Perspectives

For this task I will assess the different types of perspectives a player can experience during his or her gaming experience. I will be assessing the first person, third person, aerial, and lastly side scrolling view of a video game perspective.

What is perspective? Perspective is essentially the way you view something, during gaming perspective is very specific since it only has 4 main types where a player can perceive the game environment. Another reason to why perspective is important is because it can affect your gameplay for example, if you were playing a shooter and you were playing it from a 3^rd person perspective you would not be able to play the game as accurately as possible in the sense that the player would be unable to shoot with his or hers utmost accuracy thus diminishing their score in that game. Whereas in a first person shooter you can immerse yourself in the game world more discretely and actually feel like you are controlling the main characters actions as if they were not restricted. The reason as to why this is important in the gaming industry for both the players and the game creators is because if you were to have a game where you could only play from a third person perspective it would mean that you could not play at your maximum but you can still enjoy the game’s environment and the things around you, however in a first person’s perspective you care more about the competitive side of the game rather than the artistic side of the game this would mean that you cannot make a competitive game have features which is a hindrance towards the players, you would need to have a fair playing field for all the players playing this game. The reason as to why it is important for those who create the game to have such features disabled that make it harder for the player to play the game is because of the fact that less people would enjoy a competitive game if they cannot play at their best and it would seem unfair to them which would put them off the game.

What is a first person perspective?

The first person perspective is the perspective which a player perceives when they are playing the game, they see it through the main characters eyes and whenever the character moves the player also moves along with them because of the fact that they are looking through the players eyes, although they can control the orientation of the camera they can never be able to see the main characters face if the game is a locked perspective type of game. If this were the case it would mean that you could only see the main characters face in a full motion video, the artwork on the user interface and on the box in which the game came in.

Why is first person perspective more important to have than other games?

The main reason why it is more important to have this perspective available in some games and not in others is the reason that it improves game play and that is the sole purpose for having this perspective is when the game is created for the player’s enjoyment and for the players experience through the game. This is only done when the manufacturer of the game wants the player to feel the full experience the main character feels throughout the story mode of the game. Another reason is to improve the game play of the player as I have stated before.  An example of a first person game would be Halo 3, this a first person shooter (FPS) and provides an extremely good view of the game from one point and allows the user to experience what they would experience from a 3^rd person game through the visual arts displayed in the cone field vision given to them by expanding the games environment to such an extent that it actually rivals games that are coming out as of today.

What is a third person perspective?

A third person perspective is possibly the only perspective which rivals first person it is extremely popular for games that have beautiful scenery and graphics. The perspective of a game is important because it determines the type of game it will be even before entering the game itself which means that this a deterministic factor that the manufacturers of the games must take into account, a third person perspective is an over the shoulder type of viewpoint where you can see the entirety of the character and the scenery of the game. Games with a third person perspective is what people who want to play the game more for the story rather than the competitive side of the game this means that it is more sought after for people with a very distinctive taste in gaming.

 What types of features does the third person perspective provide for the player?

When playing a game in third person you can experiment and observe the things around you with ease you can look in front of you behind you on your left and right. This means that the player can experience a sort of full view of what is going on around them whereas in a first person game you have to look in a restricted viewpoint which is sort of like a cone relative to a third person game you have vision of the entire area surrounding your character. An example for a third person game would be skyrim, although this game has a first person view it is mainly based around third person because of the fact that it was stated by one of its developers to be exactly that, the felt that they needed to add a first person view as well in order to give the players a choice of how they wanted to play the game. This game the player freedom to how they were going to play the game, and because of this feature alone skyrim had found a blind spot within the gaming industry to allow both first person and third person within an adventure/RPG type game. The main reason why it worked out so well for Skyrim is because they had a lineage of other games which built up a kind of trust relationship with its loyal customers which allowed them to get feedback from them and input their feedback into the game whilst still in its Alpha stages, this allowed them to improve their game prior to their final release.

what is side scrolling view?

a side scrolling view is a view which follows the character as he progresses through the level. this is mainly used in 8-bit games such as super Mario or flash games such as flappy bird. these games are very simple and basic however they can somewhat be complex dependant on how much work has been put into the project.

The advantages of side-scrolling view is that it puts little work on the designers of the game because it lets them create simple movements for the character, it is cheap to create and is playable on many devices which creates a huge advantage for wanting to market their product.

A disadvantage for this type of perspective is that it looks bad artistically and it makes the player think that little to no work was put into the making of the game.

what is aerial view?

 an aerial view is a perspective which allows you to view your character from a birds eye view, this means that if you're for example playing a first person shooter if you were to have a aerial view you could easily see anyone that would try to kill you. for example in call of duty modern warfare if you get a certain amount of kills you will be able to enter an aerial view to get an advantage of other players. 

a disadvantage however is the fact you cannot aim properly or play the game effectively because of the fact that you cannot control your player as accurately as possible.