Widescreen gaming

PostWidescreen gaming by **consolegaming** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:49 am

So, during the last gen widescreen titles started to trickle out, many of them 'faked' widescreen and lowering the resolution of the games.

Once the Xbox 360 came out we finally had widescreen gaming as a norm, every game had it, but what do you guys feeling about it?

Has it improved gaming, or made it worse, or is it something you do not even pay attention to?

I do believe that the old 4:3 games now have a certain nostalgia about them and playing in widescreen does not really improve the gaming experience much.

I think there are certain titles where the extra picture has benefitted the gamer, like in racing games and fps games, but in other genres it may actually have spoilt the experience.

I do not think genres like sports and platformers have really had much benefit from change in aspect ratio, what do you guys think?

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **TheTurnipKing** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:57 am

Can't say as I've really noticed.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Extralife** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:30 am

I remember it was pretty cool to start off with but I just see widescreen as the norm these days. If I were to go back I would probably feel a bit restricted in my view though.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **LongHairStu** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:35 am

Widescreen exists because cinemas needed a way to draw in customers who had been enchanted by their home TVs. Because of that, I have tended to think that, unlike film, games haven't had a compelling reason to turn to widescreen. But perhaps I couldn't see the wood for the trees - perhaps the reason is simply the takeup of widescreen televisions.

I still think 4:3 is available as an artistic/design choice, and I prefer to think that games should be played in one aspect ratio only - take Resident Evil 4 and Beyond Good and Evil, which were only either widescreen or letterboxed (will the requirements of MS or Sony mean that Resi 5 has a 4:3 mode? Or will the game just be letterboxed on a 4:3 set?).

I can't think (any more - I did years ago on GR) of any arguments of note against widescreen gaming, and so it has pretty much washed over me, and that would be the way I would have it now by and large.

Oh, and I certainly don't stretch old 4:3 games.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Steve** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:55 am

LongHairStu wrote:Widescreen exists because cinemas needed a way to draw in customers who had been enchanted by their home TVs.

Eyes are sort of lemon shaped so widescreen exists because it's a better way to view.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **LongHairStu** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:03 pm

Oh, yes, sure, it is the way that we naturally view the world (which is pretty much another good reason for widescreen gaming!), but widescreen displays were introduced as I described. Presumably displays weren't widescreen from the word go due to manufacturing reasons?

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Steve** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:08 pm

LongHairStu wrote:Oh, yes, sure, it is the way that we naturally view the world (which is pretty much another good reason for widescreen gaming!), but widescreen displays were introduced as I described. Presumably displays weren't widescreen from the word go due to manufacturing reasons?

The tube/projector in old TV's meant they could only be square shaped. So that become the standard.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **LongHairStu** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:46 pm

Seems reasonable.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Eighthours** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:51 pm

I love widescreen gaming. Love it.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Steve** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:55 pm

Eighthours wrote:I love widescreen gaming. Love it.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **consolegaming** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:56 pm

Playing the older pro evo in 4:3 > newer widescreen versions imo

I even chose to play ff12 and yakuza in 4:3 as it looked better, but it was mainly because both games featured 'faked' widescreen, where the top and bottom of the image were cut rather than adding more information on the left and right!

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Ironhide** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:41 pm

Moving off topic slightly, does anyone else find the horizontal borders on 16:9 ratio DVDs which remain there even when viewed on a 16:9 TV utterly strawberry floating irritating and distracting?

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **emilythestrange** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:26 pm

Hate widescreen, for games, films, anything, I just don't see the point at all. Why bother having a screen that size when you have a huge black bar at the top and a huge black bar at the bottom?

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **consolegaming** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:26 pm

IronHide wrote:Moving off topic slightly, does anyone else find the horizontal borders on 16:9 ratio DVDs which remain there even when viewed on a 16:9 TV utterly ******* irritating and distracting?

Annoying yes, but happy that they implemented this as this was the ratio at which the film was shot at. For years we had stuff on tv that basically showed us less than half of the film if you get what I mean!

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Pred** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:29 pm

I wouldn't know since I still play in games in 4:3 format. The only "widescreen" I get is when games have black borders at the top and bottom.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Tineash** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:41 pm

emilythestrange wrote:Hate widescreen, for games, films, anything, I just don't see the point at all. Why bother having a screen that size when you have a huge black bar at the top and a huge black bar at the bottom?

You're doing something wrong if you're getting letterboxing on widescreen games.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Drunken_Master** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:48 pm

I've been widescreen, since the introduction of widescreen CRT's, way back in the mid 90's. 8-)

Can't say I've noticed the difference, as I always use to stretch out 4:3 games anyway.

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **HrC** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 3:02 pm

Steve wrote: Eyes are sort of lemon shaped so widescreen exists because it's a better way to view.

Sorry but that just reminds me of Johnny Nice Painter with the "My eyes, my eyes are pies!...And yours are lies!" line.
[YouTube]http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=4VqY6hLosCo[/YouTube]

Also, I think widescreen is all the better to see things with... You can also just use widescreen to play something windowed in a normal resolution, whilst using the rest of the space to watch the football or be on irc etc... (naturally this would apply to PC gaming, as i dont have a widescreen for my consoles.)

LongHairStu wrote:games haven't had a compelling reason to turn to widescreen.

Here's one. Take a 4:3 display and look at the image on it and then blow that image up to, say, a 100 inch 4:3 TV (in theory), now look at it. It's the same "viewing area", just on a bigger screen , right? Now look at a 16:9 image, and do the same. It shows more of the game, no matter the size. (Bioshock is the only time a game has actually went backwards, and even then it was quickly patched out).

How can seeing more of the area in a game, in which a large portion of the screen can be taking up with the HUD, not be a huge, huge benefit? Final Fantasy XII is the time I noticed it the most as the game is packed with HUD information, meaning you get only a tiny bit in the centre of a 4:3 display to actually view the action. The same game on a 16:9 display is beautiful, as the HUD has been moved away to the side. Surely seeing more of a game is an unarguable plus?

Now films are a bit of a different beast as they aren't the same widescreen ratio as widescreen TVs but for games I can't see how anyone could even begin to suggest that widescreen isn't a far superior format to 4:3, it's a far greater impact on games than HD (imo).

I've seen your argument about aspect ratios before but Stu do you realise that games (at least the Xbox development kits) scale everything automatically? For a HUD you tell it how far in from the side of the screen you want it to be and it'll always be (say) 10% from the left on all displays. There isn't really any design problem, as the development kits seem to handle all the different aspect ratios automatically. Apart from it being awkward for the developer (which it isn't), why do you want everyone to be forced to one aspect ratio?

PostRe: Widescreen gaming by **Ironhide** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 3:30 pm

consolegaming wrote:
IronHide wrote:Moving off topic slightly, does anyone else find the horizontal borders on 16:9 ratio DVDs which remain there even when viewed on a 16:9 TV utterly ******* irritating and distracting?

Annoying yes, but happy that they implemented this as this was the ratio at which the film was shot at. For years we had stuff on tv that basically showed us less than half of the film if you get what I mean!

That's only true for a 4:3 screen, A 16:9 picture should fit a 16:9 screen without borders.

Widescreen gaming

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