Re-Examining the Immersion Factor For First-Person Shooters

An opinion piece on Gamasutra looks into the common perception that a first-person view provides a much more immersive experience in shooters. The author argues that this concept needs to be reconsidered, as immersion nowadays is more dependent on what you see, rather than how you see it. The question is further complicated by ever-improving technology and new control schemes. "It's important to realize that making a first-person game almost necessarily means making a game for the dedicated gamer. Innovations on the interface side could help lower the casual block, perhaps through the Wii, Project Natal, or the PS3's new motion controller. Regardless, it will take a lot of work and concerted effort to penetrate the casual audience with a first-person camera. The question is whether we even need to, when there are so many camera systems that games have yet to fully explore."

Comments

Reminds me of the old Star Trek arcade game

[Anonymous Coward]

The Star Trek arcade game (you remember -- the kind you had to put quarters in) had both a first person view (ok, first ship view) and a top-down view. The first person view was nice eye-candy, but a useless distraction in actual combat. The top-down view had so much more usable information and no distracting eye-candy. It was all you needed to play the game effectively (as long as you wanted on one quarter once you mastered it).

That doesn't mean Crysis would be better without the first-person view. It's the realism that makes that kind of game.

Re:Reminds me of the old Star Trek arcade game

[ld a,b]

To be fair, there are studies pointing that this is due to the frames in movies having ghost images embedded.
With photo-realistic games, each frame is rendered separately and thus more are needed to recreate the illusion of continuous motion.
What's fun is that Anime and old school sprite games are completely unaffected or even improved by having a much lower frame-rate.
It turns out that if you avoid trying to be realistic, immersion is easier.

Re:Reminds me of the old Star Trek arcade game

[CastrTroy]

That's where you start to get into the uncanney valley. Once things start to look too close to real, it messes with your head, and you start to see all the subtle flaws. If something looks completely not real, we just forget about the realness entirely, and start to enjoy the game.

Sematics... of course...

[popo]

Let's be clear about some issues with this question --

For one.. let's talk about "aim": The third person shooter can never be a natural "shooter" in the sense that aiming one's weapon will always be a product of interface, and not visceral line-of-sight.

This of course, is fine for some games -- but if we're going to call a game a "shooter", then we should incorporate the visceral sense of "aim" into that definition.

If "aim" is something that is virtualzed -- as it is in 3rd person shooters -- then the game is by definition not as visceral -- and *may* not be as immersive. (But of course this all depends on one's definition of "immersive". If one defines a visceral -- "real" experience as "immersive" then 1st person wins. If one defines other plot/strategic elements as immersive -- then maybe not....)
.

Re:Sematics... of course...

[Compuser]

Agreed. And to add another point...
To this day, human and animal motion is unrealistic in games. Skin, lothing, and hair rendering has gotten better by leaps and bounds but still sucks because of lack of detail. Wounds are not realistic. And this is all so bad that within a few seconds of playing any game you just know it is a game. Perfect immersion is impossible for that reason alone (at least for me). First person view helps with this because at least your own character is moving in ways that you do not see. When I see my avatar in out-of-body view, it is usually the biggest thing on screen and all its rendering and physics deficiencies are there all the time. In first person, I just see the enemies in the distance so it is easier to suspend disbelief.

Re:Sematics... of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, I think games that are primarily shooters should by default be set up around a first person perspective, with a caveat: if the game has significant platforming or melee components, then a third-person perspective becomes a consideration, but not mandatory (witness Portal). The third-person perspective is awful for a firearm-focused game. From a third-person perspective, aiming at close range is usually difficult. This is amplified if the view is "over the shoulder" rather than directly above the avatar, because it becomes difficult to get the crosshairs properly onto something at close flanking range. Firing around cover is non-intuitive in the third person, since the player can't see the world from the avatar's viewpoint. A corollary to this is that it's terribly easy to actually lose track of your own character when moving through heavy scenery. With a perspective that floats above or behind the avatar, it's easy to turn around and wind up with a face full of pixelated foliage instead of a view of the enemy that's in plain and unimpeded sight of the now-vulnerable-and-blind avatar. And, simultaneously, the third-person perspective also winds up giving the player a massively unrealistic bird's eye view for looking around corners and over ledges without necessarily moving their avatar into the enemy line of sight. Also, I've yet to see a third-person perspective that handled a zoom scope terribly well -- the worst are those that zoom in FROM THE BIRD'S EYE POSITION, although these are thankfully rare. Last, once the novelty has worn off of the game, the avatar itself represents a blind spot and a chunk of dead visual real estate; the closer the POV is to the ground, the more space is wasted showing off the character's shoulders.

If the avatar just must run around whacking targets with swords, fists, or tentacles, then I can at least empathize a bit with developers including a third-person mode for melee; some casual gamers have trouble using melee weapons in first-person shooters It's also an accepted convention in platforming-heavy games; visualizing the location of feet below a first-person shooter's perspective is honestly more difficult than being able to see those feet directly (one of the myriad flaws of Mirror's Edge). It's harder to show off the artwork of the main character in a first-person shooter. First-person shooters often take the best graphics in the game -- those of the character itself -- and show them off only when a reflection is present in the game world. As it happens, this HEIGHTENED immersion for me in Portal, as the generally dull avatar gained novelty when viewed at off angles through portals; I remember messing around for some time just positioning the portals properly so that I could tell what the struts on Chell's calves were. However, to be honest, the Portal example is an exception fueled by the game's unusual movement convention, and doesn't generally apply. If a game's selling point is Lara Croft, it may a smart call on the part of the developers to let the player look at her. Forced bird's-eye view can also be used to save production costs, I suppose; if the player cannot raise the perspective to the horizon, there's no need to worry about drawing ceilings, backdrops, or skies.

All the same, I personally prefer the flaws of the first-person perspective to those of the third-person perspective. I'm sick of stealth games where protagonists have "magic eyes" peering around cover without their exposure. I'm usually not impressed with character graphics after the first half-hour of play or so. In a good game, I SHOULD be too busy worrying about or admiring my surroundings to care about the appearance of my character. From the first-person perspective, what you see is what you get, and the mechanic doesn't change with distant or close-range combat. A sniper rifle is still hard to use point-blank; a submachinegun, shortened shotgun, or pistol is still preferable up close. I can even look up at the sky, even though it has no relevance whatsoever to th

Re:A counterexample...

[Peganthyrus]

Portal is an exception. I hate FPSs and I paid good money to play that game. It's also pretty much the one single first-person game that isn't about a testosterone-laden game of "RAR I SHOT YOU".

I've never understood the immersion argument

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe immersion is why Doom was written as a First Person Shooter.
If it wasn't a FPS, then I would be able to see enemies that my character would not be able to see. With a third person angle, I would know what was around the next corner without having to put my character in danger.
This would then lead to me attempting to figure out how far around the corner I had to be to be able to shoot the enemy.I don't want to go to far because then they will see me. In most FPS, if the wall isn't blocking the cross hairs, then I can shoot the enemy.
Doom also loved the trick of opening hidden doors behind you to release enemies. With a third person viewpoint, you would see them sneaking up on you.
Finally, don't even think you can pull off any real 3D aiming in the Z axis. The best you can do with a third person view is really bad 2D aiming. No more head shots. In early sprite looking third person games (Doom era), there were only so many ways your character could be rotated (4, 8, 32...) Aiming the gun meant aiming your character directly at the enemy and then firing. The game then decided if you were close enough for a hit. And it was usually nice and counted hits that shouldn't have counted. Most games that employ a third person viewpoint with a true "hit-test" also have visible slow moving bullets so you can see why you missed. And you wont find a sniper type weapon in any of these games. Every gun sprays bullets everywhere.
I realize there are some exceptions to this rule (007 on Dreamcast), but I still found aiming in that game difficult.

Thoughts on Bioshock, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Halo

[Lemming Mark]

Agreed on immersion using all the available features: when I was playing through Bioshock I got so used to listening for creaking floorboards, doors and footsteps that every time I heard a noise in the house whilst working I would have the urge to spin around wielding a wrench.

Oblivion is interesting in that it's a first-person (you can play 3rd person but reviews say it's not so good) RPG, including some ongoing conversations with characters who give you quests and sometimes help you. To a certain extent that makes you feel a connection to them that you wouldn't necessarily get in an FPS. But the connection I feel with the characters is nowhere near the level I'd got from playing Mass Effect, though that's primarily due to the cinematic nature of the (3rd person) dialogue scenes as opposed to the rest of the 3rd person gameplay. The presentation of these, plus people's reactions to the different characteristics you could display (i.e. whether you were being paragon or renegade) made the characters really come alive for me.

On the other hand, Halo is a true FPS where I nevertheless like and have sympathy for the other characters. Maybe it's partly because I really like the game but I think it's also due to the cinematic presentation, the good voice acting and the fun characters and plot. There's no control over the interaction with the other characters, dialogue-wise but they nevertheless have distinctive personalities, so it matters what happens to them.

Re:Graphics are the least important

[Anonymous Coward]

No insta-death. - I don't mind making a mistake and having the game eat away at my health or a series of errors kill me but making it so there are situations where a single mistake kills you instantly sucks. Double if this includes a jumping puzzle and a bottomless pit. Immersion is seriously hampered by pissing off a player to the point he doesn't want to play any more.

No infinite respawn - If I am in an isolated town that had a population of 20k then their should be at most 20k zombies after the zombie plague outbreak. Likewise a WWII German watch tower should not hold an infinite number of soldiers until I reach a certain check point.

The first FP game

[noirpool]

The author is basically correct. It's how you "feel" in a game which causes the immersion.

He had me when he asked "when was the first time you cared" about a character in a game, and then brought up Ico, which was exactly what I was thinking.

In Ico, I not only cared about the boy, but the girl also. When you held her hand and started running, there would be an uncomfortable "tug" on her arm as you started to drag her along. I quickly started using the controls in a more delicate way so I would work up to a run, rather than drag her off. The game didn't care, and she wasn't even real, but I stared becoming concerned for how "she" felt about my demands.

Now. Immersion is more than about graphics and sound. A really, really, good book can immerse you without any special effects altogether. (Neverwhere comes to mind..) In fact, Infocom had a tag line stating they had the best graphics of any computer games out there. They were just in your head.

The first, first person game I experienced that had true immersion was Myst. [I notice that myst was one of the tag words used in this thread, though it has not been mentioned yet.]

Many gamers deride Myst as "not a game", after a wit wrote a review calling it "a sideshow".

The real reason why most players don't like it is its pace..

In Myst, when you materialized, you were suddenly slapped with the view, the sounds of the wind, the waves, the water slapping the underside of the dock, the sounds creaking wood; and a small seagull circling overhead up in the clouds.

These techniques nowadays I recognize from some of the more sophisticated anime.

Later on you found Messages to Catherine, which were rushed, urgent.. Later still you found burned books in a library [Why?] in which you found some amazing journals written in pen, with beautiful and often enigmatic drawings. While you were reading the books it was just you and the image of the book, complete with the rustling of paper when you turned the pages (yes it was a simple wipe), and just the sound of the wind blowing through the open library door.

This was true immersion. I fell into the world. I can see it still. 10 years after I was there, despite the fact that the graphics were static, had dithering in some places due to the color pallet, the movies where the size of postage stamps and had to play in small areas, and the music quality was a bit scratchy in places due to audio compression.

However, the overall effect was magical. You didn't notice the small movies, because of where they were, they had no frames, but were part of the environment. Everything was seamless.

[In fact, playing the old Myst games in a PC environment nowadays, I DO notice these bits. Mostly because the movies play and you can see the rectangular areas where the boundaries don't match up... Progress I guess.]

Interestingly, just a few years ago, I read a review of the original Myst where the author talked about the waves crashing into the dock. I actually had to play the game again as my memory told me that the waves were moving (a later innovation for distant water in the sequel "Riven",) to ensure that, "yes", they were actually static.

Now, immersion is being discussed here as being tricks of sound and light to make you feel you are actually walking the halls. One person talked about the creaking of the floorboards as you moved about, and the shrieking sounds as something jumped out at you. However you can only transmit shallow emotions- unease, fear, alarm, excitement, hate, with these little tricks borrowed from the movies.

It is much harder to transmit other emotions, such as disgust, loneliness, loss, sadness, love, happiness, wonder- you know; the other emotions which are largely left out of movies now a days as there is no time to do them due to the pace.

As an example. Try watching the films; 2001, Solaris (with George Clooney), Lost in Translation, and Gandhi. There are others, but the common thread is that their pace is slow. This generally make