1st person and 3rd...what about 2nd?

[Shoe]

This is probably an stupid/obvious question coming from me, but...I know what 1st person and 3rd person games are...but what about 2nd person?

[teh yoshi]

Second person perspective uses the personal pronoun you. It is used to refer to the addressee. You is used in both singular and plural.

Now that would look weird in just about anything, such as literature, stories, or videogames, huh?

[Twi]

As Teh said, 2nd person is you like "You are driving a bus." I have yet to see or know of a computer game use this through-out the game, if someone has it'd be nice to know.

[Graedius]

tehyoshi said:

Second person perspective uses the personal pronoun you. It is used to refer to the addressee. You is used in both singular and plural.

Now that would look weird in just about anything, such as literature, stories, or videogames, huh?

I remember prominently the Goosebumps: Reader Beware series, which was 2nd person. Every page was a bit of a story, and you got to make a decision about what 'you' would do, and would then go to one of two pages -- many different branches in story and endings were possible, I thought they were really neat books, frankly. ;3

Text RPGs are second-person.
And it's often references in many other RPGs, like when you see a message like, "You see some shiny objects in the well, but can't reach them", per se.

[Twi]

Ah yes the adventure books where you choose something and you go to that page, they were always fun. I remember I had one for that old game called Lemmings, that was great. I think I may have some goosebumps ones too.

Golden Sun for the GBA used some 2nd person stuff I think.

[Moot]

I remember seeing a second person shooter, a while ago...

I think the general idea instead of playing from the viewpoint of your own eyes, or a 3rd person camera, you played through the view of somebody else.

I think theres another game out soon that uses a similar mechanic, and they call it "sightjacking."

[Lich Yoshi von Kippo]

Second person tends to be left to more textual means. There's text adventure games - really old school stuff - that use "you". Some MMORPG's, like EverQuest, refer to "you", e.g. "A rockhopper bashes YOU for 2 points of damage. You are stunned!" and "You say, 'temp plz' ". Any EQ player would get the significance of that last one. =P

[Twi]

draco said:

second person doesnt exist because its the same as 3rd person....think about agroup of 3....if its first person its juts you there so you see it through you eyes...if theres 3 people there you see it throught many eyes other than your own so therefore you see youself on the screen...if its second person then you would still be seeing yourself through other eyes so 2nd and 3rd person is the samew perspetive thats why they neve created any 2nd person games

This topic is a couple of months old and there is a 2nd person which we already said.

[Twi]

No, 2nd person does exsist. As it's been said, it involves "you" as the main person.

I'll put it simply:

1st person : "I ate a pie and gained 10 HP"
2nd person: "You ate a pie and gained 10 HP"
3rd person: "He ate a pie and gained 10 HP"

Simple, it's been the laws of english literature and your opinion can't change that.

[Twi]

Because of course games make their own basic language rules.
Games and literacy are the same when they talk about perspective.

[teh yoshi]

Syphon, do you not realize that this topic is over a couple of months old? Have you not read the rules when you first joined here? You've been spamming the boards and breaking several rules already. You already have 50% warning level. Does that not mean anything to you?

Besides, the question has been answered, the fact is that 2nd person perspective does exist.