First Person Shooters.

Movies occasionally use a shot called the subjective shot. The subjective shot puts the viewer into a character's shoes, by making the camera see what the character is seeing. Primarily, this shot is used to demonstrate some unbalance in the film such as being drugged or to show the perspective of a predator.

First-Person video games take this idea and use it to add stability to the playing experience by having the player fill the role of the character in-game. The fact that the player has control over the first-person camera removes some of the "strangeness" and "instability" often felt with a first-person perspective in film because the point of view only goes where the player wants it to. The level of control offered by a game is what the subjective viewpoint needed to feel stable and welcoming rather than awkward and unsettling. Couple this with a constant on-screen weapon for a point of reference, a Heads-Up Display for gameplay information, and some smooth transitions to and from other perspectives (as in Metroid Prime), and it's clear that games have taken enormous strides in the realm of first-person perspectives in a way that film has failed to do.

Recently, the movie Doom paid homage to its FPS roots by including FPS-influenced camera angles throughout the film (first-person perspective with onscreen weapon). Can such inclusions mesh well with the film medium or is it still forced and disorienting even with its wide presence in gaming?

Time to go write my paper.