Recently, Peyton and I went and played Bioshock and some other zombie-ish game with Nick. It was my first experience ever playing video games, so I was mostly focused on trying to learn how to use the controller seeing as I kept getting stuck in corners, etc. But something I noticed between the two games was how I found it a lot scarier to be a third-person shooter (as I was in the second game) rather than a first-person shooter in Bioshock. Having the first-person perspective that I experience in real life gave me a slight sense of comfort because of it's familarity, but being in third-person shooter made me more conscious/nervous of the fact that something could come up behind me at any moment. I thought this could be something that I could look into for our booklet on horror games- what players (especially those in our group) prefer and why, the number of first-person versus third-person shooter games exist, etc. So post a comment if you have anything to say on that!!
Also, I thought it may be interesting to see how members of our group feel about being able to choose his/her character in a third-person shooter game---which games give you this option, do you like having the option, do some games only give you the option of being male, does having a choice make the game less frightening, etc. Just some thoughts...
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It's interesting to me that you find being in first person less scary than being in third person. Games that deliberately restrict my movement, or games that repeatedly attack me from behind do, in fact, scare me quite a lot, but I've never associated that with the 'person' of the game, since I've played both third- and first-person games that are like that. Additionally, I frequently feel more scared in first-person because my range of vision somehow feels more restricted-- in real life, humans have an extraordinary amount of peripheral vision, but in first-person games we don't, so I often get a sort of cramped tunnel-vision feeling in scary first-person games. I find it really unsettling. But in third-person games you can kind of see everything around you-- at least, anything in the 180-200 degrees or so in front of your player model-- so I feel like I have a better control of the space around me. It's more comfortable, I guess, than feeling like a floating eyeball.
ReplyDeleteI can see how some people might find first person scarier because you're more attached to the player, whereas in third person you're obviously removed. However, I guess I feel like third person is scarier because you're more aware of your vulnerabilities. I think first person is not as scary because it's a persepective that you're clearly used to, whereas it's harder to acclamate yourself to seeing yourself in third person.
ReplyDeleteI think that I'm going to have to side with Laura on this one. Fatal Frame II gives players the option from the beginning to play the entire game through either the first-person or third-person perspectives. The first-person mode is much scarier. Because attacking ghosts depends so much on being able to see them, having a limited perspective adds a level of panicky suffocation that just doesn't occur when you can see 360 degrees around your character. Always having to press the turn-180 degrees button is dizzying and feels realistic in its jumpiness. Even when you are cornered so that the entire room is in front of you safety is not guaranteed (they can just attack you through the walls). Having this experience showed me just how much we rely on our senses (especially sight) when confronting a horror gamespace.
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