Camera Screw: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"In third-person games, the camera is like the working class. If you can't control it, it will plot to destroy you.''" |'''[[Zero Punctuation|Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]]''', ''[[Epic Mickey]]'' Review}}

 

 

* [[They Just Didn't Care|Lazy or incompetent programmers and/or level builders]].

* A mistaken belief that impressive visuals are more important than gameplay.

 

And many forms:

 

Not to be confused with [[Camera Abuse]].

 

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

* ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' games occasionally take control of the camera when you're within a quest, usually to hint the player at where they're supposed to go. It's very useful...most of the times. In the PC version of Brotherhood towards the end of the game there are several spots where the camera goes to an angle that you're not at one of the 8 major spots (up, up/right, right, down/right, down, down/left, left, up/left) and using the WASD key mappings the jumps can be nearly impossible, particularly with your target shooting at you while you try to figure out the best way to get through your view disability. Fortunately, all of the spots encountered are in side quests, not necessary to completing the game.

* The N64 ''[[Castlevania]]'' games made pretty much every jump towards a platform that's not so large you couldn't possibly miss it a complete leap of faith. Thankfully the game is generous with the save points.

** The [[PlayStation 2]] game ''[[Castlevania: Lament of Innocence]]'' has very few platforming sections, but all of them feature frustrating mid-jump camera moves. Fortunately, falling in these cases instantly sends you to the room's entrance, keeping the frustration factor from getting ''too'' high.

** And when it decides to ogle the poster of the bikini girl, that's actually a clue to one of the game's puzzles. This is just that sort of game.

* At first glance in ''[[Mirror's Edge|Mirrors Edge]]'', the camera control seems just fine; it does more or less what you tell it to, because the entire game is played from a first-person perspective. What they ''don't'' tell you is that in many cases, the height of Faith's jumps and the accuracy of her landings (especially ones where she has to grab a ledge or drainpipe) depend on where she's ''looking'' when she makes the jump. The problem with this is that if you need her to jump very high AND catch a ledge, she needs to be craning her neck up; if the landing surface is below the point where she leaves the ground, it requires the player to dive off a building staring up into nothing and ''hope''.

** ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] 3'' seems to be afflicted by camera problems as well, though not quite as severe. The fact that most enemies read the [[Mook Chivalry]] code this time also reduces the risk of a humiliating death.

* ''[[Robot Alchemic Drive]]'' is played from the perspective of the teen-ager [[Kid With the Remote Control|remote-controlling]] a [[Humongous Mecha]]... except when it decides to dramatically follow a missile or [[Rocket Punch]]. Cool, yes, but I'd rather be able to see my robot and the enemy, thanks.

* One level of ''[[Bomberman]] 64'' intentionally screws with the camera by positioning it underneath the large sheet of ice Bomberman is walking on. As the camera looks up through the ice, the directions of "up" and "down" are essentially reversed from the player's perspective. But why should Bomberman be disoriented by where the camera is?

* ''[[Spider-Man]] 2'' is one of last generation's few good movie tie-ins, but sometimes - with the [[Game Cube]] version at least - the camera gets stuck [[Female Gaze|pointing at Spidey's groin]], making navigation and combat impossible until you save and reload.

== [[Adventure Game]] ==

* The camera in ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]/[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]'' may kill {{spoiler|your brother}}. Indirectly, by making it freakin' difficult to find the telephone and warn him.

 

== [[Beat'Em Up]] ==

** This is mitigated by the controls: They usually move the prince relative to the screen (which, with the 3rd person camera, is normally equivalent to "relative to the prince"). However, when the perspective shifts to another angle, as long as you keep the move buttons pressed, you'll walk as if the shift never happened. Only when you release the button do the controls accommodate the new perspective - so if you run in a straight line and the camera shifts to show that [[Eldritch Abomination|friendly guy in black]] with the [[Combat Tentacles|surplus of arms]] trying to [[Implacable Man|play catch with you]] and you keep the up-button pressed, you'll continue running in said straight line instead of doubling back and going straight towards your pursuer.

* ''[[Super Mario 64]]'' defined the 3D [[Platformer]] genre in the same way that ''[[Super Mario Bros. (video game)|Super Mario Bros]]'' defined the 2D Platformer genre. It was a breakthrough in multiple ways, was the top selling game for the Nintendo 64, and is still considered to be one of the greatest games ever made. It ''also'' left the player with the idea that the "Lakitu Camera" was under the control of Bowser and was working hard to prevent you from finishing the game. The default camera angles were, to be blunt, not very good, and the worst part of it was that if you tried to manually move the camera, it would automatically readjust itself.

*** Also annoying is that the camera controls move the camera in about 30 degree shifts at a time and that they have a limit to how far around they go. Precision jump? More often than not, it's either between two "ticks" on the camera, or just outside the allowable angle.

** By the time of ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]'', they had improved the camera a bit, making it more controllable by the player, reducing the wobble that plagued the ''Mario 64'' camera, and having a one-touch button that instantly centers the camera behind Mario. But it had a bad, bad tendency to let elements of scenery such as trees and overhangs completely block the player's view of Mario, and even worse, it was next to impossible in some cases to adjust the camera to a position where you had unobstructed visibility; often you couldn't see Mario unless you pulled the camera in super tight, and the second you tried to move... bam, there's that tree in your way again.

 

== [[Puzzle Game]] ==

** Arguably meant to recreate the real sense of disorientation you'd feel in real life if you dropped through a floor and came out of a wall.

* ''[[Scribblenauts]]'' has this too: the camera always switches back to Maxwell, the protagonist of the game if you leave the camera at a different place for a few seconds This is especially annoying, when you try to do something with your summoned items somewhere else on the level. Good luck combining three items (far from Maxwell) without constant frustration and anger...

* ''[[Rhythm Heaven]]'' has a strange example, one considered not even an example depending on who you ask, what with being completely music based, but a lot of people depend on view. (In fact one of the winning dialogues is something along the lines of "You have a good eye for distance."). [[That One Level|Rhythm Rally 2]] makes the camera unwillingly fly around, with planets and such blocking the view.

 

* As mentioned in the page quote, ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'' exists in a world where [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] meets Awesome meets horrible camera-induced frustration. When you're not crouched down, the camera is basically three inches from the back of your head, making it impossible to see anything. When you ''can'' see anything, ''aiming'' is another task altogether: You're either moving it at a snail's pace or so quickly you turn yourself around sixteen times trying to go left before someone grabs the last bagel. Not fun.

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'': [[Scrappy Level|Macalania Cloister of Trials]] has a puzzle that requires players to create an icy path by putting spheres in the right place. When the player finishes and goes to use said path, the player must be careful not to step on a tile that partially resets the puzzle. The problem? The camera angle suddenly changes right before reaching the tile, and if you don't know it's coming, the player will step on it.

* The first ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' can be frustrating at times due to the small rooms in some levels like Wonderland or Monstro causing the camera to spin everywhere at the slightest hint of movement. Thankfully this was fixed for the sequel.

** Also, there are several sections of exact jumping where the camera veers away from the walls and makes your life incredibly difficult. For example, the platforming sections in Deep Jungle and Wonderland.

** The DS title ''Kingdom Hearts 358/2'' Days has an unskippable stealth sequence that starts you off with a fixed camera. You can turn off the target camera, but the way the other camera works means it is very difficult (at no fault of the player) to follow Pete without accidentally turning the camera in a completely different direction while attempting to move.

** In ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]'', the camera is fairly cooperative most of the time, but with the reintroduction of platforming to the series, vertical platforming is hit-or-miss, and much of the detail in the stages is hard to see, mostly due to the inability to look up/down while moving in third person.

* ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'' loves combining this with rancor fights, locking the camera onto the rancor from a ground-level-Indiana-boulder perspective. The beasties have a large enough reach already before attempts to retreat run the player into stage walls and exploding flowers half the time.

* ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'' is an isometric view that has a camera that can only rotate a fraction of the full 360 degrees. This is used to hide things like chests and hidden passages.

* ''[[Persona 4]]'' has an intentional case found in the Void Quest dungeon. In the 7th floor the camera will abruptly shift in every crossroad, effectively disorienting you. Quite lethal, specially if you found yourself running ''into'' the shadow you were trying to escape moments earlier.

** Additionally when you open doors and step through the camera focus can screw up for a few seconds which means that the Shadow next to the door can get the first move.

* It's naturally one of the many complaints of ''[[Quest 64]]''.

* In ''[[Demon's Souls]]'', it was evidently decided that a horde of demons wasn't enough to deal with, and [[Everything Trying to Kill You]] extends even to the [[Camera Lock On]]. Targeting the wrong enemy in some games is annoying, but targeting the wrong enemy in this game can be outright fatal, particularly in those segments where you're walking along a narrow ledge, a powerful enemy is just ahead, and your target lock decides it would rather pick the giant flying enemy far from the stage oh wait you were pressing forward weren't you whoops goodbye.

 

** [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]] has its share as a consequence of the more cinematic approach to camera angles compared to [[Metal Gear Solid]] which almost always had the camera top down(except for corner view and first person).

* ''[[Assassin's Creed]] 2'' has platforming sequences a la [[Uncharted]]. ''Timed'' platforming sequences in some cases. You may have got your moves down pat when freerunning over Venice (or even practicing aforementioned sequences before triggering the timer), but it's a whole 'nother ballgame when you try to do the same thing with a "helpful" camera screwing with your perspective every step of the way. ...it's a [[Prince of Persia|Ubisoft]] thing.

 

== [[Survival Horror]] ==

** Beautifully creepy cinematography aside, most of the sequels keep this and compound it with difficult combat controls (which is somewhat intended canon, as the protagonist is supposed to be a noob rather than a spy) to make many mook fights frustrating, item-expensive, or downright ''lethal'', as the camera aggressively moves every which way but towards oncoming enemies.

*** Presumably to compensate for the extremely limited camera control in the first game, the developers designed the controls so that Harry would always move forward when the player pressed "up," backward when the player pressed "down," and walk in an arc when the player pressed "right" or "left." Perhaps not a bad solution for its time, but absolutely maddening if you're used to "up" moving the character away from the camera, "down" making the character rotate toward the camera and move in that direction, and "left" or "right" making the character rotate while staying in one spot. Often while being [[The Determinator|relentlessly chased by]] something nasty.

** And, of course, the original was the originator of the fixed-camera survival horror angle where movement was based entirely on camera angle, sometimes resulting in pressing a given direction walking you halfway across the room and then repeatedly switching between views because the camera angles were flipped 180 degrees.

* In the ''[[The Blair Witch Project|Blair Witch]]'' PC game, one part of the forced tutorial level is to explain that when you're given a bad camera angle with the game's survival horror style camera, you should retreat to another area with a better camera angle.

 

== [[Wide Open Sandbox]] ==

* ''[[Spore]]'', in the space phase, will sometimes, in the heat of battle, have the camera suddenly pull up.

** In the PC port of both ''San Andreas'' and ''GTA IV'', it is possible to freely control the camera with the mouse... but if you stop moving the mouse for more than a second while driving, the camera refocuses to the back of the car.

*** ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV|GTA IV]]'' took the camera to incredible levels of stupidity by turning it into a chase camera that initially sits slightly to the left of the car, which gives you the feeling you aren't driving straight. While the new camera was controllable so that you could shoot better (near full 360 degrees worth of in-car shooting), it also required you to maintain a very, very slight rightward pressure on the camera control stick to get the camera behind the car. That's ''real'' fun to do for longer than 30 seconds.

* ''[[Second Life]]'' is this way if you are in crowded areas. By default, the camera cannot clip through objects and can only zoom out at a limited distance. If your avatar is behind a wall, the camera will zoom in really close just to let player be able to see their avatar. While you can change the camera to be able to clip into objects, it may also create a problem where objects block your view and you can't see yourself.

 

 

* Parodied in one of ''[[X-Play|Extended Play]]'''s funniest skits, where Adam Sessler struggles to operate in a world that suddenly has ''[[Resident Evil]]''-style camera angles and control problems. The scene where he tries to leave the bathroom is short, but brilliant.