Some time in the 2010's, a new wave of criticisms emerged for 5th and 6th gen 3D platformers about the supposedly gamebreakingly bad cameras that result in constant frustration and cheap deaths. People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new, so what changed?
Well, yesterday I was playing Conker's Bad Fur Day for the first time, and at one point, the camera yanked away when I was in the middle of some platforming. However, there was no frustration or failure because I already knew where the surface I intended to land on was as I'd seen it before the camera jerked. And that's when it hit me.
The problem for these new wave idiot critics is that they lack object permanence. Object permanence is the ability to understand that something is there even when you can't see it. Many people with cognitive disabilities can't perform these operations in their brain, and it's surprisingly common: any OSHA lesson will show you videos of morons in scissor lifts hitting their heads on ceilings because their puny brains didn't assume the ceiling they weren't looking at even existed. We know that an IQ of 100 is woefully underequipped for abstract thinking and that half the population has an IQ below 100, so it makes sense that as gaming has become more popular, there's been an increase in gamers incapable of invisible displacement; nerds like us aren't the majority of gamers anymore, but rather people with double-digit IQ's.
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This sounds like a pasta, but I'll say that I hear people criticize the camera in SM64 a lot, but I never found it to be an issue.
Same. I've had people tell me online that the reason I don't see any major problem with the camera is because I'm blinded by nostalgia, when really it's that I care to read instructions.
You don't even have to read instructions. Just fiddle around with the camera for like a minute and you get the gist of how to work it. It's fine once you're used to it
I had this happen once too, but it made more sense when I had a 50-something guy tell me about it. He had been playing since the 70s but struggled with Mario 64 because he found running in the correct direction to not be intuitive. Said the only 3D he liked were ones where they gave you camera control, like on PC or dual stick consoles.
That said, I do remember also seeing reviews in Nintendo Power that trashed games with bad camera. MegaMan 64 was one such title, though I dunno if that is really accurate. Maybe they just thought it was clunky and awkward compared to Mario 64, which frankly, I would agree with.
I'll admit Mario 64's camera is a little wonky at times and you do have to work with it, but saying that it's gamebreakingly bad and ruins the whole experience just makes you come off as some homosexual pissbaby.
The problem is they don't use a notched analog stick
Not a pasta
Banjo Kazooie's camera is MUCH worse
you hit the R button, and it goes behind you.
That's a pretty good explanation, but in a lot of cases it's just people looking for an excuse for why they suck. I was watching some guy play DW5 Empires and he immediately starting crying about the camera as soon as he was getting his ass kicked even though the camera had nothing to do with it.
They're not 100% wrong but I feel like they never consider the time period with a lot of these games or why they were important for their time. I can't say I really care about modern game journos or their opinions on the games I grew up with though, sadly
This is true as well
This came out more inflammatory than it was supposed to. Not a knock against you OP, I agree with you here
Any Musou player worth their salt knows that you use the guard button to reset the camera. Although DW5 had a really zoomed in camera for whatever reason, probably to reduce the number of on screen characters.
>movement is relative to camera position
>Pressing forwards move the character away from the camera
>Pressing forwards and moving at speed
>Camera changes angle completely and now forward is suddenly in a completely different direction of travel
>Unless you have good reaction times, this usually means that forward momentum is being directed in some unintended direction, often falling off a cliff.
>To continue the former direction of travel, to continue moving "forwards" now you need to be pulling the stick either left or right relative to the new camera position
It's as simple as that, it's not that people are morons and lack the capacity for spatial awareness, people don't complain about it anymore because 3D games movement code is now more sophisticated than
>Pressing forwards just means run away from the camera
And if it does change, is contextualised to what the player was already doing when the camera changed.
>It's as simple as that, it's not that people are morons and lack the capacity for spatial awareness
But you literally just described something that would only be a problem for a moron with low reaction times and no spatial awareness.
No, you just need to learn when the camera is going to change and for people who like retro games have replayed these games over and over, that becomes second nature to know
>Oh I'm coming up to that point where the camera stops being behind Sonic, but turns into some weird Resident Evil-like scene and the controls change without warning
the incredible thing is that OP is such a moron he has mistaken learning something via repetition as something that indicates a high IQ
>replayed
But OP played Conker for the first time yesterday
Anon cherry picked an example of the camera being shit and throwing that character off but nevertheless surviving once, then based off that surmised that every single example of anyone ever saying cameras for 5th gen platformers were kind of shit is the result of mass and widespread mental moronation.
But that's not true, it was never a matter of repetition for me.
Well hooray, you've got quite a flex there.
all you have to do in sonic specifically is hold forward so this shouldn't even be an issue for sonic fans
That's wrong. I remember in Sonic Heros there is a loop. Naturally you'd want to hold forward since it's ahead of you to run up the loop. What ends up happening is the camera suddenly jerks to the right and your controls change due to the sudden change in perspective. So if you started the loop holding up then you will find yourself flinging Sonic to the left of the loop to his death.
What you're suppose to do is get to the loop and put your controller down because the game plays it for you.
You're an idiot. Every review of every 3D platformer made before the PS2 mentions something somewhere about a bad camera.
>People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new, so what changed?
They absolutely did though. Even the lauded games would have "camera can be frustrating" listed in the criticisms.
The cameras and controls in games like tomb raider or Sonic adventure were never considered good even in their time. It also has nothing to do with whatever sperg cope you've convinced yourself of to think you're a giga brain for playing a video game.
It's because a full 3D environment with a character locked camera is a terrible idea, and until devs were smart enough to unlock the camera and assign it to an analog stick it was a constant problem for console games. PC gaming never had the issue because mouse control of the camera became common place.
>PC gaming never had the issue because mouse control of the camera became common place.
PC gaming was overwhelmingly "player is the camera" - FPS and wienerpit games. You don't have a camera problem when you ARE the camera. It's not until you get 3rd person games where there's an issue, and they overwhelmingly used locked cameras. Mouse control of a 3rd person camera became commonplace by the time right stick cameras became standard. N64 pioneered the concept but since it was 4 digital buttons it doesn't feel like a 2000s camera.
The Sonic Adventure schizoposter is like the Croc schizoposter but way less funny
It really is
People and reviews absolutely dogged the camera in these games back then. Because it could be and was done better in other games.
you guys will invent and then "beat" any argument you can imagine just to feel better than le journos/normies because you lack accomplishments in real life
>a well understood quirk of early 3d game design is actually the player's fault
thread hidden
Castlevania 64 was shit on when it first came out because of the camera. Camera and depth perception issues were the big reason why games making the transition to 3D back then was so controversial.
The only game that ever gave me trouble was Crash Bandicoot 2 because it makes you backtrack through some forked paths for boxes, and the forward-facing camera doesn't exactly facilitate that.
do you really expect me to believe half the population has an iq below fricking 100? this is some im14andthisisdeep garbage. yes we live in a society i get it
Games started switching to camera relative controls, so when the camera jerked around so did the character you supposedly controlled.
At the same time people weren't able to grasp tank controls which already solved this issue.
Thus the age of shit games began.
Tank controls are fricking amazing. There are still innovations to be made in the field as well. Such as varying speeds tweaking the behavior of your controls.
I spit on video gaming. P'too!
>numeric generation nonsense
kys
some pf you really want the npc meme to be real, huh?
>supposedly gamebreakingly bad cameras that result in constant frustration and cheap deaths. People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new
I can't fricking stand the sonic autists on this board. Here are quotes from a review from 1999:
>To further the problems caused by this lack of consistency, the cameras for Sonic Adventure, though they have been cleaned up considerably from the oftentimes painful Japanese release, are still incredibly frustrating at points.
>the controls have a nasty habit of being dependant on he viewpoint. So much so, in fact, that you've got my personal guarantee that they will kill you more than you're lack of gameplay skills
>I just can't tell you how many times I cursed at the screen like a sailor due to some sort of visually impaired demise. There is nothing more annoying than busting your ass for 20 minutes to get through a level only to bite it right before the next checkpoint because the camera has just swapped the absolute definitions of left and right at your expense.
Sonic Adventure has always been a mediocre game. The camera and the controls were bad when I played it on the Dreamcast over 20 years ago, and they're still bad today.
The "zoomers making youtube videos are the only reason people don't like 3D sonic games" contrarianism is pathetic.
>Here are quotes from a review from 1999
The game was acclaimed when it launched and overwhelmingly didn't have its camera panned. One review from a singular moron in a sea of competent people is as much a rebuttal as "NO! PEOPLE DON'T HAVE 10 FINGERS! LOOK AT THIS AMPUTEE!"
That review was from IGN. Here are quotes from 3 other reviews from 1999 or 2000:
>The game's camera is the most notable issue, but collision problems occasionally show up, as well. Most of the time, the camera doesn't get in the way of play, but it's annoyingly spastic in tight areas, and it can get caught under floors and behind walls, sometimes resulting in unnecessary deaths. - GameSpot
>Also worth mentioning are the numerous instances of pop-up, slowdown, bad camera angles, and funky collision detection - Next Generation
>The only drawback is the sometimes awkward camera angle - AllGame
Metacritic doesn't have an entry for the Dreamcast release, but see the attached image for reviews of the GameCube version, released in 2003 (7 years before you said these complaints first appeared).
These 5 are just the ones where the summary mentions the word "camera". Most of the other reviews are dead links, but the only one I found that was still online (Game Chronicles) had this to say about the camera:
>one of the most crippled cameras in 3D gaming history (VEXX has been dethroned), and when the camera isn’t getting hung up on the environment Sonic will stick to anything he gets next to.
You are simply wrong when you say that this complaint didn't exist before the 2010s. Your argument is not consistent with reality. This is the reason people say sonic fans are mentally ill. They are literally delusional and will believe their own fantasies instead of empirical evidence.
The Dreamcast game was acclaimed on release. Nobody said the camera ruined the game until 201X
Why bother even responding if all you're going to do is move the goalposts again?
Your argument already went from "nobody complained about the camera before 2010" to "the overwhelming majority of reviewers didn't complain about the camera" and now is apparently "nobody specifically said the camera 'ruined the game'".
If I find a review where someone said that exact phrase are you going to change your argument to "nobody ever committed suicide because of the camera issues in Sonic Adventure"?
Even most of the positive reviews I found mentioned the camera as either the sole problem or one of the negatives. The fact that most of the reviews were positive on the balance doesn't negate the fact that the camera was frequently criticized on release.
Just admit you were wrong.
>move the goalposts
Let's look at the OP:
>supposedly gamebreakingly bad cameras
So you agree that the camera in Sonic Adventure was frequently criticized on release, including for the fact that it caused unnecessary deaths (GameSpot), and your sole argument is that one one ever specifically called the camera "gamebreakingly bad" or said it "ruined the game" in those exact words?
There's no other reason to split hairs that finely except to preserve your own ego.
>and your sole argument
The basis of my argument is the new wave of criticisms for 5th and 6th gen 3D platformers about the supposedly gamebreakingly bad cameras, which emerged in the 2010's. You're not clever.
From the OP:
>People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new, so what changed?
If a "new wave of criticism" did emerge in the 2010s (by which I guess you mean the reviews for the PS3 and 360 ports which released in 2010), and they criticized the camera then those would not be new complaints. I've proven that they are the same complaints reviewers have always had about Sonic Adventure.
Your assertion that something changed in the 2010s is completely baseless.
Yeah mate nothing changed at all in the 2010's that's why early 3D games went from critical acclaim to being considered dogshit by e-celebs
Here again you've stopped discussion of the specific point (were contemporary reviewers of Sonic Adventure's camera critical of its camera?) to a vague statement that the world in the 2010's wasn't exactly the same as it was in 1999. You know you've lost the specific argument, so you're trying to move on to an unfalsifiable position.
>early 3D games went from critical acclaim
>being considered dogshit by e-celebs
Just more garbage claims with no evidence.
All early 3D games were released to critical acclaim? This is obviously untrue. Glover was never considered the equal of Mario 64
All "e-celebs" hate all early 3D games? I'm sure I could find youtube videos praising almost any of them.
>Brings up Glover for no reason
The 10 fingers phenomenon in full force.
>blaming opposing viewpoints on "e-celebs"
Ah yes, another "everyone is brainwashed but me" poster. Why are there so many of you?
>game is released with pretty new and unfamiliar technology/mechanics
>"i guess this is just how it is"
>later games are released with much more refined technology/mechanics
>look back on older games
>"wow, i didnt realize just how shitty these older games actually were at the time, but now that i see how good it CAN be, it really stands out"
even assuming "nobody noticed or cared at release", how the frick are you surprised?
It's just that you got too comfortable with convenience. That doesn't make things that work retroactively "shitty".
I very distinctly remember the camera being the biggest criticism of SA 1 and 2 when they came out. And I remember personally thinking how ass it was in 1 and how they made it worse somehow in 2 and someone who played the games on DC. Especially SA2. There was plenty of 3D games with good cameras out at the time. SA just had a shit camera
I don't understan't what your problem is, Sonic Team specifically programmed camera to always point where you should go.
I should go towards the whale
That would be fantastic if that was true. But you know god damn well that’s a lie you mother fricker. The camera acts like the GTA cinematic camera and gets cool angles. The geometry of the game is even designed around and exaggerated for this effect so even mods can’t fix it. It very frequently points opposite of where you’re trying to go
>It's just that you got too comfortable with convenience.
>Uses a form of convenience to communicate
meant for
>car engine consistently backfires
>belt squeals
>muffler loud as frick
>"but my car still WORKS, that doesnt mean it's shitty!"
>"you're just too comfortable with the convenience of a car that runs smoothly!"
>20 minutes to get through a level
Honestly, it never really occurred to me as a kid that a game could have a "bad camera". You kind of just took what the game threw at you. That was part of playing a game.
What happened is that at some point shooters became the defacto main genre of video games, and people got very accustomed to the idea that the camera should either be in the character's head, or just behind his back, and pointing forward at all times.
ITT: sub 100 iq dimwits raging with anger
sonic autists are embarassing.
>ackshually not being able to schee where you're going ische fine becausche I have memowizched da entiwe game becausche of my speciawe autischte bwain
there was no 'new wave of criticisms', you were a child and therefore paid no attention to critics, and now you're eternally seething because you've woken up into the real world, matrix-style, to find that your beloved favourite autist game was actually dogshit all along.
the problem with sonic's camera yanking itself in random directions, besides being sloppy like the entire rest of the game, is that your movement inputs are relative to its orientation, and the game can't decide whether to keep moving sonic in your initial direction or not. the player doesn't get confused - sonic himself gets confused. this is why if you're going to frick with the camera orientation you should be using tank controls, which is why
is absolutely true, but your pasta is indicative of an autistic virgin with a room full of embarassing manchild sonic memorabilia and a sperg-rage complex about how shit he is.
skill issue
They literally had to redesign and rerelease Metal Gear Solid 3 because the camera was so fricking shit.
One of the greatest games ever made.
Op just wants to feel superior than others. gay.
People above a certain IQ threshold beat the original MGS3 and had fun with it. People below that threshold couldn't and asked for a revision of it. Not that hard to understand.
>People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new
Yes they did.
SA is better than Mario 64. Not even up for debate.
Whatever makes you feel superior to other people, OP. Unfortunately for you, the inside of your head is the only place where that's actually true.
That’s so fricking moronic, more likely than not these are kids who never played these games like we had and take for granted a lot of the QoL improvements made.
dunning-kruger ass post
You know how the OP filtered half of the people in this thread when they are stuck talking angrily about SA1 yet the text is about N64 games. I'd call that masterful baiting.
What a gay thread. OP's a pseudo-homosexual.
RUNNING AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOUND
Early 3D controls can be rough for modern palates. Most people are used to the official 3D third-person control scheme every game uses these days but in the earlier days of 3D it was the wild west. Some people refuse to adapt to old control styles and just consider it all "bad controls," or "clunky, whether it's one button pinball platforming in Sonic, tank controls, God Hand's lock-on system, or early camera controls in 3D games.
I don't understand the hatred for the camera in SA1 and SA2. There are a handful of levels where it shits the bed but for the most part the camera always points you in the direction you need to go. I don't know if I've just become accustomed to it or if people are just morons.
I don't think any of those things are shitty.
In fact I'd love some real cobbled boots made by a good craftsman.
good job outing yourself as somebody that has never experienced any of those things, and you're just speaking from ignorance.
I grew up with half of those things, and cars from the 30's are coveted collector's items.
I can guarantee you a well made pair of boots, made by a real craftsman, would be better than half of the Chinese factory shit people are comfortable wearing these days.
yes, a collectors item. a piece of history. a novelty. not a quality product, not something coveted for its performance or experience. and i guarantee that you have never worn a hand cobbled shoe of any kind.
I'm not gonna read any of this thread cause I don't care and I'm not a sonic pedophile, but vehicles and people disappearing/spontaneously spawning in both the GTA series and Saints Row when you turn your camera away from them is utterly fricking unforgivable, ESPECIALLY on PC where limited memory isn't a problem. There is nothing that takes me out of the game more than that shit.
>People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new
You're senile. Camera was mentioned in many, many contemporary reviews of 5th gen games, and of course this problem tapered off over time.
I wonder how much of that was 3d being new to the players as much as the devs? There was no typical twin stick camera to compare to
Bad cameras exist today, like in Mario 3D World. That said, while you can develop habits to compensate for a bad camera (and I have), you should never need to do that.
Mario 3D World doesn't have a bad camera.
In fact it has a well designed camera for the kind of game it is. The wide angles facilitate multiple players.
It is objectively bad because the camera system was designed for a device with a stereoscopic 3D display, yet when the sequel came out for 2D displays, they didn't add a full orbiting camera. It still has 3D gameplay, yet retains a 2.5D camera like Klonoa or something. It's fricking awful and you can find plenty of posts where people complain about it.
Not /vr/ but it is trying to evoke a /vr/ feel.
You have shit eyes.
Even games with not-great cameras like Mario 64 and Sonic Adventure at least allow you to line up jumps orthogonally. For some reason isometric platformers are universally hated, but, according to you, when Mario does literally the same thing it's the players' eyes at fault.
>any OSHA lesson will show you videos of morons in scissor lifts hitting their heads on ceilings because their puny brains didn't assume the ceiling they weren't looking at even existed
How arrogant of you. People can get lost in focus on what they are doing, leading to accidents. People get tired at work, especially if they have young children, which I'm sure you know nothing about.
>lost in focus
Apparently not focusing on where their head is going
Bad camera complaint: I suck and got filtered
I liked older game cameras
Alright, you cheeky c**t, the time to judge you has come. Here's a playthrough of Sonic's story.
Point where in this playthrough the camera does something even remotely objectionable. I won't force you to watch the entire video if that rustles your jimmies. Just timestamp one instance in each of first three levels.
where in that entire post did he specifically call out sonic? who is to say that the op's pic isnt even related? as far as im concerned, its just an example of a weird change in camera that happens in an older game. at most, its an example of a situation where "holding forward does not move you forward in regards to the camera's orientation".
OP spoke of conker and the thread is gays b***hing about sonic
It's OP's fault for using a picture of Sonic in his post.
It's not morons' fault for not reading?
>op's pic isnt even related?
That pic depicts the most braindead part of the level that reaqures the least interaction from the player. There's no way this specific part of the level would confuse someome or frustrate him, or cause him to lose a life.Emphasis on "him".
I beat Armored Core for the first time this week (no human plus either) and the controls were pretty easy to catch on to after some practice. I've also never had an issue with tank controls.
I'm pretty stupid though, so I don't believe IQ has much to do with being able to intuit older game controls or cameras. I think the real issue is the current majority of gamers are lazy and suck at games in general, so they blame any issues on the game itself rather than themselves.
>the current majority of gamers are lazy and suck at games in general, so they blame any issues on the game itself rather than themselves
In truth, a lot of people just don't like old things. Half the reason they play videogames is to feel like part of the "party." So, if they DO try an old game, they feel very unmotivated to meet it on its own terms.
Early-gen Armored Core controls are bad and always have been. I personally love mecha, so I chose to get past that, and eventually came to regard mastery of the controls as a badge of honor -- but only because I had already done so.
>Half the reason they play videogames is to feel like part of the "party."
This is 100% correct. Most of people's opinions are also simply what they've been told to believe by some "authority" as well.
As for thread topic. A lot of old 3d games do suck and sucked at the time. Many are fine, though. It depends on the game.
>a lot of people just don't like old things
For sure. I dated a zoomer girl once and she was hesitant to watch anything from before the 2000s because it 'looked too old'.
>Half the reason they play videogames is to feel like part of the "party."
It's a very weird mentality. I've played games all my life and love them, it's my biggest hobby. But I've never really considered myself as part of the culture, at least not the culture as it presents itself today. Maybe it has to do with gaming and nerd stuff in general being an outlier culture in the past compared to now where it's mainstream.
>Early-gen Armored Core controls are bad and always have been
My viewpoint is probably biased since I got a handle on them. In my eyes if I can figure something out most people should since I'm an average joe. To me the biggest issue with it is the camera rather than the controls themselves, but I guess they go hand-in-hand when discussing one or the other.
I still think 99% of people complaining about RE style tank controls are just being lazy however.
>I've never really considered myself as part of the culture
After I learned to drive, I decided to "find my people" and go to a convention. Never again.
>if I can figure something out most people should since I'm an average joe
You're instincts are correct, it isn't really about ability, it's about investment. One big issue that exacerbates the controls are the shitty starter parts you receive. So, not only are the controls obtuse, but you can hardly turn, fly, etc.
>People didn't complain about these things back when the games were new
yes, they did.
What are you talking about OP. Bad cameras were a huge problem in 3D games up until like the mid 2000s
I was diagnosed with ADHD and a potential symptom is issues with object permanence. So yes, that could be accurate. I basically can't finish any game with a "bad" camera and I get lost extremely easily in keycard hunt games like Quake or Doom.
I should've bumped this thread off when I had the chance.
You Redditors really bump the worst goddamn threads.
you seem to know a lot about reddit
they were literally a joke even when they were new.
No? Everyone had the Nokia 3310. It was a good, reliable phone.
Plus it had snake
I complained about it a lot at the time, honestly, but only for the Nintendo 64. Between the shit camera angles and even shitter controller, there were few games I found playable on that console even in the '90s. I stuck with SNES for my action/platformer fix until Dreamcast and PS2 came out (didn't see the camera issues as a problem on PS1, though, they just didn't have many good 3D action games on it).
The issue with a camera jerking for me has only ever been that it sometimes means you have to counteract its rotation to the character.
The problem with shit camera angles in general is that you're sometimes moved forward without seeing what was there ever before. Not that you can't see the thing you were looking at before.
I've seen people complain about platforming in fps games and never understood it. But not being able to see the floor in relation to their feet throws them off. Some people think better in 3d than others.