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God knows how many years ago, Zelda numbero one was released. A few years back, Ocarina of Time was released on the N64.
I think Miyamoto has stated several times that the N64 Zelda is how he first imagined it to look... This kind of huge adventure with pixies and stuff. Bah, horrible to think about, great to play, and that's all that mattered.
There was actually a time when games were restricted... Miyamoto, instead of allowing this wonderful vision of 3D, kept to the birds eye view. It was still a great game, and the view worked excellently too.
First impressions of a first person Zelda? Would be awful.
It's strange how a game can be changed just by the way you look at it. Let's compare X-Wing Alliance to Rogue Squadron.
X-Wing Alliance is a pretty complicated game, requiring a load of buttons and key combinations to remember... it looks great, and it plays great. Barrel rolling with the joystick to escape almost certain death from two missiles speeding towards you gives you a great feeling.
Rogue Squadron is a simple game, just point, move, and shoot. The gameplay was basic, and enjoyable for a limited period. This, apparently, has been improved in the true sequel, Rogue Leader.
So why the big change in gameplay and style?
X-Wing Alliance is first person, Rogue Leader is third person.
Simple as that. Such a small difference in the changes to how the game mechanics work, can make a huge difference in how the actual finished game plays or feels. Rogue Squadron is an action shooter, X-Wing Alliance is a space simulator.
On a side note, I hate the word simulator. Automatically links to the word "dull." Alliance is far from dull, so go play. :0)
So while Zelda works best, perhaps, in the third person view... controlling an X-Wing, definitely in my opinion, works much better in the first person view.
Logically, a first person mode should be must more exciting. If you can't see the player, then you ARE the player... or whatever it is. It should automatically become more exciting, and become much more scarier when you're under attack...
That's fine and said for Alliance, and stuff like Half-Life, definitely... but what about Zelda and Mario?
Mario requires jumping. It is certainly not fun to have to look down every five seconds in a game... and that's what you would have to do.
So, in other words, it's more *fun* to put it in a third person mode. First person would become boring.
Same with Zelda... you need to be able to see as much as you can, so the third person is necessary... this is also important for attacking, and defending.
So are fun "press button makes you jump" games for third person, and realistic "you're not playing a game" games for first person?
There's been a lot of negative thought over the next/prequelish installation of Metroid. The original games were great, and took themselves very seriously. In it's heart was an action game, definitely, but it went further than that. The RPG elements of collecting weapons and combining them, along with the huge areas to explore, added further to the gameplay and mechanics of the game. It was designed to be a scary shooter, where you expected nothing.
First person is restrictive, and would make the game scarier, because not only does it put you in the body of Samus, but then restricts what you can see. You'll be moving around all the time, moving towards noises, and being generally scared.
Now take Resident Evil. Taken from fixed camera angles, Resident Evil was scary, yes... but that was because of bloody great big noises and things jumping through windows... you were afraid to MOVE YOUR CHARACTER. You weren't afraid to STEP FORWARD.
If you moved your character a bit more, you expected that they'll be something right around that sodding corner... So you'll turn him around and run, or so on.
It didn't really take itself that seriously. It was a shooter in heart and image. That's all.
Go back to Metroid... although it's birth was of the moving the character, I now believe, after looking into it further, that it would do amazingly well as a first person shooter.
It's got all the elements of success, but they're just hard to find. You need to be scared, and as a first person, you'll defintely be scared. You won't be mixing Samus's weapons, you'll be mixing your weapons.
If it was a third person, you'll see things behind you just on the screen... you can look around corners without having to go around them. First person? You'd have to hear them, and turn around.
And THAT'S where sound comes in. We now must all invest in 5.1 Dolby Doo Da, not because that's the standard now, but we'll need to. Games aren't going to use instruments in the left corner and vocals in the right, they'll have bullets being fired in the speaker behind to your right, and explosions to the speaker to your top left. And hell, that would work excellently.
Sit down PC gamers... alright, yeah, you've had it for a while... but you KNOW that PC games are very different to console games...
...But they are beginning to merge, which is what I'm discussing here. PC Games are on the whole very serious affairs. You don't get many [good selling] action shooters on the PC. We want first person serious goodness. Because we have a mouse, keyboard and joystick.
With a console, we want to be able to press fire with the middle button and change weapons with the right one. The princible is still there, but we don't become so absorbed... it's only to pass the time, it's not because we're scared to go around the next corner.
So what can this all be put down to? Why ARE console games and PC games beginning to merge?
Certainly not because of sound, surely? Nah. It's helping by making games less "press a button and something happens on the tv" to "duck the hell behind that crate otherwise you're gonna lose your ****ing face"... simply by making them that little bit more realistic.
Ok, what else? Originality? Very likely, actually. Twenty years ago you could make a blob on screen eat loads of little blobs, and get chased by other coloured blobs, and it would be a great game. To pass the time.
But now, we're running out of original ideas. So what can we do?
Just keep expanding the old ones. If we made Pacman now, we'd have to make it a third person survival horror, with mansions and keys to collect. It would have to have a plot, and it would definitely need mulitplayer.
Because we're becoming more demanding. We know that we can get it good, and we want it better. Games aren't games anymore, they're experiences.
And this gets back to first person/third person. We don't want to move stuff around any more. We want to be in the game. The demand for virtual reality is becoming incredibly high... but until we can develop the correct technology, we have to make playing "from the outside" as much as "playing on the inside" as possible.
Games are for mobile phones now. We've gone beyond that... perhaps it's a bad thing... but the art of gaming is becoming so real, and understood, that it can't be ignored.
I think Miyamoto has stated several times that the N64 Zelda is how he first imagined it to look... This kind of huge adventure with pixies and stuff. Bah, horrible to think about, great to play, and that's all that mattered.
There was actually a time when games were restricted... Miyamoto, instead of allowing this wonderful vision of 3D, kept to the birds eye view. It was still a great game, and the view worked excellently too.
First impressions of a first person Zelda? Would be awful.
It's strange how a game can be changed just by the way you look at it. Let's compare X-Wing Alliance to Rogue Squadron.
X-Wing Alliance is a pretty complicated game, requiring a load of buttons and key combinations to remember... it looks great, and it plays great. Barrel rolling with the joystick to escape almost certain death from two missiles speeding towards you gives you a great feeling.
Rogue Squadron is a simple game, just point, move, and shoot. The gameplay was basic, and enjoyable for a limited period. This, apparently, has been improved in the true sequel, Rogue Leader.
So why the big change in gameplay and style?
X-Wing Alliance is first person, Rogue Leader is third person.
Simple as that. Such a small difference in the changes to how the game mechanics work, can make a huge difference in how the actual finished game plays or feels. Rogue Squadron is an action shooter, X-Wing Alliance is a space simulator.
On a side note, I hate the word simulator. Automatically links to the word "dull." Alliance is far from dull, so go play. :0)
So while Zelda works best, perhaps, in the third person view... controlling an X-Wing, definitely in my opinion, works much better in the first person view.
Logically, a first person mode should be must more exciting. If you can't see the player, then you ARE the player... or whatever it is. It should automatically become more exciting, and become much more scarier when you're under attack...
That's fine and said for Alliance, and stuff like Half-Life, definitely... but what about Zelda and Mario?
Mario requires jumping. It is certainly not fun to have to look down every five seconds in a game... and that's what you would have to do.
So, in other words, it's more *fun* to put it in a third person mode. First person would become boring.
Same with Zelda... you need to be able to see as much as you can, so the third person is necessary... this is also important for attacking, and defending.
So are fun "press button makes you jump" games for third person, and realistic "you're not playing a game" games for first person?
There's been a lot of negative thought over the next/prequelish installation of Metroid. The original games were great, and took themselves very seriously. In it's heart was an action game, definitely, but it went further than that. The RPG elements of collecting weapons and combining them, along with the huge areas to explore, added further to the gameplay and mechanics of the game. It was designed to be a scary shooter, where you expected nothing.
First person is restrictive, and would make the game scarier, because not only does it put you in the body of Samus, but then restricts what you can see. You'll be moving around all the time, moving towards noises, and being generally scared.
Now take Resident Evil. Taken from fixed camera angles, Resident Evil was scary, yes... but that was because of bloody great big noises and things jumping through windows... you were afraid to MOVE YOUR CHARACTER. You weren't afraid to STEP FORWARD.
If you moved your character a bit more, you expected that they'll be something right around that sodding corner... So you'll turn him around and run, or so on.
It didn't really take itself that seriously. It was a shooter in heart and image. That's all.
Go back to Metroid... although it's birth was of the moving the character, I now believe, after looking into it further, that it would do amazingly well as a first person shooter.
It's got all the elements of success, but they're just hard to find. You need to be scared, and as a first person, you'll defintely be scared. You won't be mixing Samus's weapons, you'll be mixing your weapons.
If it was a third person, you'll see things behind you just on the screen... you can look around corners without having to go around them. First person? You'd have to hear them, and turn around.
And THAT'S where sound comes in. We now must all invest in 5.1 Dolby Doo Da, not because that's the standard now, but we'll need to. Games aren't going to use instruments in the left corner and vocals in the right, they'll have bullets being fired in the speaker behind to your right, and explosions to the speaker to your top left. And hell, that would work excellently.
Sit down PC gamers... alright, yeah, you've had it for a while... but you KNOW that PC games are very different to console games...
...But they are beginning to merge, which is what I'm discussing here. PC Games are on the whole very serious affairs. You don't get many [good selling] action shooters on the PC. We want first person serious goodness. Because we have a mouse, keyboard and joystick.
With a console, we want to be able to press fire with the middle button and change weapons with the right one. The princible is still there, but we don't become so absorbed... it's only to pass the time, it's not because we're scared to go around the next corner.
So what can this all be put down to? Why ARE console games and PC games beginning to merge?
Certainly not because of sound, surely? Nah. It's helping by making games less "press a button and something happens on the tv" to "duck the hell behind that crate otherwise you're gonna lose your ****ing face"... simply by making them that little bit more realistic.
Ok, what else? Originality? Very likely, actually. Twenty years ago you could make a blob on screen eat loads of little blobs, and get chased by other coloured blobs, and it would be a great game. To pass the time.
But now, we're running out of original ideas. So what can we do?
Just keep expanding the old ones. If we made Pacman now, we'd have to make it a third person survival horror, with mansions and keys to collect. It would have to have a plot, and it would definitely need mulitplayer.
Because we're becoming more demanding. We know that we can get it good, and we want it better. Games aren't games anymore, they're experiences.
And this gets back to first person/third person. We don't want to move stuff around any more. We want to be in the game. The demand for virtual reality is becoming incredibly high... but until we can develop the correct technology, we have to make playing "from the outside" as much as "playing on the inside" as possible.
Games are for mobile phones now. We've gone beyond that... perhaps it's a bad thing... but the art of gaming is becoming so real, and understood, that it can't be ignored.
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Grix Thraves wrote:
> [This is such a macho film. Batman and Robin keep sizing eachother up,
> and now Bruce is going to dress up in his Bat Suit and pay Nicole Kidman a
> visit.]
{Teenage angst vs 'we're too scared to feature a plot with a man and boy living together and playing dress up games without highlighting that they are not gay' scriptwriter}
> [This is such a macho film. Batman and Robin keep sizing eachother up,
> and now Bruce is going to dress up in his Bat Suit and pay Nicole Kidman a
> visit.]
{Teenage angst vs 'we're too scared to feature a plot with a man and boy living together and playing dress up games without highlighting that they are not gay' scriptwriter}
:0)
[This is such a macho film. Batman and Robin keep sizing eachother up, and now Bruce is going to dress up in his Bat Suit and pay Nicole Kidman a visit.]
[This is such a macho film. Batman and Robin keep sizing eachother up, and now Bruce is going to dress up in his Bat Suit and pay Nicole Kidman a visit.]
Or because they can't be arsed to deal with all the animations, motion capture, game mechanics, etc involved!
:-D
:-D
Because most designers, myself included perhaps, believe that forcing people to see things how you want them to, instead of how they want to, makes it a better experience.
Nice post.
Well, my new creation, the 'runnerthon' pad will solve the problems with first-person platform games.
It looks like one of those aerobic machines that you use to run on, but it has little bars that act as the drops in the game, so you know when to jump. The amazing thing is that it can change in height, thereby mirroring the platform heights. Fantastic, and only a mere £10,000 RRP.
But seriously. Why don't programmers give the choice of which perspective you use, like in racing games. It would make sense, imagine it. It may have a few problems, like picking up items and things like that, but I'm sure most good programmers could get around it.
Well, my new creation, the 'runnerthon' pad will solve the problems with first-person platform games.
It looks like one of those aerobic machines that you use to run on, but it has little bars that act as the drops in the game, so you know when to jump. The amazing thing is that it can change in height, thereby mirroring the platform heights. Fantastic, and only a mere £10,000 RRP.
But seriously. Why don't programmers give the choice of which perspective you use, like in racing games. It would make sense, imagine it. It may have a few problems, like picking up items and things like that, but I'm sure most good programmers could get around it.
Grix Thraves wrote:
> Still, not sure about that. It shouldn't be a hold button switch, like Jet
> Force... more of a toggle.
Perhaps you could have it as a choice in itself.
> Automatic or manual switching. :0)
[The Riddler and Twoface have finally
> met.]
Super! Let's go down to Retro and make things right again! :-)
You know, maybe Metroid isn't in such a bad state...
Shigsy has continually said he's not happy with it, but apparently, he didn't like Jet Force Gemini either. Perhaps he just doesn't that style of game...
> Still, not sure about that. It shouldn't be a hold button switch, like Jet
> Force... more of a toggle.
Perhaps you could have it as a choice in itself.
> Automatic or manual switching. :0)
[The Riddler and Twoface have finally
> met.]
Super! Let's go down to Retro and make things right again! :-)
You know, maybe Metroid isn't in such a bad state...
Shigsy has continually said he's not happy with it, but apparently, he didn't like Jet Force Gemini either. Perhaps he just doesn't that style of game...
Err... thanks Sibs. French orals suck.
:0D
[Twoface and The Riddler have just robbed a jewellery store together. And now Robin is drying his laundry to rock music.]
:0D
[Twoface and The Riddler have just robbed a jewellery store together. And now Robin is drying his laundry to rock music.]
Still, not sure about that. It shouldn't be a hold button switch, like Jet Force... more of a toggle.
Perhaps you could have it as a choice in itself. Automatic or manual switching. :0)
[The Riddler and Twoface have finally met.]
Perhaps you could have it as a choice in itself. Automatic or manual switching. :0)
[The Riddler and Twoface have finally met.]
Good GAD win Grix... wish I could write decent topics, but I can only write bad topics, and occasionally good stories...
*wallows in self pity, then snaps out of it, realising his copy of Tony HAwks 2 on N64 should arrive this week. Then realises he has French orals this week, and commits suicide...*
*wallows in self pity, then snaps out of it, realising his copy of Tony HAwks 2 on N64 should arrive this week. Then realises he has French orals this week, and commits suicide...*
Yeah. The only difference seems to be that you want the game to choose when you switch and I want to switch view as I please.
Shouldn't people be allowed to choose how they play the game and work out for themselves that it's first person for shooting and third person for platforming?
It also gives them a better sense of control, rather than being pushed around.
Retro seem to be making it so it's first person, though, except for the small sections where you roll into a ball.
I think that it'll be a neat FPS game, but it won't be Metroid, not properly anyway.
Shouldn't people be allowed to choose how they play the game and work out for themselves that it's first person for shooting and third person for platforming?
It also gives them a better sense of control, rather than being pushed around.
Retro seem to be making it so it's first person, though, except for the small sections where you roll into a ball.
I think that it'll be a neat FPS game, but it won't be Metroid, not properly anyway.
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