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BioShock Widescreen Slices Vertical View
by Nick Breckon, Aug 21, 2007 11:03am PDTIn a rapidly-expanding thread on the 2K Games forum, reports are
coming in that 2K Boston and Australia's just-released shooter BioShock (PC, X360) uses a cropping method for its widescreen display, cutting down on the vertical view rather than expanding the horizontal width (illustrated left). The problem apparently exists for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions, and cannot be fixed with an edit of the game's FOV (field of view) setting.
The issue took forum goers by surprise, as 2K Boston lead programmer Chris Kline assured fans last May that BioShock's widescreen view would show more, rather than less. "The game will render in full 16:9 aspect ratio, with no letterboxing unless your resolution is not true 16:9," Kline said in a thread on the 2K forums. "You will see more in widescreen. We use a different projection matrix; there is no squashing or stretching of the image involved." Shacknews can confirm that the problem exists in the PC demo of BioShock, and has contacted 2K Games for comment.
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At this point only the developers can say for sure if it the widescreen resolution is really supposed to look like it does, but the evidence as it is in my opinion points to a cock-up:
- You cannot see the player's tattoo in widescreen.
- Due to the low FOV, in practice there is now a 25% perma-zoom in widescreen as if looking through a scope. Personally I find this slightly nauseating.
- HL2 and and other existing games have established certain expectations when it comes to games supporting widescreen natively, i.e. horiz+. Vert- is something you're likely to find in older games that are hacked to use widescreen after their release.
Now, if the developers come out and say "yep, we didn't intend for the tattoo to be visible in widescreen", then that's fine by me, it's their artistic choice. Until then I have to believe it's a mistake.
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BioShock looks wonderful (hasn't played yet, waiting for Steam to unlock it) but from what I've seen, a patch for the binding problems and this widescreen issue should be top priority.
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If they keep the aspect ratio intact and don't use black bars to fix it, it makes sense for the 4:3 display to show more of the screen at the top and bottom.
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