Gaming BioShock Gameplay Review

I know i should really have put more sarcasm smileys in that. I'm still running a 939 A64.

 

hehe, don't worry about it... I believe it'll run relatively well on pretty much any Athlon 64, considering the minimum spec is a P4 2.4/2.6GHz.

 

Bindi refer to equivalent screen sizes. It's hard to compare if they don't male larger standard monitors.

http://forums.techarp.com/showthread.php?p=280954&postcount=23

You are comparing screens of equivalent height. I'm comparing screens with equivalent diagonal size. 19" vs 19"

Yes, 1280x1024 is 5:4, but it's very similar to 4:3 screens and it's the most common screen size for modern 'traditional monitors'.

I've been trying to find a white paper that explained this to me, earlier in the year. Haven't found it yet, but will obviously post it when I do.

But clearly you are talking about peripheral vision; the theory (as I read it) was that your core FOV is significantly less that your total FOV - your eyes prefer to be looking in the middle - hence we like to limit line length when reading.. I'm not a biologist so I can't take this any further. What is more, I'm open-minded about this. What I read made sense, but it's only one source, so it doesn't make me an expert. If you have got anything that explains it differently, I'd like to read it.

 

[Sigh]

Speaking of hardware, I'm chewing over getting a laptop to replace the wife's PC (P4/2GB/6800GT) in a year or so. But as soon as you look at a lappy with even a half-decent gfc card in it, the price doubles. There are loads of decent sub £500 laptops around, but I don't think one of them could do justice to a game like Bioshock.

So do I get a better desktop, forget about gaming on a laptop or do I have to start scrimping now?

 

I have a job thank you.

I have to pay for college.

My pc is above the minimum specs. Opty 148, gig of ram, 7600gt. Spending hundreds of dollars to play one game is not worth it.

I always like to use the xbox for example. It's a piece of junk hardware wise. Basically, a pentium 3 with a geforce 2. It could run a game such as halo 2. But for some reason, you could not even hope to run the same game on a pc with equal specs.

Maybe developer's should code better.

 

Good review. From the author's description, I may like this game more than Morrowind.

 

I dunno. If you buy an 8800GTX, do you think you're entitled to a better experience than someone with a 8600? How about a hi-res mouse? Should developers dumb down audio soundtracks to 2.0, because everyone doesn't have 5.1. Just because you buy a lot of speakers, and go through the trouble of sticking some behind your head, wouldn't you expect/hope that they would be supported - especially when the technology was mature?

And, to keep it on a monitor angle, if you buy a monitor with 1600x1200 resolution, would you expect a better experience than someone with 1024x768? What if the dev locked in the max res at 1024x768, and made you stretch the image across your native res?

This whole idea of "widescreen is cheating" or "everyone has to be the same," is pure tripe. If you *really* feel that way, then start up the petition to boycott devs who don't code games at 1024x768 @ 30fps, with no AA or AF, lock your ping at a fixed rate, and dumb your mouse down to 400dpi. FOV, faster frame rates, lower pings and higher mouse dpi all give a better experience, and possibly an advantage. Simply cherry-picking one to call out is intellectually inconsistent.

And we're not even talking a multiplayer experience here. Allow people to experience their single-player game in the best possible manner. If you want to force an FOV for competitive multiplayer, I could consider than. And one open could just as easily be forcing a widescreen FOV and letterboxing on the 4:3.

So, here's to developers who talk up "immersive and cinematic" experiences, without supporting the basic visual concept...

 

What are you talking about?

 

The problem with that is that the shape of what you see changes, making things appear further away.

 

I don't particularly have any source that says 'this is how your field of vision works with regards to widescreen TVs', I'm just stating that our general field of vision is far more rectangular than it is square, and I've always felt a widescreen image is far more natural than a fullscreen image. I'd be interested if you did have a source for this, it sounds interesting.

A good natural test I've noticed for this was when I saw various movies at the IMAX cinema, a screen that is intentionally squarer (although not exactly 4:3, I believe) to overwhelm you and requires an awful lot of looking up and down. Seeing 16:9 movies on the same screen was a far more natural viewing (saw a short film in 4:3 full, then a 16:9 film straight after).

 

...it doesn't though? The thumbnails here show the effect far better since they're side by side: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/Half-Life_2

 

Different set of pics, but I think the screenshot comparisons there do a better job of showing how FOV changes with different games

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/screenshots/hl2.php

 

There are so many flaws with this example.

The Xbox was a games console, i.e. designed with only games in mind. It only supported SD (480?) resolutions. Naturally it's easier for developers to optimise code for such a closed platform with limited hardware combinations.

But anyway this has nothing to with your original complaint. You basically have a PC that meets the minimum specs, so therefore the game will run accordingly.

 

wait wut?
20" 4:3 = 1600x1200 = 1,920,000
20" WS = 1680x1050 = 1,764,000

edit: lol soundly beaten, should've read the 3rd page before replying

 

heh. Somehow I think even if this game was crap Joe would have given it 10/10 Thanks for the review, nonetheless. Carry on arguing.

 

Not to nit pick....
Sorry bud but rapture is a made up theological event. Neither it name nor it's event is located in the bible. BUT the game does seem to have a Christian undertones, weirdly.
Anyways....

Looking forward to the game, though. The demo and images do remind me of Undying and Alice.

 

So... in most games widescreen adds a few degrees of image to the sides, but Bioshock instead crops the top by a few degrees.

Honestly, I'm far, FAR, FAR more interested in whether it natively supports widescreen resolutions out of the box, (unlike say Quake 4 or Doom 3 that required a custom config) than whether it takes a few degrees off the top or adds them to the side.

Basically, someone is going to lose out, the 4:3s or the 16:10s, so why should it always be the 4:3s who lose out? Maybe 2K are just sticking up for the 4:3s for once. Either way, it's hardly a travesty or a game breaking problem, they had to make a choice, A or B. Both are equal in terms of benefits to some and set backs to others. It's not like it's the right of all widescreen owners to have a higher FOV than 4:3 owners.

So quit your yapping and just enjoy the game.

Oh and by the way, I'm a widescreen owner.

 

Alot of people have other comitments and family so its not easy to splash out on new parts. I know I cant anymore so I have given up and gone the 360 route. Much cheaper and still alot of fun playing the games.

 

Just because it isn't included in the Bible doesn't mean it's not relevent to the Christian faith. The Bible's just a religious text 'best of' chosen by church leaders hundreds of years after the events it describes. Doesn't mean you should discount the texts deemed not quite important or accessible enough to be included in the Bible.

 

You're really missing the point here. It's not about getting 'more view than 4:3 users', it's about getting the correct field of view for the corresponding format. The 4:3 FOV is correct. Whether or not the widescreen's FOV is cropped or expanded it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to a 4:3 user. But for a widescreen user, a cropped image is a much narrower field of vision, which is unnatural and can actually cause nausea. Kinda like playing with the game's camera a foot in front of your character's eyes. It's not the right of widescreen owners to have a higher FOV, it's just that's the most logical and natural solution. Else, why even have widescreen?