On the Subject of Bioshock 2

Evie Delatosso

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It looks like Bioshock 2 features the same widescreen cropping as (pre-patch) Bioshock. Which is to say "vert-", which as I've previously discussed, involves widescreen aspect ratios having the same horizontal field of view as lower ratios (i.e. 4x3, or 1.333), with the top and bottom cropped.

Now on the off-chance that someone stumbles across this while they're out and about with their flaming torch and pitchfork, hunting for 2K devs to string up to the nearest tree, let me clarify that it's not 2K I'm laughing/crying about, it's the fucking retard bandwagon-jumping reactionary cunts who continue to claim that Bioshock's widescreen support is "broken" or "wrong".

Aspect ratio support is only "wrong" if the image comes out distorted (i.e. stretched) due to the game essentially rendering through a camera set to one aspect ratio, and drawing the image to a display with another.

That aside (and it's relatively rare, if not unheard of, for a game's aspect ratio support to be genuinely broken in that way), there are actually two separate issues involved when people talk about widescreen support. One of those is the choice of aspect ratio support, whether it's "vert-" or "horizontal+". There is no fucking right or wrong way to do it. But try telling that to some fucking bottom-feeding cock who believes that widescreengamingforums is some sort of official widescreen architecture review board. "Waaaah, I have a widescreen monitor, therefore I should see more than some loser who doesn't, waaaah". That stupid argument, which essentially boils down to "entitlement", can easily be thwarted with the simple example of a widescreen monitor vs a physically larger, 4x3 display (for example, one which has the same physical horizontal width as the widescreen display). Why should the 4x3 display, which offers a considerably larger screen area, display less of the camera view than the smaller monitor? Should someone on a 3x2 eyefinity display have to put up with a narrower horizontal fov than someone on a 3x1 setup? Should someone on a 16x9, 23" display have a wider fov than someone on a 30" 16x10?
In other words the fov should be a function of the physical size of the display relative to the viewer, and that might result in either form of cropping, depending on the circumstances. Why is it the widescreen mode that's wrong, why not the 4x3 mode? Have fun trying to get some cunt who's determined to rage against 2K to even acknowledge that argument. They're much too full of ignorance and entitlement to respond to logic.

The problem is that a lot of people seem to be unable to differentiate between the issue of cropping, and the confusingly similar issue of field of view. It's increasingly common for games which are primarily designed for consoles to appear on the PC without any compensation for the different viewing geometry. A game designed to be played by someone sitting on a sofa 6' from their TV will not offer an optimal viewing experience for me, sitting 18" from my 30" monitor*. So there's a perfectly valid argument that PC games should in general offer a wider horizontal field of view than a console game, in order to maximise immersion and also reduce potential motion sickness in those people who suffer from it. But that is nothing to do with widescreen cropping. It's like when religious idiots try to entwine their bullshit sky wizard fairy tales with common sense notions like people not killing each other, the implication being that if you don't believe in their particular magic beardy man you must be some sort of child-raping murderer. "If you don't agree that all widescreen modes should be horizontal+, you can't possibly agree that the fov should be wider, because they're the same thing". They're not, you're a cunt.

That said, it's quite staggering that 2K have chosen to implement the same design a second time (especially given that they eventually patched the original game). Not because it was ever wrong, but because of the shitstorm it caused last time around. It is (probably quite rightly) being seen as a symptom of general laziness and disinterest when it came to porting the PC version of the game.

In any case I didn't think Bioshock was all that in the first place so I never had any intention of picking up the sequel.

P.S. Maximum respect to kotaku commenter saifrc who is the only other person I've ever seen offering a rational and informed rebuttal to the "controversy".

* incidentally, since most TVs are now 16x9, but most widescreen PC monitors are 16x10, does that mean the fov should actually be narrower on the PC than on the consoles? Obviously not, you cock.