19 - FPS vs Third-Person Shooter

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What’s the difference between FPS and third-person shooters?

For the first time, I attempt defining gaming terms on my own. I break down what each one means, how they play differently, and what it feels like to experience them as a player. I also go over the different meanings of “FPS,” including frames per second, since it can get confusing.

I share my thoughts on both styles and which one I find easier to get into as a beginner.

Terms defined in this episode: FPS & Third-person shooter.

Hectic Eyes:
Instagram @hecticeyesmusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7r062hyymfboFgzjgJSyBT?si=T7ACPJKSQru1AEvo56Km8w

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Art by Arielle:  Instagram @ProphetOPossum

Music: fesliyanstudios.com

Transcript

Juke: 0:00

Getting gamers. Hello, travelers, and welcome to getting gamers. Your guide to understanding the gamers in your life. I am your host juke and when I woke up this morning, my boyfriend was coming back from work and picked up some Starbucks for me and said that it was a conditional Starbucks treat that I had to sit down and record, because, yes, I have tasked my boyfriend in helping discipline me, in making sure I work on this podcast, and honestly, he's doing a great job. He's really been helping. It's helping. It's helping me be more disciplined and working on the podcast, because now I have to earn my Starbucks coffee. And yes, we have set up a reward system to motivate me to edit, and we have planned to go out for supper when I finally released the premiere of season two, which you are listening to now. So if you're listening to this, that means I got to go to my favorite restaurant. You clicked on this video because it's called FPS versus third person shooter. Basically, what happened is that I was working on revamping or, well, I'm not gonna say revamping, because I was working on the website. Okay, the website is getting gamers.com and I'm not done working on it. Just making a website is not my specialty. So it's very like basic, not the most gorgeous website right now, but I was working on it, and I noticed in glossary that we had the definition for a third person shooter, but we did not have a definition for first person shooter, aka FPS. And I think we have covered what an FPS is in season one, but I just thought that like, you know, it's Season Two. Not many of you that are listening to this right now might have listened to season one. So why not just like, go over what an FPS versus a third person shooter and kind of explore, for me, the first time I'm kind of defining things on my own, I think, or the first time in a long time that I have had to define things on my own without a gamer with me. So let's get into it for me. Learning what a first person shooter was versus a third person shooter was was kind of easy to catch on to, because I compare it to a narrator in a book, a net or a TV show or a movie, whatever a first person narrator is talking in the me, I went through this, and then you're narrating in the first person and the third person shooter is going to be narrating like she did this, and she had, you know, these emotions or whatever. So that's the same kind of thing in the video games. It's not necessarily a narrator, but a first person shooter means that you are, like seeing through the character's eyes. You are the character. So if you look down, depending on the game, sometimes you see your feet, sometimes you don't, depends on the game, but like, if you look up, or you see the sky, like you're looking through their eyes, so like you might see your weapon that you're holding in front of you, but you won't see the top of your head. Let's say, whereas a third person shooter, you're kind of a bit behind your your character. So if you look down, you kind of see the top of their head and their whole the whole character's body. I call that controlling the camera, because in a third person shooter, you are controlling the movements of your character. Your character can go left, right, forward, blah, blah, blah, but you're also controlling the camera and where the camera is looking. Versus a first person shooter, you're controlling where your character is looking. Most of the time, your character is just looking where he's going. So I wanted to look real quick like if I did a quick Google, how would Google define these things? So if I'm gonna write in Google define first person shooter, a type of video game whose gameplay involves shooting enemies and other targets in which a player views the action as though through the eyes of the character they are controlling. Yeah, that's pretty much what I said. And let's see. And now let me go see how they define third person shooter. A third person shooter is a 3d action video game genre where the camera is positioned behind or over the shoulder of the player controlled character, making the avatar visible on screen. Hey, I feel like I did a great job at defining this. I mean, I did as good as the first result on Google, which, I mean, I guess, is the bare minimum right now, when we're talking about first person shooters, a lot of the times, people will say FPS, they will shorten it. But when we're talking about. Third person shooters. I've noticed that people say, say it the long way. A lot of the times, I've rarely heard, listen I'm saying I've rarely heard as if I'm like, super deep in the gaming world, obviously I'm like, at most, a casual gamer, if a gamer at all. Right, so take this with a grain of salt, but from my experience, people do not say TPS for third person shooter. Most of the time people say third person shooter, but FPS is very, very common for first person shooter. So I want to make an important distinction here, because FPS has two definitions. FPS actually is used in many different places as an acronym for different things. So I want to clarify that, because if you just Google FPS, you might not get the answer you're looking for. So in the gaming world, there are two different situations where people will use FPS and it will mean different things. So of course, the first one is first person shooter, and we just covered that. But there is also FPS. That means frames per second, and that's a measure of the rate that your computer video frame can produce and render frames. What did I write? I took notes, and my notes are, I'm still sick. Okay, frames per second, it's about how many frames your computer can render. So you know how, when you're watching, like, anything, really, any video type thing, whether it's a game or a movie or a show, you're getting, like, a bunch of images in sequence, kind of, if you think about old movies, you saw it more how it was like back to back images, like still pictures, back to back to back and moving quickly to make like movement. So those are what we would call a frame, let's say, so your computer can render a certain amount of those frames per second, and competitive gamers, or more serious gamers, do measure those frames, and sometimes it's in the corner of their screens. So it is relevant to the gaming world, maybe not relevant to you as a beginner at the moment, to like really be super knowledgeable on what frames per seconds and blah, blah. As you can see, I struggled with defining it and explaining it to you. I don't focus on my frames per seconds, but you might hear about it, and you might hear about fps in that context and not know that that they're not talking about first person shooters. And I just don't want you to put your foot in your mouth, so let me help you distinguish whether or not they're talking about first person shooter or frames per second. So if we're talking about a game, a type of game, then you're talking if you're saying a game is an FPS, if something is an FPS, then that means it's a first person shooter. It's the game. Is the type of game. But if something has an amount of FPS, a quantity of FPS, if you say 60 FPS, or how many FPS, things like that, if we're referring to quantity or numbers, then that's frame frames per seconds. If it's like talking about the number in the corner of their screens, that's frames per second again. So if something is an FPS, first person shooter, if we're talking about a quantity, or how many, or, you know, a number, then that's frames per second. Now, I say now a lot. Did you guys notice? I don't know how to change that. I might not change you might not change. You might have to get used to it or make it a drinking game, like, how many times do I say now when I'm recording and just take a shot every time I don't know, or maybe do water. Maybe I'm gonna hydrate my viewers by making y'all drink water every time I say, now to start a sentence, but moving on, I wanted to acknowledge that there's still, there's more than two types of shooter games. There's more than just a first person shooter game and a third person shooter game there. There's many other types of shooters that I'm not covering in this episode because I wanted to focus on the difference between these two terms and the definitions of FPS and all that. But there's like other like, there's platformer games that are like, neither third person or first person sometimes, like, if you think about like the old style Mario, like the 2d games, where the characters kind of just like flat in front of you, that's a different but that I don't know, if there's shooters in that format there must be, right? I don't know. And then there's also like games where you see from the top down. So there's more than just these two types of shooter games. I do not want to like misinform anyone. I'm just focusing on the difference between these two because they relate to each other, and also because of that distinction between the two different FPSs and. Because I know that if people Google FPS, you might even get feet per second. There are many definitions to fps. That acronym is used for several things, and feet per second is one of them. And like, I think ammunition, or, I don't remember where I had heard about feet per second, but I mean, like you, I'm not surprised that it's a, you know, miles per hour, feet per second is, I'm not surprised. You know, FPS is just it was worth it to focus on this subject. But now I want to move on to my opinion on FPS games versus third person shooter games and and what I think is more beginner friendly. And, of course, I'm putting a lot of emphasis on what I think and stuff like that, because I want to make sure that everybody understands that this is just my opinion as a beginner, but I'm not everybody learns the same way. Not everybody has the same way of like, approaching new things. So this is really just through my eyes. I don't think I'm ready to say that shooter games are the most beginner friendly, but I did early, early on, when I first started playing games, I did play a shooter game. It was Borderlands. I think it was Borderlands two, and I really enjoyed it, but it was more like Borderlands is more casual than some shooters. So I'm not saying that shooter games aren't beginner friendly, but I'm not ready to say that they're the most beginner friendly, necessarily, but boy, have I bitched while playing third person shooters, because the amount of times that I have screamed at the camera, it is just so frustrating for me to have to handle that, that camera behind my character, and I can't explain how annoying it can be. Listen, when I get nervous, I tense up and it seems like I end up moving or panic clicking things, and I just I can't be in charge of a camera as well. I end up not really knowing what I'm looking at in the middle of being attacked, and panic clicking buttons to defend myself, and I'm looking around frantically trying to figure out where to point my camera and accidentally moving the character now and not imagine trying to run away while doing all that. And half the time, I end up like facing like the camera is, like, in the middle of the wall or something, or my character is in a corner or against the wall, and it confuses the camera and makes, oh, you have no idea how frustrating I find that camera to be. And I say all this, but I've played a few third person shooter games, and I've still had fun so long as the people I'm with know to laugh when I'm bitching, like, if I bitch about it, so like, lighten the mood and make it less serious and make myself less mad. You know, another important distinction to make is that certain games, I think some games, give you the option of, like, being in first person or third person. I'm not so sure about that, because most games are gonna be mainly first person or third person, and then in within the same game series, like, if you think about like, like movies, there's like series and universes and stuff. So games will have that too. So let's say Resident Evil. There's so many, there's resident one through six, maybe eight. I don't remember how far they've gotten in Resident Evil, but there's a ton of Resident Evil games, or GTA for example, there's a ton of GTAs, which is a grand theft auto GTA. Those depending on the game, like the first or the second or the third. You know, depending on that, it will vary. Sometimes they will release like the fourth one is a first person and instead of a third person or whatever, you know. So it can vary within, like, a series games that I play, I think Borderlands is a first person shooter, then other popular games that are first person shooters, I think Halo is a first person shooter. Then like Rainbow Six, Siege, valorant, Apex legends, and there's obviously so many more. Both of these genres are, like, super popular. And then in third person shooters, there's obviously some of the Resident Evils. I think Fortnite is in third person view, Gears of War. Less of us, one and two. There's there's just so many of them there. When you're on, like, game buying platforms, you can search in the categories for those categories. They're just really popular categories. So that's easy to figure out on the when you're shopping for a game or just asking people, it's really common. So no, I said now again, but I can't help it in defense of third person shooters, because I've bitched about the camera. If you're able to handle the camera, it does give you advantages that you just don't get in first person shooters, because if FPS, you see what your character sees. So like in real life, like you have a lot of blind spots, right? You only kind of see, like a bit of peripheral on your in your front. I. Um versus in a third person shooter, you you get to see more, you get to predict and prepare more for what's coming for you. You have a lot less blind spots than you would in a first person shooters. And so some people might argue that for those reasons, a third person shooter might be more beginner friendly because you can see more what's happening and what's coming for you. I personally disagree with that. I think it's just a lot to handle the camera and learning to use the camera while you're learning to use a video game like once you're better at controlling your own character in first person perspective, I think then you're less overwhelmed by all that like, about learning to like, navigate as a character in a game. I think if someone's never played and they're not interested in playing, like the 2d games and and more like, if they really want to play in in a perspective, like a first person or third person perspective, I would start with first person to like, just learn game controls and navigating games, and then move on to a third person. But that's taking into account the like this person doesn't want, doesn't want to do top down or 2d or whatever. I think maybe I'll do one day an episode where maybe I rank what I think, from, like, most beginner friendly to least beginner friendly type. That's gonna be a lot of work for me, because I'm not good at making decisions like that. Let me know if you're interested in the episode. In me doing that, I might invite a gamer on with me. That way we can, like, really dive deeper and make sure I don't get anything wrong. But I think there could be an argument made for first person shooters or just first person perspective in a game, because it's more intuitive and natural, because that's closer to our lived experience. Like, I'm not sure I'm ready to say that. Like, because I think like America a Mario 2d type like OG game is more beginner friendly than a first person perspective game. But at the same time, I've seen a lot of people like I remember my dad when gaming was still very, very new, and my little my older cousins and I was, like, barely born, yet my older cousins were trying to get my dad to play like a video game with like, a controller, am I? And in him talking about, like, how he was like, I'm trying. And the kids were like, press the button. Press the button. He's like, I thought I was pressing the button, you know. So I wonder if a first person in that situation, instead of like a 2d platformer, might have been more intuitive. I don't know. It's interesting to think about. But if you're interested in knowing about like, types of video games, in Episode Five, season one, we go over different types of video games, and there's four people on that episode, so there's me and the and the insight of three gamers. So that could be really interesting to check out, but you have to keep in mind that that was episode five. I mean, I am, I'm only at like episode 19 now, but you can imagine episode five. I was even more of a beginner in podcasting, so keep that in mind. Now, a quick warning with top down games, because I did mention that, like, oh, maybe you might want to try, like, a plot former or a top, top down game. First Look, I may sound stupid by saying this, but it happens to me, especially in the beginning, but it still happens to me now. With top down, top down games, that I lose sight of my character. I know, like when I play with people, they're like, What do you mean? They're always so surprised that I lose sight of my character. But with top down games, sometimes I end up, like, my I just, I don't know what happens. I guess I'm ADHD, like my little neuro divergent brain can't keep up. I like, because sometimes I just look at another character, and then for two seconds and then, but then I don't realize that my thumb is still moving my character, and so my character starts moving away, and I'm not looking in the right spot, and I get I get confused, and then all of a sudden, my character is getting attached and attacked. And I'm like, what is happening? It's it like, Listen, I'm being vulnerable and telling you all this. Don't judge me too hard, because you don't know. Maybe you're beginner, you're a non gamer. The person you're trying to introduce to gaming might be going through this too. So I did struggle more with top down games. I feel like it was harder for me to focus on my character and and and not lose sight of where I was. That was a real struggle for me. I think that's also like that was the same struggle in third person shooters. All of a sudden, because I'm handling that camera, there's just too much to handle and too much to look at, and I lose sight of of my character. That happens even more if I'm, you know, my character is not the main focus of my camera. If my camera's top down, then there's so much to look at. And yeah, so I'm not, I'm not ready to say. That top down is the most beginner friendly either. I struggled a lot with top down games. Does it make sense to you guys when I say top down like it's a bird's eye view you see from you're in the sky and you're looking down at the characters and the map. Now this is where you start realizing just how much of a beginner I started off as. So if you're introducing someone or yourself to games, I think first person perspective avoids a lot of these issues of losing sight of your character. I think first person shooters and some 2d platformers are easier and more familiar to deal with than than maybe like, a third person or a top down, and again, not everybody would agree, and I would be really curious to see if, like, I had someone on, maybe, like, I would love it if I could have a gamer on and, like, someone that's like midway, like me, like, remembers what it's like being a total noob, but does play a Little and has played a few of the different kinds, and maybe, like, have, you know, have a discussion and try to, like, rank how beginner friendly the different like types of games are. I feel like I've talked enough about, like, the possibility of recording that episode that now I kind of have to, so I guess I'll put it on my list of things to record for and I'll try scheduling some fun people to have on for that. And you probably already know what I'm about to say, but you can always write to us on getting gamers.com there are places where you can ask for definitions to be added to the glossary and to the podcast, or you can ask for advice and questions. You can always email us at Getty gamers@gmail.com you can find us on Instagram, and basically all social media is going to be linked in the description of this episode. And for this episode, section on people I want to support while I'm waiting to get sponsors, I wanted to have you guys go check out my brother's band. And his band is called hectic eyes they'll be linked down below. They're on Spotify, and like most platforms and their social media is hectic eyes music on Instagram, and they're a Montreal based alternative band. I really love their music, like I grew up with hearing my brother, like rehearsing all the time, and like, you know, falling in love with songs, and then, like, listening to the songs he releases, and seeing how his music, like, has evolved over times, and how the lyrics that I heard in practice at home ended up being in the song, but different. And I've just really, I've always been passionate about their about their band. I used to love when we all, like, lived together. I used to love just listening to them jam. It was like one of my favorite pastimes was just I had inspiration for a book I wanted to write, and I would inspiration always kicked in the most when they were jamming in the living room and I was just chilling with them, and then that's when my book, like my characters, would come to life in my head. So obviously, I'm so passionate about this band, hectic eyes. They're great. Check them out. I've been passionate about them since I've been a teenager. These guys have been playing together since they've been so young, and they're so passionate, and they're such great musicians. They're so talented. I would really, really love it if you just go check them out. Subscribe listen to their music. If it's your vibe, you know, keep your eyes out for more. Send them some love. And for now, that's all for this week. So make sure to tune in next Tuesday and until next time. Gg our podcast art was made by the wonderful Arielle, who can be found on Instagram at prophetopossum and our intro natural music was made by David Feslyian from fesliyanstudios.com

Getting Gamers: 24:01

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