Third of First-Person?
 

The Legend games have begun converting me to the first person, and the Myst series have helped some too.

I like them both equally, but note that First person -> no waiting around while the character crosses a screen -> more practical, if it's well done.

If you haven't already, play Death Gate, and tell me whether your opinion on 1st person hasn't changed. :)

Third person definetely... it isn't the perspective it's just that third person games seem to be just more story driven and better.

Weeell, I'll quote myself and say:

It depends on the game. First person is great for immersion and works extremely well for games like Gateway or Myst. On the other hand, if the player character has a personality, third person is generally better.

First person for me. Moving an avatar around feels like playing a game. With first person perspective, I'm in the game. I play some 3rd person games - Syberia, Black Mirror, GK series - but the vast majority of the games I play are 1st person.

I'm happy to leave this to the developer. They decide which style they want to make, and I decide whether to buy the game by the end result. The perspective is irrelevant from my point of view as a player, but obviously isn't for the artistic reasons of the developer.

I love both. When I've played one or two first-person games, I long for a good 3rd-person adventure. And vice versa. They have different strengths and weaknesses.

Hm... not necessarily. The Last Express is very much story-driven and first-person. The same goes for the great Tex Murphy games, Black Dahlia, the Legend games that Ninth mentioned and many others.

And Callahan's Crosstime Saloon! How's that for story and character development, by the way. ;)

Gateway 1 and 2. Man, that was a wonderful company.

Mission Critical is the only Legend game that i´ve played and i liked it lots.
Other first person ag titles i like are Amerzone and Dark Fall.

Although i do prefer playing ag´s from a third person perspective.
Most of Lucasarts and Sierra games are like this and i love them to death.

whatever the perspective, if they've made it nice i'll be fine. Though, its cool a lotta games give u the option of either or

Third person.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts.

In first person games, I always get terribly confused about where I am. In slideshow-type games I have a hard time seeing how one screen connects to the next (especially when turning around). (I haven't really played node-based games with 360-degree view, which might solve that problem for me.) In full 3D games I can't keep track of my turns, and often end up going the opposite direction of where I thought I was heading. (In real life, I have an excellent sense of direction. Probably I'm relying on something like the position of the sun or inertial sensing of turns that just isn't present in computer games.)

For that reason, I typically prefer third person games (both 2D and 3D). Also, many first person seem to be very story-light, character-light, and with puzzles that are just jammed into there instead of arising naturally from the situation.

Of course, there are exceptions, and games like Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive are among my favorites.

Do you guys realize that adventure gamers are the only people who talk about this sort of thing? I've never seen fans of action games debate the relative merits of first person shooters versus third person shooters.

I don't much care for most of the Myst-style games, but that really has more to do with the game design than the perspective. A first person adventure can be just as much fun as a third person adventure. It just depends on the game. A first person perspective has certain advantages that a third person perspective lacks, as well as vice versa. It's just a matter of what kind of game the developer is trying to make. Sometimes first person is better. Sometimes it's not.

mag

I have, but they mostly talk about which is easier for the player instead of immersiveness.

In action games this is more or less just a technical difference to me, it doesn't alter the gaming experience too much.

In adventure games I generally prefer 3rd person, although there are a few 1st person games I like, too. The biggest flaw most 1st person games I've played so far had was that the gaming world was very often empty and bland, while 3rd person often has more "action" to offer.

How does it alter the gaming experience in adventure games any more than it does in shooters?


Well, that's not a matter of the perspective. That's a matter of poor game design.

mag

Yeah, I've seen that as well. Of course, shooter fans rarely achieve that level of reasoning. More often it's "1st/3rd person sucks!!!!11" :D

I seem to remember MDK being controversial over this issue.