Gaming BioShock Gameplay Review

I think this is correct if you develop the game for widescreen. When switching to 4:3 on a game developed in 16:9 would you expect to lose the horizontal fov or gain vertical? In my opinion you shouldn't reduce the horizontal fov on a FPS so they've added height.

 

Not really... the devs are effectively saying that the horizontal axis is more important/useful/preferable to the player therefore you will get the same horizontal view regardless of your hardware.

They could have taken the view that the vertical axis was more important, in which case they would cropped it the other way.

Ideally, both axis should be equally important if the game requires you to look up & down as much as left & right, but since we have widescreen monitors is extensive use, the devs have to jump one way or the other.

In a driving game (generally moving and looking left & right) the width is paramount. I can't think of one offhand, but I'm sure there will be a game genre where looking up and down is more important.

In these games where we are (almost equally but not quite) interested in both axis, they have to make a decision and cropping the height makes sense.

 

Hm...

But the way Bioshock treats widescreen gamers then is exactly the same way that Battlefield 2 and 2142 do, then - in other words, they are penalised because they have a widescreen.

Do you go to see a film and the cinema, and when you watch it on a 4:3 TV get extra 'on top'? No. You lose the sides. That's the way film widescreen/non-widescreen has worked, and with various companies (like nVidia) pushing 'cinematic gaming'... well.

 

I was being vaguely controversial but certainly not sarcastic.

Yes I have been to the cinema. And it is because we have widescreen formats at the cinema, that we have widescreen TVs and monitors. Cutting a long story short, we have widescreen cinemas because cinema owners figured they could sqeeze more people in if they made them wider - doesnt work well if you try to build them higher. And hence we have widescreen films, and consequently, widescreen TV and monitors.

Whereas ergonomically speaking, our eyes prefer a format closer to standard 4:3 format. If you imagine each eye's view is a circle, and if we combine two eyes together we get something like a horizontal figure of eight - which is closer in shape to 4:3 than 16:9.

So we have this widescreen fad because back in the day, cinema owners and the studios were greedy, yet out bodies prefer the conventional shape.

And hardware manufacturers are happy to support this because they can shift more stock.

 

Wrong, the game would have been built for widescreen and it would be absurd to reduce the horizontal fov for 4:3.

 

well... i think first the "format war" of 16:9 vs. 16:10 (tv widescreen vs. pc widescreen) should be resolved... because if not... they would have needed to make a 16:9 version for the xbox360 and a 16:10 version for the pc.

 

Has anyone tested what happens in Rainbow Six: Vegas (another UE3 game)?

 

Ooh... it's been a while, but I believe that R6V also cuts the top and bottom...

edit below:

How much peripheral vision do you have? It should be somewhere in the region of 160-175 degrees... while your vertical field of view (without moving your eyes) will be far narrower... and that means that a wider screen would more naturally fill your field of vision...

 

If that is the case, you would need to moan at Epic, as it would appear to be a UE3 "feature" - nothing to do with 2K Boston/Irrational Games.

 

Hang on, though. UT2003/2004 supported widescreen correctly, but there were games using that engine that did not. It's down purely to the implementation by the dev house.

 

Well, from what I've read, GoW does the same too and that was developed by Epic Games... until that comes out on the PC, we're never going to know if this is an implementation problem on Irrational's part, or a lack of a feature on Epic's part.

Having said that, playing the game on both PC and 360 on widescreen monitors, I can't say I've missed the pixels. Don't get me wrong here though - it's not cool that there isn't a wider FOV, but simply blaming the developer when it could infact be the engine licenser that is causing the problem isn't right IMO.

 

This is terrible news. Regardless of the reasons why, a lead programmer stated this not so long ago

Utter lies.

 

What's the problem, I'm failing to see what all the fuss is about?

 

THEY R STEELIN MAH PIXELS

 

Yeah and me..

 

perhaps you should go post that same comment in this thread http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4883

 

As Paradigm Shifter correctly states, a human's peripheral vision is far greater horizontally than it is vertical. I think my concern is that the image for the 4:3 version looks to be the norm of the kind of field of view you would get in any FPS. Thusly, the widescreen version should be a wider view. If the game's been developed with widescreen in mind, it should be using the widest natural FOV, which appears to be what it would be if that screenshot was the other way around. So what if it would cut off the sides a bit in 4:3, that's what games have been like for years. The difference is gonna be neglible if you are using 4:3.

 

OMG ROFL, I can't believe what I am reading.

The mistake as I can see is that the game was developed in the wrong FOV, however before anyone got hold of the PC version nobody was complaining about the FOV so why now? Just because they can see the extra height they now want the extra width too!

I will however take back all my statements if the 360 version has more FOV.

 

I think its better, this way, in multiplayer someone with a wide screen setup wouldn't have any advantage over someone with a standard 4:3 monitor, and vice-versa.

Still don't see why people are killing kittens over it though..

 

I've just sat with the 360 version running side by side with the PC version and they're the same FOV.

I have a widescreen monitor and a widescreen TV at home, and I can't say that I feel short changed. If anything, the game's claustrophobic nature is enhanced in widescreen (now there's a throwaway comment that'll no doubt be misquoted). That said, it's totally not cool that the lead developer said you would "see more" in widescreen.

I feel sorry for those that have cancelled (or are contemplating cancelling) their pre-order over this molehill, because they're missing out on the best game since Deus Ex and some would argue that it's better.