That's kind of the point. Just the like the point of the weird camera angles in the older games was to limit your vision so that you couldn't see everything out to get you. Except first person does it more naturally, since it isn't the game camera simply refusing to give you a usable angle. Its realistically limited by what you can and cannot see.
Those methods for limiting vision aren't equally effective. If the fixed camera angle is handled appropriately then you always see everything you need to. Realistic isn't always better.
In first person it's up to you to constantly be doing 360s if you want to watch your back, and that's no fun to me. Worrying about what's lurking around a corner is fine when you can also see all around yourself so when you're focusing on that corner it's less likely something can catch you off-guard or at least without a chance to react.
Resident Evil has literally been built on this concept since the very beginning. Even in the third-person, over-the-shoulder games, your Field of View is limited and partially obscured by your character's model. Its done that way on purpose and kind of part and parcel of survival horror on some level. This isn't like a platformer where the camera is going to be pulled out, giving you a view of everything around your character.
Yep, and that's why I dislike all games that shove the camera directly into your character's spinal cord, not even just horror games where it's most problematic.
You could usually see all around your character in all the good, classic horror games. You'd basically need to argue they were all shitty until Resident Evil 4.
I mean, that's kind of how horror works. And its what RE, once again, has always done. Of course, you still need to be able to build an atmosphere for that sense of dread to even be there in the first place.
Not really, you don't need something jumping in your firs person face or creeping up behind you unbeknownst to you for horror to be effective.
One of the most iconic scares is the
dog scene in RE1. You see everything happen immediately and know their exact position in relation to you and the room, how many there are, and what they're doing.
From a gameplay perspective you're not going to get blindsided or worry about something you can't see in that situation, it's perfect.
Camera angles don't determine horror. If you think it does, your the one with a limited perspective.
I never said they did, it just determines the type, and in my opinion, the quality (especially from a gameplay perspective). There's horror games with 2D side scrolling design or top down views too, usually indie or low budget. You can make horror whoever you want, but everyone will have a preference.
You ever play CoD and say "what the fuck hit me?" Well, I don't like those moments in a horror game. It's not a dealbreaker, I liked Dead Island, so I'm not saying every FPS horror game is bad by default, I'm more lamenting the death of fixed cameras.
As mentioned earlier, those fixed cameras were largely a result of hardware limitations, not purely stylistic ones. The games were simply built to accommodate them. First person isn't really that fundamentally different on too many levels when it comes to horror itself. The game just has to be built differently to accommodate it.
Maybe they were due to limitations but the end result was still good. That's a common story in game development, actually (or used to be anyway).
If the point was to entirely tailor the game to allow the developers to control what the viewer experiences, it would be far more economical to just make a movie, since then you could 100% tailor what the viewer experiences. Despite you deriding such games earlier, games like SOMA showed that its completely possible to have a truly nerve wracking experience playing a first person game without the game developer having to control every single aspect of the player's experience. And if they still want to have a tailored experience, they can, they just have to be strategic about it.
There's a balance that can be struck. It doesn't need to be 100% control like a movie nor does it need to minimize directorial control. Resident Evil struck that balance fine.
To be clear, I'm not at all saying a first person game can't be scary. Personally, even pixelated indie shit like Lone Survivor can spook me. I'd probably shit myself and die playing Resident Evil 7 like I almost did playing P.T. I just think FPS is inherently less interesting, fun, and more poorly designed from a gameplay perspective in this genre.