Can immersion only truly happen from a first person perspective?

[Camaranth]

You can be completely engrossed in the lore of a world, a book, film, hell sometimes a really good documentary, but you are never really immersed in these. You are basically witnessing another character influence and react to the world around them. And I'm sure we've all been there where we want to be left alone to watch or read and in some cases threaten violence if interrupted.

Is this not also true in games? Can we only really be immersed in a game that we the players are making changes and decisions for the world and characters? As oppose to witnessing,or acting out, another characters decisions?

Where do you draw that line between immersion and being engrossed?

 

[Radeonx]

Mass Effect is a TPS and I'd say it's pretty immersive.

 

[Sable Gear]

I actually find some of the later Legend of Zelda games pretty immersive once I got into them For example, I was skeptical about WindWaker's graphical style but once I got past it I really felt drawn into the story.
Twilight Princess, too, really drew me in.
What else...Assassin's Creed very quickly had me thinking in the stream of attempting stealth (admittedly it wasn't the greatest "stealth" game but the world itself was so wonderfully built, I loved just wandering the cities for hours, it had a great feeling of place)

 

[DustyDrB]

I don't think first person is more immersive (According to Firefox, immersive isn't a word? Gah! What do I say then?) than third person. You see in real life from first person view, yeah. But you also get a ton of spatial information from other senses. I feel like third person view makes up for this lack of sensory feedback in games. Seeing someone around a corner makes up for not being able to hear their footsteps. Seeing yourself makes up for the lack of equilibrium and touch.

 

[random_bars]

About as much as a film can only be immersive if it's shot entirely from the perspective of the main character... In other words, not at all

 

[CthulhuMessiah]

I got Mass Effect 2 at 4:00pm. The next time I thought about the time was at 2:00am.

 

[HassEsser]

FPS is definitely more immersive, but games like ICO, Shadow, Jak and Uncharted are all insanely immersive and in third person.

 

[dickywebster]

Actually i find fps least immersive, mostly cause unless theres cutscenes u can miss out on a lot of stuff just cause ur looking the wrong wa and other games i find have a better chance of seeing it
But as a whole the fps genre seems to be ignoring immersion and going for lots of shooty these days, or just cloning halo/cod...

 

[RollForInitiative]

The term "immersion" is really just a misnomer for the psychological experience known as "flow." Flow can happen in any game, regardless of the perspective, so I really don't see how the overused buzz word "immersion" could be limited to a single perspective camera.

 

[SergeMC]

I just played a really immersive game: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

A straightforward Third Person Shooter/Platformer, which, with its stunning use of graphics, sound and controls can truly make you believe you are living what you are seeing on the screen. I'm not kidding, that's what I feel when I play that game.

 

[LordOmnit]

No, and it can never even be as immersive as third-person modes because my senses will always be more acute than a screen will allow.

 

[Camaranth]

About as much as a film can only be immersive if it's shot entirely from the perspective of the main character... In other words, not at all

Thats pretty much my point. Film isn't immersive its engrossing

Mass Effect is a TPS and I'd say it's pretty immersive.

I agree it's engrossing. you are certainly making choices that affect the world around you so is that enough to make in immersive?

 

[Camaranth]

I got Mass Effect 2 at 4:00pm. The next time I thought about the time was at 2:00am.

Similar experience here, (and if you know whats good for you, you will leave me alone march 6th and 7th). But then the same thing can happen with a really good book, which is engrossing not immersive

 

[Inkidu]

You can be completely engrossed in the lore of a world, a book, film, hell sometimes a really good documentary, but you are never really immersed in these. You are basically witnessing another character influence and react to the world around them. And I'm sure we've all been there where we want to be left alone to watch or read and in some cases threaten violence if interrupted.

Is this not also true in games? Can we only really be immersed in a game that we the players are making changes and decisions for the world and characters? As oppose to witnessing,or acting out, another characters decisions?

Where do you draw that line between immersion and being engrossed?

Immersion has less to do with perspective and more to do with realism. I can point to Half Life 2 as one of the most un-immersive games I've played recently. Gordon doesn't talk, he doesn't have any describable personality. He climbs ladders while being able to swing 360 degrees and shoots, he steers with telepathy.

Metroid Prime on the other hand is much more immersion-oriented. All you stats are displayed in-helmet, you see Samus's gun arm move right to left and up and down. A bright flash will cause her eyes to be reflected in the visor. Gore splatters on the helmet. Even though there are a few breaks when you use the screw attack and whatnot they're brief.

I found Deus Ex: Human Revolution also allowed greater immersion. It broke to the third-person all the time. First person would probably be better if more people focused on actually making it immersion-oriented instead of just another FPS.

Here's hoping for Skyrim.

 

[Jaloopa]

I find first person slightly immersion breaking. For me immersion is about feeling like what I'm doing makes some difference. A lot of first (and third) person games recently forgo that foe getting you to the next scripted sequence or cutscene.

 

[Belaam]

I don't find FPSs at all immersive.

Generally, I'm a faceless soldier gunning down other faceless soldiers/aliens. I don't really care about whether or not the character lives - in fact, in online play, it's rather expected that he/she will die, and possibly die often.

I've yet to encounter one that made me really either worry about my character or feel bad about having to kill a character.

Now, if you want to swing calling Bioshock an FPS, I might revise that, but if you can even get away with calling it an FPS, it is certainly the exception to the rule.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Now, if you want to swing calling Bioshock an FPS, I might revise that, but if you can even get away with calling it an FPS, it is certainly the exception to the rule.

What would you call BioShock if not an FPS?

 

[lostlambda]

dues ex games have always done this too me also the harvest moon games I've been known to play those in my sleep and the fable games to some extent

 

[No_Remainders]

Considering when I played Space Marine, I was actually muttering the words "For the Emperor", yeah, I'd say that's pretty immersive.