I agree, I (among others) suggested the "view from another involved parties perspective", but it's at a stretch. It's only works if you look at the analogy this way: first person is the speaker in a discussion(I will go to the shop), 2nd party is a listener involved in the discussion (you should go too), and third party is not involved in the discussion at all(person X will be there). If you consider the discussion to be the analogy for the game, first person is the player character view, second person is the perspective of someone/something involved, third is the perspective of someone/something not involved, like an imaginary over the shoulder camera.

Only first and third person work generally, whatever way you look at the analogy.

couldn't it work for example in Uncharted, you could be looking thru the eyes of elena?

The only game i think has any 2nd person view is zelda PH. As people before have stated, you face an invisible boss and you get to see through his eyes so you can attack.

It really is only possible on the DS, you can do it on any console but its only logical on the DS because a complete 2nd person game would fail otherwise.

Except it isn't.... no where in RE4 does any other character talk directly to you, nor are you in any cutscenes... the TV is basically just showing a view by what would be (if the game were real) a floating, non-existant camera.

Arguably, if the view was from an actual camera that is in the game, ie a Resident Evil like the old ones, except instead of viewing from a blank corner of the room, you are viewing from a camera in the corner of the room.... which would be an example of what I said (except you are the camera instead of another character, you are still in the game though)

Of course I decided after super_etecoons post that even that isn't really 2nd person either, more just a combination of 1st and 3rd.

Never played Psychonauts, heh?

The idea of a 2nd person shooter makes no sense from the viewpoint of a game. Second person is usually a technique that would be used in a book or something but if it's supposed to be something where you are controlling someone 2nd person is completely useless and pointless.

Wow it's sad to see so many people get this wrong.

KylieDog is the only one I see that got it right, but I didn't read every post

First Person is viewing the game from the character you control.
Second Person is viewing the game from another character, that which you do not control (rare).
Third Person is viewing the game from the perspective of an imaginary person that is not there. The point is to show you both the character and it's surroundings. Third person is how most movies and TV shows are shot, platformers like Mario can be interpreted to be in third person. The original Resident Evil with it's odd camera fixture is also third person.

Now if there were a game where you view the action from a security camera , and control a character that can be viewed from the camera, then I would consider that Second Person, because there could be a character watching the camera output or not (we wouldn't know unless the game illustrated that). But that's up for interpretation and quite debatable.

Did NO ONE here played Psychonauts?

@TWRoo: Not that i'd really disagree with super_etecoon, since gameplaywise there's no difference, but as we are talking about the perspective of/in relation to the player, that can be something else.

The view you always see on the screen is your (the person who plays the game) view, not the characters view. It's only about whether the player is "in action" or "outsider from action". With the RE4 view, you are in action for the locked first person view, but the guy who you control is in front of you. You don't need an extra character, since the player is the character.