Information about Third Person Shooter

Third-person shooter (TPS or 3PS) is a genre of 3D computer and video games in which the player character is seen at a distance from a number of different possible perspective angles, as opposed to the first-person model in which the player views everything in the game world as if through their own eyes.

Owing to the general nature of the term, many games are placed outside of the third-person shooter genre because their style is covered by a more specific genre label. The Resident Evil series, though it incorporated both third-person gameplay and shooting, was not considered a third-person shooter until Resident Evil 4; because of the emphasis on fear and survival, this was called survival horror. In contrast, the GTA series from Grand Theft Auto III on has been labeled by some as a third-person shooter, but combines driving and RPG elements along with elements from the other description. Examples of traditional third-person shooters include MDK and Gears of War.

There are advantages and disadvantages of TPS games. A third-person perspective gives the player more awareness of his surroundings, as in the Splinter Cell series. However, this leaves the camera disconnected from movement as in an FPS: poor camera control can leave the player viewing the wrong area, having their line-of-sight covered by an enemy behind them, with the illogical ability to see through walls, or worse. Many solutions to these problems have been both proposed and implemented, but camera control continues to hinder the genre.

This has led many third-person shooters, such as , , and Metal Gear Solid, to give the player the option to enter a first-person view. The provision of this option allows a player to use the first-person view if a situation should arise where the third-person perspective becomes problematic while allowing them to remain in a third-person view the rest of the time.

See also

• First Person Shooter, the genre's brother genre
• Tomb Raider, one of the oldest third person shooters
• Max Payne, a well-known "hard-boiled" shooter
• Gears of War, a popular third person game
• Lost Planet, an Xbox 360 third person game
• Gunz, a Korean third person shooter
• Warhawk, a third-person flight-and-foot combat game
• , a TPS series released for the PS2 and PSP
• Battlion Wars 1 and 2 ''GC and Wii'