Gaming Gets Personal With First-Person Perspective

Growing up, nearly every game I could get my hands on was a “side-scroller.”

Games like Super Mario Bros., Castlevania, and Contra are all classic action games where the primary goal is to get from one side of the screen to the other. The two-dimensional perspective became the identifying characteristic of many of our favorite vintage games—simple and endearing, side-scrollers were the most common games on the Nintendo and Super Nintendo systems. But starting with PlayStation in 1996, two-dimensional games have given way to three-dimensional games with an entirely new perspective­—first-person. For years now, games putting players in the shoes and in the eyes of the character have dominated as shooters have risen to prominence. Now, some new advances in the genre are looking to make games even more fun and immersive.

If you consider the leap from two-dimensions to three-dimensions to be the first big revolution in perspective (though keep in mind there were a number of games that took place in first-person before home consoles could do true 3-D, such as 1988’s Phantasy Star) then the new revolution is not a shift in perspective but an attempt to make it more engaging and more realistic. Early first-person games could best be described as the “camera on a stick,” with the player camera centered in the middle of the screen without a camera bob or any sense of motion or momentum. The player wasn’t in the shoes of the character, but instead was a cameraman. A bunch of new games this year are trying to break this tradition with some exciting advancements in the way they are presented.

The first of these noteworthy games is EA Digital Illusions CE’s Mirror’s Edge. Mirror’s Edge is eerily reminiscent of 2007’s Assassin’s Creed with its parkour/free-running-style platforming (literally jumping from platform to platform) throughout the streets of 12th-century Jerusalem and Damascus. The big difference is that Mirror’s Edge takes place in the first-person. The developer has done quite a lot of work to simulate the feeling of motion, momentum, and physics while in the perspective of the protagonist. The camera never pulls back to reveal the figure of the heroine, Faith—the entire game takes place in the first-person, which does a lot for player immersion and believability. Faith’s hands bob realistically and in camera view as she accelerates, and her legs animate smoothly as she slides or jumps over obstacles. This goes a long way toward eliminating the “camera on a stick” problem of years past.

Other games are using the first-person perspective to make exploration and storytelling more dynamic and interesting. Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 3 uses the first-person perspective to allow players to explore every nook and cranny of the environment with great detail. Everything in the world is rendered in full 3-D, and players can see and manipulate objects without having to open any additional menus to explore the games’ environments. Insomniac Games’ Resistance 2 uses first-person for a number of its story cut-scenes, animating the player’s motion as if the player were still in control of the action. This increases immersion and makes the first-person perspective feel more developed.

Sure, it’s taken a while for developers to finally get a grasp on the up-close-and-personal perspective, but it looks like they’re all finally advancing. Maybe the next batch of hit games reach an even higher level of interactivity, coming with fans you set up in front of your TV to accurately simulate in-game weather—something to look forward to, perhaps.