Hey everyone. Just a pointless rambling thread here, and sort of wanting a little validation of my sanity, but is anyone else fed up with this trend?
When was this meeting where every game designer decided to pretend that the game is being shot with a physical real life camera including all of the draw backs (such as having thing on the “lens” obscuring the view).
And it’s not just blood, there’s also grit and glare off this so called “lens”.
How does this make any sense? I mean aren’t games supposed to immerse? And how exactly does pretending that the game is a movie help this?
It used to be in Hollywood that a camera man would lose their job over things like blood on the camera and then Children of Men went and made it trendy as hell, now it’s in video game too.
I also see this way too often and just as an annoyance, and I don’t even play many games. None of the games I enjoy do this, and that is for a reason: they focus more on gameplay rather than cheap visual gimmicks like the blood and grit on the lens. I’m with you on this one.
A part of the intent, I believe, is to aid in immersion. I certainly don’t find it immersive if the character can’t/shouldn’t be able to see but I can see just fine and thus give pinpoint inputs. It’s actually a little distancing from the game. When you’re actually getting shot or suppressed I expect that it’s somewhat difficult to clearly see what’s going on around you, especially if loose stuff is flying around. The idea of getting debris in the face or eyes isn’t at all out of the question, and that’s probably a part of it too.
I do agree that pretending to be a real camera just for the sake of it can be pretty silly, though. Getting lense flares from first person cameras is one of my pet peeves.
If it’s a third-person game I personally find treating the view as a physical camera in the world works well to help with immersion as it adds to the feeling of having presence in the world rather than just being a disembodied ghost. In first-person games I generally find it a bit odd unless the character is explicitly wearing a full helmet or mask (e.g. Master Chief) as it then makes sense that blood would splatter on the visor.
I think a lot off it comes from early FPS games which tinted the view red or used a red vignetting effect to give a form of visual feedback for when you’re getting hit. That I find perfectly acceptable as, although it is a bit annoying, it’s even more annoying to not have any visual cues telling you you’re being hurt and only realise when you’re almost dead. This effect has evolved to entirely replace health bars/counters in modern games with auto-regenerating health.
I guess it’s just like any effect, using it in a subtle and appropriate way can make the world of difference compared to going overboard with it and slapping it on in excess.
I think that anything short of a TN Games FPS Gaming Vest requires some sort of thing to drive home the fact that you are being shot - I like the HL1 / CS1 approach where you’d be shown where you are being shot at with red bar thingies on the 4 sides of the screen
including blood splatters on the lens my pet peeve is head bobbing as in bobble heads and hey they usually have a scale slider, anyway is okay to have but only slightly…
This is used largely to replace health bars. Its meant to look painful, the restrictive view is meant to simulate your character’s fading condition and to give the player an idea of how close to death they are.
Doing away with this design means going back to health bars which, really, just look silly.
I think it’s good when done properly. I like when the blood is on the screen and I have to fight my way through it while taking on an opponent. Makes it more of a challenge on top of the challenge. Personally, I’d like bloody melee weapons that can be cleaned off. It says, “Look at all the people I’ve killed!! HA HA!!”
It all depends on implementation and how much they use it, and also games should strive to be what they want, they don’t all have to look like real life…
