Dungeon Siege III: A Reminder of What Bad Cameras Are Like

The camera is pretty useless at this angle

Okay, a quick rant for today. Well, maybe not a rant, but a little bit of grumbling on my part. I've been muscling my way through Dungeon Siege III over the last few days so I can hopefully finish it, and add one more game to the list of ones I've actually managed to finish. It's an okay game. The story is keeping my attention, and the visuals are kind of nice. However, the camera is driving me nuts.

The thing isn't fixed so it moves as my character runs around and if for whatever reason, my pointer finds its way to the edge of the screen, it sends the camera spinning. I've been constantly wrestling with it, shoving the camera back into a position that is at least somewhat useful for me, but much of the time it becomes a constant battle because it likes to shift around again every time I move somewhere else. This is especially "fun" during battles or other heat of the moment situations where the mouse is being flung around the screen with wreckless abandon. Often it leads to even more frenzied twirling of the camera.

Only recently have I learned that I can disable this. However, then I have to manually move the camera around with the A and D keys. There's still no option for the trusty hold right mouse button and flick style of camera control that has worked so well in countless games before. Frankly, I wish auto camera wasn't an option in the first place. The other problem is that sometimes the camera will zoom in a ton so that it's right on my character making it so that I can't even see where the monsters are around my guy. It's far from helpful.

I think I would have been happier with a fixed isometric view for the game. It's a bit more old school, but at least there wouldn't be that constant battle with the cameras. I'm over half way through the game, though, so I'll try to soldier through it. Like I said earlier, the story has been keeping me entertained, so I'd like to see how it ends. The combat itself is pretty fun. I'm playing as Katarina who uses a rifle and pistols, and she's a nice ranged class character. Still, it's hard to overlook the cameras. They're not the worst I've seen in a game, as there are plenty of PS2 titles in my library that are far more worthy candidates for "Worst Camera Evar!", but it's still tough to overlook the issue.

How about you? Are there any games out there that really stand out for you because they have bad cameras?