BioShock 2 PC Not Getting Gamepad Support, Impending Widescreen Fix Detailed

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As outraged fans continue to submerge BioShock 2 in a sea of controversy due its lack of official gamepad support, publisher 2K Games has definitively stated that it has no plans to add such support in a future patch.

Explained community manager 2K Elizabeth:

I talked to the dev team about controller support for BioShock 2, and I want to let you know that we won't be adding this into the game in a patch. The decision not to support the controller was not made lightly, and to add it now would take a complete re-envisioning of the UI that the team worked so hard to create.

I'm sorry for those of you who are disappointed, and I want you to know that your comments and concerns have been heard and will be taken in to account when we are planning in the future.

Prior to BioShock 2's release this week, the company had noted that the shooter sequel would not support controllers on PC in favor of getting "the mouse and keyboard control absolutely right." However, many were still caught unaware, especially as the original BioShock PC packed support for both gamepads and mouse and keyboard.

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of BioShock 2, as previously noted, can be played with the console's respective gamepad, but not with a mouse and keyboard.

As for complaints that BioShock 2 PC doesn't properly support widescreen resolutions, the company has providing an explanation of how that particular issue cropped up again, along with a diagram of how it'll look after the impending patch:

When BioShock 2 shipped for PC players, it altered the vertical FOV for different monitor aspect ratios rather than the horizontal FOV. (For those of you who think in pictures, like me, different views looked like the image below, depending on your aspect ratio.)







We are fixing the FOV so that it expands horizontally in the first PC patch (currently in testing - I'll be posting more about it when an exact date for its release is set!) That means that now your view will expand on the right and the left if you have a widescreen monitor, and look like the image below.







We always meant to have our FOV expand horizontally, but a last minute bug fix for a related issue changed this back to a vertical FOV just before ship. We feel rather silly about this, and agree that horizontal expansion is much more awesome, and that you'll have it very soon.

Thanks again to Chris (again, not the one who wrote this article) for the heads up.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 12, 2010 1:17 PM

    Meh to the controller but a big WTF to the widescreen issue.

    • reply
      February 12, 2010 1:32 PM

      Wide Screen [FIX]

      in Windows, type %AppData% into the run dialog box (Winkey + R), then navigate to and open:
      Bioshock2\User.INI

      To Fix the FOV for Widescreen:
      go to the [Default] section and bind an unused key to "SetFOV 90" without quotes. hit that key ingame to change the FOV. it holds between saves, so you shouldn't have to do it more than once.

      To Reset FOV to Default
      go to the [Default] section and bind an unused key to "ResetFOV" without quotes.

      To Enable Walking:
      go to the [Default] section and bind whatever key you want to "Walking" without the quotes.

      To Make the Walk Button a Toggle:
      find the line "Aliase17]=(Command="Button bRun",Alias=Walking)" under [Engine.Input] and change it to "Aliase17]=(Command="Toggle bRun",Alias=Walking)"

      • reply
        February 12, 2010 2:05 PM

        Sweet, thank you. I think I saw this on WSGF, too.

      • reply
        February 12, 2010 2:35 PM

        I'm skeptical about this looking right. Just adjusting the FOV shouldn't fix the issue. If you just adjust the FOV without locking the vertical height, the screen will just look warped and fish-eye like. I'll give it a try...

        • reply
          February 13, 2010 7:10 AM

          I adjusted to 90 deg and it looked quite good to me.

      • reply
        February 12, 2010 4:45 PM

        Nice. GJ dude.

    • reply
      February 12, 2010 2:05 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        February 12, 2010 2:12 PM

        What I don't get is why it's taking them so long to fix it. They say it was a bug, but if they know it was a bug (rather than pure ignorance), then why no fix yet?


      • reply
        February 12, 2010 2:14 PM

        no - it was a mistake, plain and simple, and we were on top of fixing it immediately because that's not how we intended the game to be!

        • reply
          February 12, 2010 3:21 PM

          [deleted]

          • reply
            February 12, 2010 3:48 PM

            there was something that needed to be fixed right at the end. in fixing it, this got reverted.

            as that's kind of an embarrasing "woopsie" i don't see why it would behoove me to lie about that.

            also i don't lie. it's a tenant of the job and one i love.

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              February 13, 2010 6:29 AM

              I think what's making people skeptical is the fact that there's other things that also fit with a reversion to to the original pre-patching Bioshock 1 codebase - mouse acceleration issues, the lack of a walk key etc - all of those things were added in patches in BS1 along with the widescreen fix. I think it's reasonable for people to think that maybe the 2K Marin team didn't use the up-to-date BS1 code in making BS2.

        • reply
          February 12, 2010 4:29 PM

          dahanese, could you tell me which FOV the 360 version uses in comparison to the PC? Basically will it be like the PC is before or after the patch? I'm still trying to decide which version to get.

          • reply
            February 12, 2010 4:56 PM

            The FOV is the same for all versions: 75.

            • reply
              February 12, 2010 5:06 PM

              Ah, cool. Thanks for that.

            • reply
              February 12, 2010 5:09 PM

              Yeah but does it increase when you use 16:10 instead of 16:9?

              • reply
                February 12, 2010 5:40 PM

                you're not going to get a 90 degree FOV. it's still pretty close to 75 for all of them (i don't have the exact numbers here.)

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