Your thoughts on franchises gone 3D?

[jbanes]

Personally, I think they threw out most of the lessons learned from trying to perfect a 3D camera around the time Super Mario 64 came out.

Navigating 3D space is an incredibly difficult problem. Not only do you need to keep a line of site with the character (making sure that there are no obstructions in the way), but you need to ensure that the "shot" conveys a good sense of the scene at hand. Throw camera-based controls into the mix (i.e. forward is "into" the camera rather than directly in front of the character) and you make the problem about 1000x more difficult. Now you have to juggle getting a good shot AND making sure the camera is somewhere sensible for the direction the character wants to go!

 

That's why most games these days cheat like a poker player. Rather than trying to navigate the camera through the level, the camera is more or less affixed to a particular position in relation to the character. When the camera passes through a wall, the polygons are rendered with alpha-blending so that you can see right through them! Cheap, but effective!

[SINGLE TOOTH]

Actualy, super mario 64 had a horrible camera that always needed adjustment.

[jbanes]

Actualy, super mario 64 had a horrible camera that always needed adjustment.

I do believe that was his point.