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I recently found an interesting article on Gamasutra's web site, where it talks about how first-person games still have yet to bring as much immersion as the other camera types, especially third-person. It mentions that you cannot see the main character, so how can you identify with him/her, and that he/she usually just shoots things and collect things, which really isn't very filled with any immersion. That definitely can be said for the many people out there who have a hard time understanding how to play a first-person game.

This person makes a good point. As much as I liked playing certain FP games (e.g. HL 1 & 2, Bioshock, COD4, etc.), I believe that third-person games will always be more emotional and powerful, which constitutes immersion, than first-person ones. Usually, game developers think that all you have to do is add really photo-realistic graphics and a first-person camera and the game will automatically be full of immersion. Well, it isn't as easy as that.

If anyone wants to read any of the other points that were made in the article, go here:  http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24513

I'm not sure I agree with the definitions being used, here.  In my mind, "emotional" and "powerful" have nothing to do with immersion.

Immersion is being surrounded by something.  For example, water.  In the case of a video game, it's having the video game seem to swallow you up so that you lose conscious awareness of the physical space which is actually around you.  It's similar to, but probably slightly different from, the state of "flow" that many artists and athletes are intimately familiar with, in which the space around you also seems to melt away while you intently concentrate on a single task at hand.

In my experience, immersion is much more a function of the overall smoothness of the experience and the pacing of the game progression being just exactly right so that frustrations or terrible voice acting or awkward camera transitions or huge walls of text don't jolt you out of the experience.

it's bullshit imo, there's nothing more immersive than a first person game

I didn't read the article, but first persion games need a lot more than the graphics and perspective to be immersive. Half-Life 2 for example makes a great deal of getting the player into an impressive scene, but not into the played person: Gordon Freeman. You never saw him in the game, you never felt like him and never wanted to save him -> completely emotionless. It's just BAM and you're trying it again. Ok, a lot people say that there's Alyx and she's so realistic, blablabla... It's not even like that, Half-Life 2 is more like a good-looking, interactive comic with movielike scenes for guiding the players perception into another (game) world. The characters are good, but I never felt to be responsible for something. Also, the gameplay element of a non-free world doesn't make it better (Edit: That's not bad, though!).

Yeah. I think emotion is a part of immersion. That's why I think Bioshock was more immersive: You rescued little childs, tried to stop Adrew Ryand and than you discovered that this damn bastard Atlas has cheated you! Gosh, I felt angry. It was emotion (an important element in Bioshock), intensified by an anonymous character (you)  you've never seen in the game. I think a third-persion Bioshock wouldn't work, because you had to choose a feeling, likable character for your hero. Also, the settings, the enemies, the little stories all around... dripping, sad emotions.

So... first person games CAN be more emotional than third person games. It depends on how you arrange it... I know, I know - third person games usually have characters for the player and everything else, but you will never be in a situation where there's only YOU and the game. You will always see another character, a character which will never fit every player in the world. The plus point for FP games: It's more intensive (emotion- and immersive-wise) if there's no visible player character.

Blablabla. I also think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an emotional and immersive game (All the stories, settings, descriptions, informations, etc... lots of interesting things, making the game a bit more emotional than other FPS'. But I'm also a text fetishist, Stalker has a lot text.). I guess it's just me. These houses in Pripyat look similar to a lot of houses here in germany. Again, a setting the player can understand und reconstruct is much more important than everything else...

The best thing about Stalker for me (amongst all the good things) was all the different chatter in the world. It helped that a lot of it was in Russian which I couldn't understand, but after a while that doesn't matter so much.

I think what throws me off of FPSes as far as "immersion" goes is the fact that:
-the FOV is so different from real life
-you usually can't see your limbs/body except for the hand(s)
-the articulation of the neck/eyes is obviously very limited and artificial...which usually leads you to move like a car rather than a person

If anything, I find that the mechwarrior style of movement is much more natural than the usual Doom style of movement. I look forward to a FPS where you control your forward speed with footpedals rather than the W-key.

I don't like that article. I don't agree with the writer's definitions, and I certainly don't like their assertion that FPS need to be more accessible to casual players. No, they don't. Casual players wouldn't actively seek out an FPS for the same reason I wouldn't actively seek out a casual game. I will play casual games sometimes, but I never stick around long because I find them stupid, but that's the point! they're not FOR everybody. Same goes for FPS games.

Also immersion is one of those terms that's been thrown around by marketing departments until it's become meaningless IMO. It's shorthand for 'this game will make you cry when a dog is shot'. Personally, I define how 'immersive' a game is by how much I think about it while not playing it. Marketers and designers both hate this definition, because it puts the term out of their control, but I think immersion is fundamentally up to the player.

Morrowind was pretty damn immersive in 1st person. Never felt so alone in a game before. In the rain in the middle of nowhere.

Penumbra is also pretty immersive, almost too much so.

I'm pretty sure we could quote games all day that prove that article wrong.  I know I have a few.  I'm not sure we're gonna get anybody sticking up for the article.

Personally, for me, I feel immersion when a game world just sucks me right in.  I dunno about emotion, but wandering the emptiness of Shadow of the Colossus was a huge deal for me.  If you don't get pulled into the environment, that game would be pretty damn boring.

But Myst 5 did the same thing too (come on, that place with all the pillars of earth and the starscape?  How is that NOT the most beautiful scenery in any video game ever?)

As you can see, perspective and camera mean nothing to me.  It's all about the environment.

I agree with the article on one point: Most FPS games are hard if you've never touched one before. If nothing else, it'd be nice to have an alternative control scheme for new players. It could be like the old Doom games, where you look and move in the same direction, or even the Metroid Prime games, where you could lock on to enemies.

that's actually what Valve wanted. Gordon Freeman is a mask, he is YOU, you want to save your life in the game. That's why is much more immersive than any third person shooter.
That's why gordon doesn't talk. It NEEDS to be invisible for that experience to work. Hl2 is not like a movie, movies are passive, thats more Metal Gear. It's like a movie with you acting.

You don't know to feel like gordon freeman, he is you and is he that feels like you.

Also for more accessible FPS... well, this guy doesn't know what the hell he's saying really, console FPS are far more "casual" than PC ones, and they're games for gamers, why the hell even my granpa should be able to play it?

^^adding on to what eclipse said, Half Life 2 is a great example of how to achieve immersion from a first person perspective. As Gordon Freeman not only are you able to observe the world in Half Life 2, you are able to interact with it. knock over an object and it will fall with real gravity and physics, characters you pass by turn their heads to look at you, key characters especially acknowledge you whether out of fear(you teleport into Dr. Breen's office and he immediately calls his superiors) or in companionship(c'mon, her name starts with an A.)

That's why the character models in Half Life 2 are so realitsic. Not because of their moving parts or because they look realistic, but because each one, in more than any other game to date, seem to be addressing you. And why shouldn't they? You are a legend, the free man, humanity's last chance for survival. In a world that seems to be completely alive on its own you have a presence that is unmatched in just about any game(with the exception of maybe GTA4). In most FPS's your some faceless solider that can only shoot stuff.

Anyway, the article is guilty of something I hate: turning inherent flaws into critiques.

Yes, jumping is bullshite in First person shooters. If there is ever a section of a FPS that requires precise jumps and the like it isn't just something older gamers can't do, it's more often than not sloppy game design. Also, making the control interface to FPS's more accessible is not rubbish, in the case of analog sticks anyway. seriously, how do we figure you can aim a gun with stick? Any one who has used the mouse or has a wii will tell you it's ludicrous.

Agreed.

When I'm really into FPSes, often I shut out the world around me; it's sublime, almost cathartic!

Article can be summed up to
"Hey guys I'm an old guy who can't play games good enough. Earlier today I was agreeing with my female soccermom friend that 1st person games are really too difficult, they give us headaches. 2D games are so much better I mean look at this little guy go, you can see his legs moving!"
Then a bunch of irrelevant comments by the gamasutra commenters who are probably worse than the TIGSource frontpagers because they take themselves so seriously.

quoting for emphasis

I never said Half-Life 2 doesn't have a good immersion :P (or atleast a better one than in other games)

I justed wanted to point where the purely immersive game usually goes to. It may sounded like a complaint, but I just think immersion only isn't more immersive than immersion + emotion. Gordon is invisible, of course. That's good for immersion, but I was never able to identify with the whole situation. There was no emotional connection, everything felt like... in a cool comic with audio (and the situations ARE movie-like, just look at a decent action movie). Also, what I said before... freedom in terms of gameplay... That's a better immersion for me. Of course, in Half-Life 2 it seems that you're doing it all on your own. But you just had no choice! That annoyed and often broke the immersion FOR ME. What is this immersion stuff for if you can't really decide what to do in the world? That would an movie with minimal interaction: real looking world, fake freedom of decision. Pushing some boxes here and there? Come on! It's probably just the sound and the physics/animation stuff. The sound is really good in Half-Life 2. And immersive.


I always think they're adressing Gordon. Gordon, the speechless killer scientists. Seems I'm not able to do what Valve wants to do with me. I mean, the whole Half-Life universe is like a partly interactive comic for me. Or a part of my brain, responsible for identifying adressed words, is kinda inverted.

When I play L4D, it often feels like I'm controlling a very well built and responsive robot using a keyboard and mouse while watching the result through a camera. The big flat 2D projection is a barrier to immersion. So is the interface.

The technologies needed to fix that are still fairly novel and expensive though, so for now I'll just go ahead and agree that First Person Perspective has high immersion potential.

I'm also going to go ahead and suggest that given the limitations of display and interface technology, slower pacing is better for immersion.

Dead space was pretty damn immersive to me despite the over the shoulder camera angle. Probably that's because I was emotionally involved (read scared shitless) most of the time.

Bioshock never really immersed me (is that a proper use of the word?), i think because i didn't like the combat and controls. The fact that the controls and combat weren't intuitive (to me) introduced a wall between me and the game that broke any level of immersion that the amazing scenery and atmosphere that was created. Which is a mighty shame because it was fantastic apart from that.

Hl2 would suck in any other way, Crysis gives you much more freedom, but at the cost of not having the living world of hl2. HL2 focuses on the storytelling and the level design is so good you don't feel "on track" even if the game is linear. If the world looks fake having freedom is boring, driving at speed while chased buy combine helicopters is way more immersive than roaming on a jungle waiting to find the next group of enemies imo, as the latter is prone to annoy you.

@Iamthejuggler: have you tried the xbox version right? Bioshock needs to be played with a mouse to be enjoyed

Down with HUDs.

Immersion is a good thing,
First Person Shooters are popular,
popular things cannot be good,
therefore First Person Shooters cannot be immersive.

console games are popular...

Nope, it was the PC version.

I disagree. That would imply a non-realistic rendered (fake looking) world with freedom is boring. For example, Bioshock looks also fake. It has a free world, but it isn't boring. Or do you just mean if a world doesn't look alive? If so, I totally agree here (although HL2 only looked alive in situations with other characters/enemies. The levels itself were... dead. Like miniatures.

I dunno. I remember, when I was little, playing Civilization II and then suddenly realizing it was late at night. And a while back, when everyone suddenly had massive hard-ons for "immersion", I kind of figured that that kind of thing was what it was about. That feeling of only the game, and the not noticing the outside world. It also sounds like what mewse said. But that's just what happens if the game is really good. Then you like totally get into it and you don't give a shit about anything else.

So like, whether or not the FOV matches that of real life, or whatever, isn't really what's on my mind when I am in the game. I suppose if the game kind of sucks and my mind starts to wander, I might make that consideration. But if it's amazing, I'm rather more concerned about the fact that I'm about to fucking die if I don't find a health pack now (and no, I can't stop to consider whether or not health packs that instantly heal you are believable, because then I'll die).



And what's up with that? Doesn't feeling something about a character imply that you are not that character? That you are outside; a spectator. Does this guy empathize with his own actions and totally relate to and like identify with himself?

I guess there's a difference between being totally immersed into the game, and being totally immersed into the character you are playing.

I'm actually starting to lose my handle on what immersion actually means now, because like you i got totally captured by civilisation (1 in my case). Was that immersion?

I dunno. Either way, the article appears to be aiming for the latter:




I've no idea. It's what I think of when I hear the word used about gaming. That's the only kind of experience I've had that I think suits the term*. Everyone else might be going on about something entirely different and magical for all I know...


* And I could have used DOOM or whatever as an example. But DOOM is going to throw me out of the game every once in a while anyway, so it doesn't work as nicely in a "look how much that fucked up my day" kind of way. Turn-based strategy games tend to last damn long :)

Item Based Exploration RPGS, 4X and Civ style games are the only ones that I have to pull my self away to quit playing, most other games I put the controller down when I get frustrated or tired of playing.

I guess I don't really play as many games as I used to, because this topic always bothers me. Not much of an FPS player, but from my experience, most of the people I talk to hate 3rd person games and immediately go for first-person games.

I hate the fact that a slight difference in camera angle has earned its own genre, but what are ya gonna do. I guess in the 2D world it would be the difference between top-down and iso views, but those aren't usually used as labels for the genre (Zelda games aren't labeled as Top-Down Action-Adventure Games and Super Mario RPG isn't labeled an Isometric Role Playing Game)

it's not only about camera, also first person shooters are older than 3d third person shooting games

I refer you to what i call "Zen Gaming".

You know the exact layout Ikaruga. You're playing without "thinking"... twitch reflex, muscle memory.

You are one with the game. Nothing else matters, you enter a trance-like state. You are truely immersed.

Edit: For clarity, I think immersion doesn't come from being in a realistic world (although, that doesn't mean a realistic game cannot be immersive), but rather, from there being some hook that draws you in. For Ikaruga, it's the tight combo system and strict level layout. Once you're comfortable with the game it's very easy to slip into a trance-like "zen" state.

In something like FEAR or Penumbra, it's the gripping atmosphere, the emotional hook from being scared.

I think even more abstract games such as Guitar Hero, or any rhythm game, can be immersive.

A game that changes the "rules" too often, such that you're drawn out of the experience... that breaks immersion, and it can affect any game. It's not necessarily a bad thing... Adventure games, I think, have very low capacity for immersion, but that doesn't make them bad, or not fun to play.

Metroid Prime guys, Metroid Prime.  That's the height of immersion, plain and simple (thanks in no small part to the visor HUD/Samus reflection and Scan Visor).

Melee FPS games like Breakdown, Zeno Clash, etc. are immersive as fuck. I guess the guy who wrote this article never played any of those and was just thinking of games like Counter Strike or something.

I'd have to disagree with you there, GregWS. Super Metroid is much more immersive... on the first run through, at least.

While the visor reflections help a little bit, I think true immersion has to come from the gameplay its-self. And Metroid Prime... is a little dis-jointed. At least, the control scheme does not lend its-self to keeping the player "in the game" (although, this may have changed with the trilogy...).

I think a line needs to be drawn between "wow, that's a really cool effect/those graphics are beautiful, it really makes this feel alive/real" and actually losing yourself in a game.

Edit: As for Zeno Clash... I think the ranged combat is jarring, pulls you out of the experience. Again, the off-beat nature of progression in it as well... If it was purely melee combat, then yeah, immersion would be stronger.

It absolutely has.

Well, I lost myself a lot more in Prime than I ever did in Super Metroid.  I certainly never thought if it in the "wow graphics" sense, more in the immersed sense where I'd look at every nook and cranny, scan things to learn more about them, and just soak up the ambiance.

I loved the whole surreal dream world, what the hell am I looking at, atmosphere of the game. I thought the first person parts where pretty well done too, but to each his own.

But what I meant is games where the camera moves relative to the players head (that rotates with the player's head movement, etc. rather than being a camera that's always upright), and the game tries to make it feel like you're actually controlling the arms and legs of the character on screen rather than just a magical a floating gun that always stays in the same position. To actually feel like you're punching an enemy, with the camera moving accordingly (rather than just a static melee animation) is really immersive in my opinion.

Counter Strike IS immersive as hell, even better than that games like True Combat or Insurgency, i feel my heartbeat go crazy when i'm the only one of my team alive and i have few seconds to defuse a bomb while not getting killed.

Playing Zeno Clash sometimes i've found my self moving my head trying to evade a punch in the face, lol

I do that when trying to take out a large group of raiders in Fallout 3 using a sniper-rifle; ducking down after a shot, hoping I won't be seen.  :P

yeah and it's something you'll never do in a third person game, that's what i call immersion

Hell if that's immersion then the most immersive game I ever played was Magic Carpet. I used to almost fall out of my chair from swaying left and right to steer my carpet! Apparently it was quite funny to watch.

I dunno, I've played CS so many times that the game just feels like.. a game. Something I play by the numbers, like clockwork. Things like hearing "fire in the hole" just mean do a certain series of actions to evade getting owned rather than, "holy shit I feel like a real counter terrorist!"

But yeah, I agree with you about Zeno Clash. That's exactly what I mean. As well as several other melee FPS games, and the neat little camera tricks they do which make you feel like you're actually fighting.

What on earth is so Immersive about looking at the back of some dude's head?

An immersive game is one where you see your hand brace you when you fall. (Mirror's edge)

An immersive game is one where you feel emotion with the characters actions and reactions. (Half-life 2)

An immersive game is where you are placed in a place of terror and YOU feel terror, and when you are placed in an area of pure happyness, you feel that way too. (Doom, Call of Duty 2)

An immersive game is one that also looks realistic. (Halo 3, Crysis)

Until I see all them in one, I probably won't feel the way I'm supposed to feel.

I have to say though, immersion is a two way street.  You have to actively allow yourself to be immersed; no matter how good the game is, if you're not choosing to be immersed then you just won't be.

That is an issue.


I think the former sounds more like something what would be on a real counter terrorist's mind.

That's not to say that Counter Strike accurately simulates (counter) terrorism or anything.


The way God intended. It's going to be glorious.

First person camera works for immersion, 'cause it's made to emphasize the fact that inside the game you are the character. Some cameras that do something else, almost emphasizing that in-game you are giving orders to the PC. I noticed this when comparing Fallout 1/2 and 3. Fallout 3 is overall more immersive thanks to the camera, and the isometric camera creates a kind of barrier between you and the game.


That's true, I've noticed I always put effort in being immersed and caring about characters, and that way I've gotten to care about crappy bidimensional characters.


I do that a lot in other games, specially, when the character doesn't move fast enough to dodge. It's like I try to compensate it's immobility by mocing myself. Like when I was a kid and played Doom II without strafing. But I've been told I move a lot when playing Godhand (though I don't notice myself) and it's third person.

Interesting you should mention the Fallout series since that was the first game I thought of when reading the first post, allthough my experience was quite the opposite compared to yours.
Then again in the case of F1/2 VS F3 it has to do with so much more than perspective I guess.

I dunno, to be honest, I haven't played enough games nowadays to make a good argument about. I think it comes down to personal taste and how the story is being told, though - some people feel closer to the character if they're seeing it from the character's perspective, and some people are more attached seeing what happens to the character from an outside perspective.

Like I've seen some other people mention, the Metroid and Metroid Prime series are a good example (or at least the only one I can think of). The games felt equally immersive to me (although I never finished Prime), but I personally have a slant in favor towards the 2D Metroids. But that's just me. I'll check out the article, but I think it all really depends on multiple factors.

It's true that immersive doesn't necessarily mean good.  You may be overwhelmed by the experience, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's enjoyable.  And whenever it's particularly frustrating, I blink and realize... "Oh wait this is just a crummy game."

I remember GTAIV did that to me more than a few times.  It would pull me in and then some aspect (really slow framerate, bad car handling strikes at a crucial moment) that would remind me that it's all just a game.  A poorly implemented one at that.

Or maybe I'm being more harsh on the game because it pulled me in and then kicked me out?

Is it really fair to count framerate as a barrier to immersion? especially in a game like GTACUATRO, where everything implemented to flesh out the detail of the game world can possibly get one  your screen at the same time and result in frame-fuck.

A technically poor game is one thing, but GTA4 obviously isn't that.

Yes :giggle:
'I just looked at five cars and the world went into bullet time'

Also, I think camera perspective is less about immersion and more about overall design:

First person pros:
greater accuracy at long ranges, doesn't need a powerful animation engine to point the gun in the right direction, handles indoor and outdoor environments equally well.

First person cons:
Platforming is very hard, melee is extremely complex to pull off correctly, it's hard to tell when you're surrounded, distances are hard to judge.

Third person pros:
melee is much easier for the player, distances are easy to judge, you can see your feet for platforming, you can see hazards near you (grenades, being surrounded, projectiles, etc.)

Third person cons:
Expensive animations or complex procedural blending needed, aiming ranged weapons can be a huge pain unless the camera moves very close to the character (GOW), transitions between indoor and outdoor environments are awkward, unless the ceilings are unnaturally tall (the thing's four foot tall air ducts, GTASA's 15 foot ceilings)

Not an exhaustive list.

Playing FPS games without a crosshair is immersive.

hell yeah. especially games like Operation Flashpoint/ARMA, or Red Orchestra. I love games where you have to aim with iron sights only. Those are indeed immersive as hell.

I'd say that the most immersive FPS I've played must be TressPasser :) , you can see the person , you can controll her arm and interact with enviroments using it ... I mean you can even shoot yourself  :biglaff:

for those who doesn't know of this game I can link to a vid that shows its incredible features: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eNKNPjIFY

One barrier to immersion I've started to see in FPS games is the way in which objects have started to get in your way, and the poor feedback which is associated with it. This has just started happening to me in Half-Life 2, where I'm trying to fight enemies, and suddenly I start moving really slowly. I can't feel what's slowing me down, so I have to look down and work out how to actually get out of the maze of crates which have been littered around my feet. This is probably a lame rant, but in older games boxes were anchored to the floor, so you knew exactly where boxes were: you stopped moving. Now they just put up some weak resistance, coupled with a horrible scraping sound and the sudden feeling of walking through knee-deep mud. This probably isn't something which is easily solvable with current technology, but can't Freeman at least kick the littler boxes out of the road for you?

I think one of the main issues with most FPS games are that you can't see yourself

First-person games, as they are, aren't really 'seeing what they see', it more like having a camera a few feet in front of what they see.
If I looked down all the way, I should be able to look down and see my entire body, not just the lower half of my legs.(like most recent FPSes)

If you could see the distance you covered, and the space you used, this would partly solve the platforming issues FPS games tend to have.(or at least, I can imagine it would help)

immersion depends on the player: players who like fps games will get immersed into them, players who are not used to playing fps games will not get immersed, players who like 2d games will get immersed into those. it's much more a function of the player than the perspective. to say that a game itself has immersion is inaccurate, the combination of a game and a player (and many other factors) produces immersion, it's not a function with a single input where you can sensibly say 'this game has more immersion than this game' or something

also mewse had a good point about keeping distinct emotion from immersion. emotion isn't immersion at all. you can care about a game's characters without feeling as if you're really in the game, and vice versa.

once again I go back to TressPasser , if you look down in tresspasser you see cleavage  :eyebrows: (also works as the HUD , since your tatoo on your left breast gets fuller by each hit ... yes , odd concept  ???)

also the lack of HUD adds to the immersion , as the character yell out how many shots there's left in the gun instead of having any real display.

the game was really inovative as it was one of the first games to utilize both Bumpmapping , a Rigid Physics Engine , RealTime Inverse Kinematics ... and it had a very odd "Sound Engine" which could generated material colission audio in realtime instead of sampling  :P

That's pretty much why I can't stand playing FPS games (bar Timesplitters cos I just find that amusing probably due to the monkeys, and Duke Nukem 3D for the college days nostalgia).  I just loathe them.  I find the view too claustrophobic as it is to me like I'm walking around in a box with a slot cut out to see through.  I don't feel at all like that I'm an actual person in that game world and I just find the gameplay in them far too limited and incredibly dull.  But a third person game such as God of War or Uncharted I'll play over and over as I can see more of my surroundings, I can see what my characters body is actually doing (satisfying during melee combat and I always prefer that to shooting) and I get to roll about and jump properly and all those other things without losing track of where my feet may be.  FPS games for me just don't work anywhere near as well and don't provide me with any entertainment whatsoever.

Actually, I'm pretty positive I remember shooting stuff with a camera disk and ducking behind crates to avoid detection multiple times in Beyond Good and Evil.

But the camera disk is in first person :laughter:

Methinks the author of that article should've opened up the dictionary before dumping something on the Tubes. He's not describing anything even closely related to immersion (as has already been pointed out).

Anyway, I've always found the first-person perspective to enhance immersion, but of course that's not necessarily the end-all of games. It's still my preference. My spatial perception is good enough that seeing the avatar lends zero benefit, and I really hate camera wrestling. Speaking of which, I don't think third-person cameras make games more accessible, because they have traditionally been unruly beasts, always ready to fuck you over at a bad time. A camera in the avatar's eyes always has a valid perspective, whereas a third-person camera tries (and often fails) to put itself in the right place. The autonomy necessary to avoid intersection with obstacles (etc.) usually causes some problems.

that only applies to 3d though -- in 2d games with a fixed perspective, you don't have that camera placing problem

actually i'd say i agree that, for me, when it comes to 3d, first person usually produces more immersion, and when it comes to 2d, first person produces less immersion. i felt more immersed in final fantasy 6 than i did in eye of the beholder, even though eye of the beholder was first person 2d. that may have been due to the better art and music, but i think perspective also plays a part: in 2d first person everything feels so boxy, like you're moving in a grid of boxes. but i felt more immersed in fallout 3 than i did in resident evil 4, because it felt more as if it were really me moving around the environment instead of some guy i can see.