision and when I look left, right, up, or down I can see my shoulders, my boobs, my stomach, my vagina, my legs, my feet, the sky, etc. I can do all of that with a simple turning of my head. Further than the presentation of the character, there is also the case of presentation of the game's mechanics. Examples can include things such as swordplay or spell-casting or hand to hand combats, and so on. In first person view, most of the time, we're limited to a simple sword swing, hands move up and down with shiny light in the center, or a quick jab to dictate combat. This, again, feels very limiting and breaks immersion for me.

Lastly, I would like to discuss an abstract topic of sense. Beyond mere aesthetics and presentations, human has more basic senses than just vision and hearing. Senses that are difficult to create inside a game, obviously. This is not just for first person game but for all games. But I feel that the first person view robs us these senses the most. Here is why. From all our basic sense, we cultivate extra senses such as perception, awareness, etc. You know, when someone is stand behind or next to you. Even though you're not looking at them or can't see them, you "feel" their presence. When things are happening around you, you "sense" what is going. No first person game has ever been able to produce this "sense" that I have known of. Other type of cameras will just show them to you, even though this is not exactly recreating the "senses," they let you know of everything going on around you.

Well, that conclude my story on my cases as to why first person games does not appeal to me. Let me know what you guys think.

Too_Handsome

Side note, just to clarify. Despite the silly account name, I'm a girl. I just like that name because one of my guild mate in an MMO I used to play used that name for his character and I really liked him.

I consider myself a gamer and, more precisely, an RPG gamer. In recent years, with the exception of a very few good RPG's, I feel as though RPG's of modern days have lost touch with the roots and that made the RPG genre great.

I understand where people are coming from as a gamers in general. Action games, RPG games, MMO games, adventure games, shooting games, etc. They're all games, as long as we can mash buttons and shiny and flashy things happen on screen, they're fun. At the end of the day, you're tired from work and stress. You just want to sit back and enjoy a game without having to invest too much efforts.

Many RPG gamers have a little different take on fun. We enjoy the strategic planning, the meticulous customization, the mind boggling puzzles, the complex character progression, the insanely unfair difficulty, the tension filled decisions, careful party selection, so on and so forth. Instead of keeping all these factors and invent/improve upon what was. RPG's these days have severely diminished and simplified those concepts, and in many cases, dropped them all together.

These days, whatever hobo you created at the beginning of the game will be the same hobo you end the game with, but with a bigger sword and a shinier set of armor and the game world couldn't careless.

In my ideal RPG, I would like to see character progression, growth, and development. Be they through the leveling up system, freedom of equipment customization, games mechanics, character maturity, etc. The character you start the game with is not the same character you end the game with. You end the game with a much stronger/weaker, darker/lighter (literally and figuratively), mature/immature character, relative to the game world. When you're role playing as this character and impose your own real world view into the game world and have it respond to your whim is what RPG's are about. In essence, what you do in that world, matters to that world.

Example: if you go around acting like a goofball throughout the game. No one in the game world would ever take you seriously if you one day decide to "save humanity." It would be harder to convince NPC and other heroes to join your cause. On a different token, if you're killing and burning everything in the game world, you would find yourself roaming around very desolate world where people fear your presence and will treat you as the villian, barring their doors, kings would shut their gates and have their archers take aim at you, heroes would, actively, take up arms against you. I'm talking more than just an Elder Scroll guard chasing after you after you've accidentally picked up a copper knife off a table.

Most importantly, all of these things need to be driven by a story. Whether it's the main story or a side story which will intertwine itself with the main story.

Example: Actions need to be driven by an engaging story. You know, more than just that bandit stole my ring, go get it, then.....nothing.

Rather, that bandit stole my grand ring of importance, go get it...a little further down the road, oh snap, you saved my neck because I got that magical ring back for you, we should become friends. Your friendship helps me with this grand quest I'm doing of saving the world....

OR

I'll go get that ring but I'm gonna keep it....later down the road...oh snap, you told everyone I'm a jerk and hired people to try and kill me because I took your ring and, now, this town I'm about to visit sells me crap for absurd prices....and I have made an unnecessary enemy out of you and now your dumb ass is stalking me and keep sneak attacking me while I'm low on health making my game 10 times more difficult than it should be.

Mind you, these are just very few simple examples of what an RPG can achieve in terms of an engaging world.

The current era RPGs are full of fetch quests, collecting shards, and side distractions which have little to no impact besides getting a bigger sword (and takes up 80% of the game), simplistic character leveling and growth mechanics, simple and restrictive equipment, and poorly told story. The character that you start with is the same character you end with, relative to the game world. Example: you're level 1, that cow you kill for meat is level 1. You're level 100, that same cow you kill will also be level 100; there is no sense of growth or progression, loss, or gain; everything in the world is just static. The world, while alive and active, it does not react to what you do...even though you're this grand hero/villian/whatever who is suppose to save/destroy/whatever to all of humanity...your presence matters little.

I feel as though the world and story of RPG games should be active worlds and, more importantly, re-active world and story. The inter-correlation of side quests and main quests weaving together to form a grand and epic story where the little things you do have small consequences that cause a ripple effect which will matter on the grand scale. The game need to present this to you in a grand fashion beyond just simply, "Getting that purple sword so you can kill more things to get more purple swords."

One last thing I'd like to add. Some may agree and some may not, but this is how I feel. Once you have killed the final boss, saved the world, or destroyed the world, whatever. That should be the end, that's it, done, happily/sad ever after, play final movie, roll credit, you are done with that play-through of the game. Start a new one with a new character for a new experience. None of these silly still playing the game after you have completed the final mission stuff. Why? Because everything you do after that climatic final showdown has absolutely zero meaning. If it still has meaning then the final showdown hasn't happened yet because you're still working your way to it; that's why it's called a final showdown.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now. I'm just saying RPG's need to stick to their complex roots while still improving on the action and flashy area. These other games in general, while they're good games, they're not good RPG games. They're just action games, or shooting games, or whatever games, with a tiny bit of RPG sprinkled on for some substance

RPG fans just hurt a little when games like those claim themselves to be "true RPG's" and non-RPG players accept that as a standard. Deviating from RPG roots means the slow death of the genre we love.