Perspective in Games

               According to Nielson, “Excluding text-based and abstract puzzle games, all video games employ either a first- or a third-person perspective (or the ability to toggle back and forth between the two).”  He continues to state that isometric perspectives are also popular amongst games.  Nielson argues that genres and subgenres consistently adhere to one or very few perspectives.  I would agree with him, reinforcing the fact that the players’ perspective of the game world has a strong influence on gameplay.  For example, the game Pac-Man 3D allowed gamers to play as Pac-Man in the first-person perspective.  This offers a completely different feel to the game.  As seen by The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, it is true that several games offer the ability to toggle back and forth between different viewpoints.  However, a game is typically designed around one perspective.  Consider Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.  The default perspective is in first-person, but players can play the game in third-person.  While the game does offer variety in terms of game play, it seems the game was optimized with the first-person viewpoint in mind.   The control is stiffer and the animation is not rendered as well in the third-person perspective as in the first-person perspective.  Nielson also states that it is not accurate to limit our analysis to only first- and third-person perspectives.  We should consider games’ point of perception, or “the point from which the player perceives the gamespace.”  Often, we should consider the distance of the point of view from the game action.  For instance, in many driving games such as Forza Motorsport 2, players can adjust the camera distance from the vehicle.  Players can adjust the distance to be from the closest from the car (first-person), from the driver seat perspective, from close behind the car, and from far away from the back of the car.  Each unique perspective offers a different way of perceiving the gamespace and has an effect on the players’ gameplay value.

                When you are playing a game that offers a variety of different camera distances away from the central playable object (your hero in WoW or your car in a racing game), how do you prefer to position the camera?  Why?