During the mid 70's only two companies were experimenting with FPS games, Atari and Taito. Its not clear which came first, Atari's Starship-1 or Taito's Interceptor, however the graphics, gameplay and peripherals utilized in Interceptor were more in line with what became common in these sorts of games at a later stage (A flight stick, squad formations etc). This is why its surprising that when Taito made Space Invaders in 1978 they decided to use the view as utilized in their previous game Missile X (overhead), rather than the one used in Interceptor. Even though enemies in Interceptor attacked in squad like formations, and the control scheme allowed for 8-way movement in the first-person, Taito decided to go with an overhead view and 2-way movement. Why do you think they chose this route? Was it the price of manufacturing the cabinets with flight sticks that proved to be too high risk?
Interceptor (1976)
I don't believe Taito made this decision based merely on cost, and my feeling is that Nishikado realized the realistic POV offered by the first-person view would not be worth the trade offs that had to be made as a result. Nishikado had the foresight to see that through utilizing an overhead perspective Space Invaders was able to create an interesting play space that could not be done in first-person at the time. Here there was a small turret like figure (the player) facing a huge fleet of enemies that were moving upon him with increasing speed and attacking in random intervals. This was made obvious from the start of the game, and gave the player an understanding of what was expected of them if they wanted to survive. The fact that players could see the patterns and still have enough time to react while occasionally taking cover behind his/her shield then helped create this interesting and fun sandbox that facilitated risk reward style gameplay, which was difficult if not impossible to work in other first-person titles like Battlezone, with its wireframe style graphics and tank-style controls.
As a result it was Space Invaders, not Battlezone that conquered the world, and this third-person view became the standard for Japanese, and even American games for many years to come. This lasted around 14 years, until the early 90's when Wolfenstein 3D came along and the FPS began to capture the hearts of gamers around the world. It was a radical departure from the many platforming side scrollers that were popular at the time, offering a different kind of action packed experience. Being distributed solely through shareware, its remarkable that Wolfenstein 3D was so popular as the internet had not begun in earnest. Even Nintendo had taken notice of this, and wanted the game on their Super Nintendo system (a first for real-time first-person shooters). For some reason though, even with a cut down console release it never quite caught on in Japan. Was it too censored to be interesting? Maybe, but then even when Doom came along in late 1993 and innovated on the FPS format, larger Japanese developers seemed to be completely oblivious of this craze, and instead were starting to invest in Light Gun shooters, which were an evolution of the mounted gun games preceding them. The big Japanese companies like Konami, Capcom and Sega surely knew the market potential of first-person shooters during this time, not only that but first-person adventure games in general. Why were games like 1992's Ultima: Underworld unnoticed by almost all Japanese developers apart from Kings Field creators From Software?
Or maybe the light gun shooter was actually Japans initial response to the first-person shooter? Light gun games would have been better suited to arcade business models, and players were accustomed to peripherals in the arcades rather than keyboards and mice. The evolution of the mounted gun into the light gun therefore offered new and interesting play spaces, along with advances in graphics of course. This would also explain why most of the first-person games that were not light gun games produced in Japan during the early PS1 days were by non-arcade developers. Using the example of From Software, here was a studio who developed 3D environments in first-person what were comparible, if not better to the competition (Elder Scrolls: Arena). Similarly, the mechanics of Tecmo's Deception series were unlike anything seen in Western first-person games, System Shock included.
When Epic entered the market in 1998 with Unreal, perhaps some of the bigger Japanese companies began to take note though, even fearing for what it might represent in the long term. With Unreal Tim Sweeney had designed a game engine that was purposefully designed for both performance and modding, an alluring alternative to ID softwares Quake 2 engine. The Japanese didn't seem to take much notice though, even though the Unreal engine was gaining immense popularity in the West. What this meant is that most Japanese developers continued to focus on familiar genres such as 2D games, while slowly moving their work flow into 3D by adding polygons in place of sprites. Notable examples would be R-Type, Tomba, and Tekken, the latter which began as a 2-axis polygon game, and only by its third iteration was able to shift into the 3D play space. Similarly, games like Super Mario 64 experimented with first-person views, but only when players were not in motion.
Due to the strong console and arcade market at the time, and the fact that Western companies did not have such strong roots in arcade and action adventure games the third-person approach was widely accepted by the gaming community as perfectly suitable for the high end gaming market, which would explain the massive popularity of games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Tony Hawks Pro Skater. These games were created with just the D-pad in mind, unlike the first-person shooters and their more advanced 3D control schemes, but still managed to offer something different, and just as deep as the first-person shooter. As for Light Gun games, they too evolved, offering a decent alternative to twitch shooter FPS games as players were able to use their arms in place of the keyboard to set up their sights, a much more natural way of shooting than using an analog controller or mouse. When Time Crisis came and added a cover mechanic the light gun game began to merge a little more with the first-person shooter, a good day in gaming history. Were these trade-offs worth it though? Did Japan shoot themselves in the foot by not licensing out their engines as per the business model in the States at the time? Unfortunately due to vertical monopolies in the telephony industry Japan didn't have a shareware approach to game engines and games in general at the time. This article uncovers the tumultuous history of Japans internet evolution, and how even well into the 90's they were lagging behind countries such as the U.S. For games that were primarily distributed through the internet via shareware (Wolfenstein 3D and Doom). This is an indication of why Japan was left out of the loop so to speak with regards to FPS games and shareware game engines in general. Also, if you look at the size of the arcade market during the time of Doom its quite sensible why bigger Japanese companies would look past FPS games even though they had been selling in the millions. Japanese companies might have expected Unreal and ID Software style business models to be a fad, rather than something which would affect their own production lines sometime down the line.
I don't think all Japanese developers were close minded to the first-person shooter, even though history seems to say otherwise. For instance, some developers in Capcom (like Tokuro Fujiwara and Shinji Mikami) had always been keen on the first-person approach with Resident Evil, but after some prototyping in 1995 decided against this. When Capcom did finally attempt it in 1999 the results ended up being a mixed bag. On the one hand the environments and zombies were beautiful in 3D, and brought a fresh perspective to Resident Evil. On the other hand though the mechanics were incomplete and all survival elements were ruined. This half hearted approach did not do the FPS any favors in Japan thats for sure. One year later Capcom would release a mounted gun spin-off of this game in arcades which featured an unorthodox control scheme. Was this the evolution of the first person shooter? Probably not, as Capcom ported this game to the PS2 and altered its control scheme, then released two more sequels after that. If anything Capcom and Namco should be applauded for trying to bring FPS gaming into the Japanese gaming industry, and have effectively managed to keep the arcade style gameplay while adding movement gameplay mechanics to evolve the light gun shooter in similar ways with games like Time Crisis. No other developers were really pursuing these kinds of games though, probably because first-person shooters had not yet really taken off in the console market in a big enough way to attract mainstream attention. What was taking off though were sports games and 3D platformers, and it was during this time the Japanese gaming industry was witnessing an economic earthquake so to speak from the rise of cutthroat Western business practices. This all meant that Japanese games were generally viewed more unfavorably than Western produced games, paving the way for high profile studios like Activision, EA, Naughty Dog and Rockstar to gain leverage over their Japanese competition in the genres of Sports, Action Adventure, and Sandbox games, many genres which they had pioneered and brought to the mainstream gaming communities of the world.
Resident Evil: Dead Aim's (multiple views) compared to Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (slight screen zoom)
Ironically, even though Japanese games are not being looked upon as favorably by the Western press as before, this hasn't stopped the Japanese from innovating even within the realms of the first-person genre. This speaks for the creativity and resilience of Japanese game developers, but also a publishing model that promotes creativity and unproven ideas rather than incremental updates. Multiple Japanese developers (in small quantities) have sought to evolve the First-Person shooter genre with new methods that incorporate either new movement mechanics, or ADS (aiming down the sights). The former is playable with a normal game controller, while the latter requires innovative new game controllers. Examples would be Breakdown (2004), and Resident Evil: Dead Aim (2003).
While Breakdown stuck within the confines of the first-person camera view and evolved player movement mechanics in interesting ways, Resident Evil: Dead Aim was a title that really incorporated the best of both the Third and First person perspectives while hinting to the evolution of current generation game controllers. Its a game that in many ways could have only come from Japan, with its long history of evolving and inventing new game genres through changing control schemes. Similarly, the Nintendo Wii attempted to bring that same evolution to first-person shooters with its on screen pointer approach, but much like its approach to light gun games, the effort is sadly half hearted at best. Since the release of the Wii then things have been relatively quiet, with very few developers attempting to evolve the control scheme of first or third-person shooters. In many ways light gun games have regressed to their former state, rather than evolving through new mechanics, and the potential of devices like the Guncon 3 have therefore gone underutilized.
Fortunately, it seems as if the Western independent development scene is beginning to develop more intuitive interfaces for first-person shooter using off the shelf components, something long overdue given the little evolution in game mechanics with regards to first-person games over the last 17 years. There were first demos using paits of PS Move controllers, and now we are seeing the adoption of devices like the Razer Hydra for Gunslinger Stratos like control schemes. This device is relatively affordable (+-$80), and is being used for a number of Oculus Rift tech demos, 'Zombies on the Holodeck' being one of the most notable. Kickstarter is also raising awareness for multiple virtual reality projects involving eye trackers, intertial sensors and omni-directional treadmills, all technologies which can help evolve the first-person game perspective in meaningful ways. Through these garage hardware developers and small to medium size companies we could very well be witnessing a large evolution in the first-person shooter genre, and it will be interesting to see if the Japanese continue to ignore these projects, or decide to get in on the fight.
Unreal - The little engine that could
Capcoms wild experiments in Raccoon City
The current state of FPS games
While Breakdown stuck within the confines of the first-person camera view and evolved player movement mechanics in interesting ways, Resident Evil: Dead Aim was a title that really incorporated the best of both the Third and First person perspectives while hinting to the evolution of current generation game controllers. Its a game that in many ways could have only come from Japan, with its long history of evolving and inventing new game genres through changing control schemes. Similarly, the Nintendo Wii attempted to bring that same evolution to first-person shooters with its on screen pointer approach, but much like its approach to light gun games, the effort is sadly half hearted at best. Since the release of the Wii then things have been relatively quiet, with very few developers attempting to evolve the control scheme of first or third-person shooters. In many ways light gun games have regressed to their former state, rather than evolving through new mechanics, and the potential of devices like the Guncon 3 have therefore gone underutilized.
Underappreciated
Fortunately, it seems as if the Western independent development scene is beginning to develop more intuitive interfaces for first-person shooter using off the shelf components, something long overdue given the little evolution in game mechanics with regards to first-person games over the last 17 years. There were first demos using paits of PS Move controllers, and now we are seeing the adoption of devices like the Razer Hydra for Gunslinger Stratos like control schemes. This device is relatively affordable (+-$80), and is being used for a number of Oculus Rift tech demos, 'Zombies on the Holodeck' being one of the most notable. Kickstarter is also raising awareness for multiple virtual reality projects involving eye trackers, intertial sensors and omni-directional treadmills, all technologies which can help evolve the first-person game perspective in meaningful ways. Through these garage hardware developers and small to medium size companies we could very well be witnessing a large evolution in the first-person shooter genre, and it will be interesting to see if the Japanese continue to ignore these projects, or decide to get in on the fight.
Link - Interceptor - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhk27h9Dx3g
