Free look
|
|
Free look (also known as mouselook) is a term that describes the ability to move the mouse to rotate the player character's view in first-person shooter games or flight simulators. Free look is nearly universal in modern games, but it was one of the significant technical breakthroughs of mid-1990s first-person perspective games. For instance, in the seminal game Doom, it was not possible for the player to angle his view up or down, though he had full control over looking left and right. Thus the mouse was used for both changing the player view and for player motion. Free look was popularized by Duke Nukem 3D (although some older first person games did have the facility for changing the vertical aspect of the view angle, if inconveniently).
In addition to making first-person perspective games more immersive, free look also radically altered gameplay. For instance, players now routinely aim rockets or other explosive weapons down at the floor (rather than directly at enemies) in order to cause splash damage or to perform a rocket jump.