Is 3rd Person supposed to be immersive?

[TimeLord]

I like 1st person games like Fallout 3/New Vegas, Call of Dutys, Bioshock, Killzone, Portal etc. I find them easier to play because I am the person doing things and while I'm still holding a small plastic controller, it's a lot easier for me to care about a character when I see the world through their eyes.

I have the completely opposite problem with 3rd person games like Mass Effect 2, Dead Space, Ratchet and Clank, Force Unleashed etc. While the story may be top notch (Mass Effect for example) I find myself caring very little about my character, despite 3rd person games sometimes having MORE character customisation like Mass Effects character creator or Dragon Age etc.

I can't be alone thinking this, anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[Alyssacubi]

While I do enjoy both first person and third person, I find third person better immersive for a character that's not meant to have similarities and links to you, whereas first person will feel more as if it is actually you. Of course, not all games I enjoy follow this (Like you say, Bioshock for example, I don't feel like i'm Jack, that'd be pretty awkward. xD) and yet I still find them just as immersive.

In the end I suppose all it boils down to is your own perception of the game. :3

I don't know what others think on the subject, however, but honestly perspective doesn't matter -too- much to me anyway if the story hooks me.

 

[Deadman Walkin]

Eh, I have never been a huge fan of third person games. Fallout 3 was developed as an FPS, and the third person option just looked like a clumsy afterthought. Honestly though I would agree, I love games with a quality story but I just found Mass Effect boring, I couldn't get attached and then just stopped playing.

 

[Vault101]

I always prefer 3rd person, I dont know why

mabye becasue theres just so many FPS I like to be able to see my charachter, like I think I would die inside if I had to play fallout in first person

 

[Vault101]

Eh, I have never been a huge fan of third person games. Fallout 3 was developed as an FPS, and the third person option just looked like a clumsy afterthought. Honestly though I would agree, I love games with a quality story but I just found Mass Effect boring, I couldn't get attached and then just stopped playing.

I dont think 3rd person id fallout was that bad, sure shooting was a little clumsy but ti still worked

but I find traveling large worlds better in 3rd person (having playes stalker and borderlands)

besied as I just said above, having to play it in first person would make it feel more like a brown shooter as opased to a unique RPG

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

When I play first person games, I might actually be somewhat detached from my character because I don't think of them as a character so much. At the same time, I don't think of the character as myself. It's a weird middle ground, and may be the fault of first-person protagonists tending to be silent. How immersed I actually am depends on the game. None of this affects how easy it is for me to play, as I think I'm generally competent at almost everything I play.

The one game where I definitely feel for the character would be CoD4 when the nuke goes off. I actually felt sorry for him as I watched him die through his eyes. As for the rest of the CoD series, I care extremely little for my character because I keep dying and respawning. If a game reaches a point where I feel I'm fighting waves of enemies just to progress to the next event flag, I stop thinking of them as actual characters because I'm just trying to progress.

Third person games don't take me out of my immersion. In the case of Mass Effect, it might actually add to it. It reminds me of the unique character that I am in command of. When I'm a pair of floating eyes, I tend to forget or stop caring about the character that I created. Being able to see my character reinforces this weight for me.

 

[Jonluw]

I don't really care for 3rd person. I do enjoy some platforming gameplay from time to time, but it feels like I'm controlling someone else, like an r/c car.
I much prefer the first person view. Incidentally, I had no problems at all with the parkour in Mirror's Edge.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

I enjoy 3rd person games because I tend to enjoy seeing my surroundings from a outside perspective. It also lets me be more aware of stuff outside of my natural vision if it was 1st person, also I enjoy actually seeing my character visually and what they actually look like wearing armor and whatnot. It's almost like watching a movie or tv show about a epic hero and how their everyday battles and adventures play out.

Then again it is all preference. I personally enjoy RTS and RPG games alot, while most people I know like FPS or HACKnSLASH games.

 

[AmbitiousWorm]

I don't really understand the whole immersion idea. I don't consider myself the protagonist in any game I've played. I never use my name for a character because it just sounds boring and out of place (specially when its a female character). Also haven't ever cared about the main character only the group NPCs in RPGs (Minsc and Boo are still the best. Never did a play through without them.).

As far as 1st vs 3rd person. I like them both but they work for different types of games. In a big open world game such as Fallout 3 or Oblivion I think 1st person fits better. You are using the player-character to interact with the world. In Mass Effect you are playing as some one specific so showing them in 3rd person differentiates Shepard from a character you create to one you just customize.

Or is that because they are totally different types of RPGs?

 

[Frotality]

well plenty of great, immersive characters; probably most of them; get by with their own... character instead of implicating that the audience is the protagonist, so..that is a strange opinion.

3rd person in fallout was bad, because it was made for 1st person; the level of detail in interiors and the already wonky aiming made it very difficult to actually play third person at all, let alone the half-assed version FO3 had. other games however, benefit from actually being able to see who your playing as; 1st person really isnt good for when you want the main character to actually be a character and not a mute, generic player avatar. to me 1st person perspective is kind of a cheap immersion technique; as if it excuses not immersing the player into the world in other way but viewpoint. this is, oddly enough, fine in some RPGs where the main character is customized, and therefore kind of a faceless entity as far the world is concerned anyway, but games where the main character has to actually be a character and actively interact with the world cant really work.

i find it more immersive to know what the hell my character looks like and know how exactly they interact with the world (animations and such) rather than be in 1st person envisioning how incredibly awkward they must look holding things for them to be in view the way they usually are and wondering why i have zero peripheral vision...

 

[Gaiseric]

A 3rd person game can be immersive, it just needs to have an atmosphere and story that pulls you into the game as well as likable characters. I didn't ever get immersed in Fallout 3/NV because despite the world they created the games had technical issues that broke the experience for me.

I had the same problem as you with Mass Effect. Good story, but I still don't care about the characters. While in the Metal Gear Solid games I lose myself in the world(yes even MGS4 with its long ass cutscenes)

 

[Thunderhorse31]

So you don't care about a character unless you physically ARE that character? You sir, are a product of the self-centered culture in which we now live.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I remember reading in one of the Penny Arcade books Tycho's reaction to a certain aspect of Metroid Prime (a 1st-person game). When an explosion goes off close enough to you to cast a lot of light, you see Samus' face briefly reflected on the inside of your visor. He described it as one of the most paradoxically immersive things he'd ever seen.

I happen to agree.

Frankly, though, I can become immersed in either. But after thinking about it for a while...I think I actually have an easier time with 3rd person.

i find it more immersive to know what the hell my character looks like and know how exactly they interact with the world

And for about this reason, too. Greater field of vision and being able to visualize just what I'm actually doing at any given point is more important than I ever consciously realized.

Doesn't even matter if it's third-person of a specific character, rather than my own creation. Theirs is the role I'm playing for the exercise, and I'm not so utterly literal-minded that I can't put myself in their shoes.

 

[weker]

I like 1st person games like Fallout 3/New Vegas, Call of Dutys, Bioshock, Killzone, Portal etc. I find them easier to play because I am the person doing things and while I'm still holding a small plastic controller, it's a lot easier for me to care about a character when I see the world through their eyes.

I have the completely opposite problem with 3rd person games like Mass Effect 2, Dead Space, Ratchet and Clank, Force Unleashed etc. While the story may be top notch (Mass Effect for example) I find myself caring very little about my character, despite 3rd person games sometimes having MORE character customisation like Mass Effects character creator or Dragon Age etc.

I can't be alone thinking this, anyone else have any thoughts?

first person is for immersion while thrid person is for sense of character.
Think about it all iconic character are portrayed in third person; Kratos, devil may cry, gears of war and Uncharted all these games use third person so you know your playing as that character. In first person aka Call of duty, halo reach and battlefield you are "Place name here"

 

[Faux Furry]

I don't even like Kratos much as a character and even less as a person but even I feel that games like God of War would lose a great deal by replacing the protagonist with cross-hairs which the Blades of Chaos would stream from.
It's much worse with characters with more interesting distinctive designs than 'shirtless ashen skinned guy in a loincloth with a goatee and tattoos' who fit in with and tell something about the worlds they inhabit.

Playing Sly Cooper and his visually diverse allies in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves as a bunch of cross-hairs would have felt completely off-theme and out-of-character despite essentially being inside the characters' heads. There are no old Saturday morning cartoons that set the camera at the toon's perspective in the thick of the action.

For games with extensive character design options like Saint's Row 2, one of the game's major appeals would be compromised unless playing co-op at the moment,leaving everyone else a good look at one's character.

Now, if there were an option for a Chronicles of Riddick-styled from-the-neck-down first person, it wouldn't be as bad. Still not on par with a clear view of the whole character but better for feeling that one is in the character's shoes.

If the main character is a cypher, then there is no reason for the game not to allow it be played from first-person-perspective if the player chooses to do so.
In Skyrim,I'll still likely want to see all of the work that I put into designing the character from time to time.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Once you get immersed into he world it doesn't matter much, just how you view the protagonist, are you observing someones story or are you playing your own.

I prefer anything that requires precision in FPS and anything with platforming in TPS, Portal is the exception here but they cheat alot on the mechanics so the FPS isn't problematic.

 

[Nouw]

I like games where you can switch around like Starwars:Battlefront. However I find myself playing first person games more often, probably because the kind of game I like happens to be in that format.

I have no real preference, as long as I have an interest in the game.

 

[Mauro Carrizales]

Yeah I think first person will be more immersive because it makes you feel like you are actually in the game. I think the Dead Space series of games would have been a lot scarier if the action was played out in first person.

 

[Ren3004]

I never found myself caring less for a character just because of the game's POV. Not to mention that sometimes 3rd person is simply better from a gameplay perspective. I don't remember ever liking the use of cover in any 1st person game.