There's a lot going on and so the camera might intelligently zoom out to reveal the action from further out or pan around so you can see a bad guy coming from behind. It adds a dramatic movie feel to the proceedings and heightens the tension. Wait a minute... No it doesn't, it just messes me up and I die. When a game randomly takes over the camera, instead of getting some useful angle I seem to invariably end up fighting with the bloody thing in a failed attempt to regain control. It's often difficult enough playing a game normally but apparently I really need to see my character from two miles away. And let's flip the controls while we're at it for added frustration. It's always fun to walk through a door or archway only to have my character immediately turn around and go back the way he came. So-called spooky thriller Alan Wake had this thing where every time a zombie would be about to pounce on you the camera would wildly swing around to reveal his location. This rapid change in view point did the opposite of its intended purpose, wiping any tension away because once the camera was out of my control I knew there was trouble ahead. When it happened (and it did it every time a nearby bad guy pounced) I desperately tried to get the camera back to me so I could shoot the bugger. Often it was more the camera's motion that caused my death not the gameplay. The terribly disappointing Watch Dogs had slightly different camera angle nonsense going on - specifically when you drove a car. Instead of showing the viewpoint from behind the vehicle like normal, it would just sometimes decide to not rotate the camera resulting in you seeing the car from the side as you turned a corner or even heading towards you if you went around a tight bend. So I have fifteen crazy police cars after me, some bad guys in trucks and the game chooses at that moment to perpetually point the camera north regardless of my car's orientation. It felt like I was driving an RC vehicle and no matter how much I grappled with the camera it just ended up with my car smacking into a brick wall that I didn't see in time.
A Welsh semi-retired television producer and actor known for low end work that astonishingly people actually watched and even garnered some awards. Originally residing in the electrically-challenged Amish areas of Pennsylvania he has written a few books (Hollywood Pants and Hollywood Horrible Hints and Terribly Fake Tips vols 1 & 2) which you can buy on amazon and all great book stores.
After a brief stint in Australia he now finds himself back in the Welsh valleys of his home country noting that it hasn't changed a bit!
