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Why did in game cameras take so long to get good?๐Ÿค” (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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It was new technology, 3D was a fairly new concept in gaming in the mid 90s. But it took so long to get properly implemented. You have super mario 64, gex enter the gecko, lemmings 3D. I am wondering if it was a business decision and not the devs who pushed for a free roaming camera, since it was clearly not a satisfactory result gameplay wise. Because at the same era, you have games with fixed camera angles that are much better experiences overall.

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[โ€“] 9 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Similarly, if you go back even further into console and PC gaming history you can find some game that use what, looking back, would be considered terrible control layout and/or gameplay mechanics.

You can just say resident evil.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I played OG Doom for years with keyboard only. Up/Down arrow for forward/backwards, Left/Right to turn, and then holding Alt to strafe. RIght hand on the arrow keys and left hand controlling strafe/run/weapon selection.

    I don't honestly recall if mouselook was even an option back then, but I tried playing with those keyboard only controls recently and literally could not even. It's kinda wild how hard it is to imagine anything other than WASD-mouse for a FPS these days.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Mouselook was an option, but since the engine didn't have any options for looking up and down, it always felt weird to play with a mouse.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Was mouselook an option in version 1.0?

    I believe they had a weird hybrid with mouse looking around and also moving forward and back.

    It was definitely a time where they were figuring out how to make control schemes work, how to use two-button mice, etc. I remember playing Unreal (not Tournament!) with the numpad and thinking it was great.

    wasd-standardization is one of the best breakthroughs in computer gaming in the last 25 or so years.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I don't know if it was in 1.0 but definitely before the final version. I tried it before 1.666 was around and chose to play keyboard only.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Yup, I know it was there later, just not sure if it was always there. I do remember that later versions had significant improvements to their setup utility (which may have included mouselook)

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