A question of perspective

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

We all know that cameras have been the thorn on gaming's side for as long as we started playing, but can you think of a truly horrendous example where the camera has truly hurt the overall experience?

Being a huge baseball fan, I have always hated how pitching used to always happen from the batter's perspective, even as you were the pitcher. It felt super unnatural and awkward (and it's not like they had a reason to, as even some NES games tried to do things right on that department by placing the camera behind the pitcher... it mostly worked).

I also hated the idea of keeping the camera locked outside of certain "designated areas" on early 3D games.

What about you?

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

I also hated the idea of keeping the camera locked outside of certain "designated areas" on early 3D games.

Yeah early resident evil and PS1 games were notorious for that. The locked camera would suddenly change perspective on you when you changed rooms. That combined with contextual controls would lead to awkwardness, like pressing up would lead to repeatedly entering and exiting a room because of the placement of the camera relative to the entrance of the room.

 

[fake-kun]

I remember the camera in Super Mario 64 being awfully clunky and inconvenient. One of the many reasons I never finished it.

 

[Gokiblade6766]

We all know that cameras have been the thorn on gaming's side for as long as we started playing, but can you think of a truly horrendous example where the camera has truly hurt the overall experience?

Being a huge baseball fan, I have always hated how pitching used to always happen from the batter's perspective, even as you were the pitcher. It felt super unnatural and awkward (and it's not like they had a reason to, as even some NES games tried to do things right on that department by placing the camera behind the pitcher... it mostly worked).

I also hated the idea of keeping the camera locked outside of certain "designated areas" on early 3D games.

What about you?

I play a lot of soccer games, one of them was Virtua Soccer. Even though the game was good but if one issue with the game camera perspective, it was set very close to the player with the ball. It make the game really hard for new player to play the game.

 

[gerorisuto]

Yeah early resident evil and PS1 games were notorious for that. The locked camera would suddenly change perspective on you when you changed rooms. That combined with contextual controls would lead to awkwardness, like pressing up would lead to repeatedly entering and exiting a room because of the placement of the camera relative to the entrance of the room.

Though what you say last happens a lot of times with fixed cameras, I think they were also a beautiful creative tool. The Silent Hill games are a very good example of this.

 

[PhrawzT]

I was more frustrated at how terrible camera controls were in the Late PS1/early PS2 days. Two random buttons controlled the camera rotation and it was never obvious which buttons were used or what direction they would go.

 

[Yousef]

I feel somewhat generous with this stuff. I really cannnot think of truly bad cameras. I’m more adaptive to this stuff than my peers are.

 

[Cu-Neo]

In the old Armored cores games (specially Armored core 1) there some missions where the camera can make the mission more harder. For example in those games (and the whole catalogue of fromsoftware in psx and also in the PS2 armored cores) you control the camera with R2 and L2. In the first armored core at the end you have to fight a IA but to get there you have to do a Platformer section and that part is hard as hell because the camera is not designed to do a Platformer section (and they also attack you ?)

 

[Heretic]

In recent memory, Bloodborne. I often joke that the camera is the real first boss, as the first real wall I hit in that game was fighting more with the camera at the first boss, instead of the boss itself. It would get stuck on terrain in a corner, clip through the boss, do all kinda funky things that left me sitting there like "What's even going on right now?"

 

[Another Iori]

'Sonic Heroes'.

I had bought a demo through the ones officially released by Sony, so, I wanted to try the full version as well (I like it when in the intro video the singer shouts the name of the game!).

A few years passed and I managed to get the game, but I had to drop it near the end, because in one level in order to proceed, you have to coordinate the team's bounces so you can reach the destination, however, at some point, the camera no longer shows what you're doing and you end up losing unfairly.

I have no idea if this issue was fixed in the other versions, but this was the reason why I stopped buying 'Sonic' games.

 

[moonbits]

God of War 2018 is a prime example.

The camera single handedly ruined everything. They forced the entire design of the game around it, and when the limitations came up they just dumbed down the experience or added the most ridiculous fixes like having arrows in your butt to signal enemies that are behind or magnetizing you to enemies since depth perception is awful.