So how does your brain work with camera controls in 3rd person games?

There's the "normal" way - when the right thumbstick controls the camera, left moves the view left, right moves it right, up pans the camera up, down pans down.

There's the FPS way - basically, this works the opposite to the "normal" way in terms of left and right. Players see themselves as the camera and use the right thumbstick to pan the camera left and right using the player as the axis the camera pivots around. Moving the thumbstick left will strafe left so the view moves to the right, and thumbstick right will pan the camera to the left.

There's also the Flight Sim way - this has to do with the up and down controls - up is down and down is up.

Then I guess there's the Cameradexterous - you can immediately adapt to any camera movement style without any period of adjustment because you either don't play games very often and haven't developed any habits or you play every single game out there and just have that type of adaptable brain.

For me - I've gotta have it the FPS way or else I get totally confused. Even with a slow game like Knights of the Old Republic being the "normal" way - I can't stand it. I wish game developers would all keep this in mind and include these all as options... it wouldn't be that difficult to impliment.


Unrelated, but appropriate to this topic are games that have static cameras that you can't really control - like Resident Evil - and you only control the character. This is a bonus question -

For these games, do you prefer 3D style controls or 2D style controls?

3D style means forward moves your character where he's facing and the camera doesn't matter - it's as if you're controlling the character like you're looking through his eyes in a 3D world (which you aren't)

2D style means up moves the character towards the top of the screen or away from you, left moves to the left of the screen - etc... and when the camera changes you have to change the direction you're moving - as if you're controlling the character from a top-down view in 2D world (which you aren't)

I prefer the 2D style. Silent Hill did a good thing by providing players with a choice of either.

I prefer the FPS style along with the Flight Sim style for up and down. It's from all the flight sims and FPS games I've played. It feels weird any other way. I also prefer the 2D controls for games like RE. They were weird to get used to at first, but I got used to them quickly and now they seem natural.

Resident Evil is an example of 3D control.

OK, I like that one then.

60 views and only one person has an opinion about it? Is it just that you guys don't play 3rd person 3D games? I find that hard to believe.

I usually adapt to whatever style works best for that specific game. If it is not a keyboard+mouse game, I just teach myself to do it the games way, unless I have an option.

I don't like the controls in Resident Evil especially after having played Soul Reaver. But I guess if I play long enough I can adjust to most control schemes.

For a FPS game on a console, I would rather have a trigger button as the move forward and the left stick as the direction I'm moving (which would allow the camera to more right, left up and down - ie; moving the camera left by pushing the stick left, you'd also turn left).

Isn't that how Timesplitters 2 works? I couldn't stand the controls for that game - mostly though it was cuz you would go to turn and your aiming reticule would move around on the screen... annoying. I'm certainly in the minority on that one though cuz it's a very popular shooter.