Carrie's birthday, originally uploaded by tiltology.

Posted by Eric Tilton at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kotaku continues to demonstrate they have no cognitive ability whatsoever in the conclusion to widescreen-gate.

So, yeah. I'll paraphrase the game developer's response: yeah we designed to the widescreen experience, and set up all of our assets with that in mind. But we had to deal with 4:3, right? So we had two choices -- letterbox, or just render the top & bottom portions you wouldn't otherwise see. We decided not to screw with the field of view, because you know what? The screen would look funny and pinched if we did that. We decided not to design to the 4:3 screen and then just add extra crap to the left and right because then you'd... feel like you were in a fishbowl.

I mean, guys, guys? You did notice that those TVs are different shapes, right?

My favorite response in the comments from the above link:

"The arm in the comparison screenshot keeps going in the 4:3 version. This would only make sense of the widescreen was cropped down from the full image."

Seriously, wow. That's brilliant, man. The man really stuck it to you by continuing to render the rest of the arm model so that it wouldn't look COMPLETELY STUPID in 4:3.

I hate people. Just wait until I release "I hate people episodes 1-3 -- a prequilogy."

For what it's worth, the claustrophobic feel of wandering around BioShock on a 16:9 screen is pitch-perfect. It's like some game designers, like, designed it.

Posted by Eric Tilton at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If forum posters really behaved that way in real life: Internet Commenter Business Meeting (audio contains swearing and is probably NSFW without a headset).

(from kill ten rats)

In other news, I played BioShock some last night. I really like what I've seen so far. The introductory sequence is beautiful -- put me right back onto that tram in Half-Life, but even better. If you like System Shock 2, this will feel very familiar. I confess I was a little surprised they finally got away from their obscurely sophisticated leaning system though :).

Posted by Eric Tilton at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, get this. Apparently BioShock's widescreen support is "screwed up". Go ahead, click the link, look at the example.

Yeah, that's right. People are pissed off because the camera they control is showing a view that's wider than it is tall on their widescreen TVs. Let's stay focused on that core issue -- the camera that THEY CONTROL.

Seriously, reading the comments is like bad comedy. This isn't a freaking movie where shots are all carefully framed. This is an FPS. If you play an FPS on a widescreen TV? The top and bottom aren't there. The viewport is a different shape. Maybe you noticed this when you bought the TV.

Posted by Eric Tilton at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

we shipped. Woot!

Posted by Eric Tilton at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)