I've been spending a little time over at the Widescreen Gaming Forum reading through the thread on Bioshock, which runs 22 pages deep at the moment. This is the discussion that
stirred the hornets' nest.. their hornet panties all in a twist. I should point out, before I dig into it all, that WSGF is a great site for PC gamers. Its members have developed a lot of hacks and config modifications that allow games to run in widescreen resolutions that otherwise didn't support it (I relied on the site to get F.E.A.R. running in widescreen!).

O.k. Now I dig.

To begin with, it is important to note that what is actually at issue here is the Field of View (FOV) used in Bioshock. Apparently, the game's camera has a 75 degree horizontal FOV. Spin around in a circle. I'll wait... ok.. done? You just saw all 360 degrees of your room, right? So in Bioshock, you can see about 75 degrees of the room on your screen at once (on the horizontal). This applies in both widesceen (16 by 10) and in "standard def" (4 by 3). So what are people upset about? Well, most other First Person Shooters use a bit larger horizontal FOV for widescreen displays, about 85 to 90 degrees. That means you can see more of the game world at once. That sounds great and all, but where do you draw the line? I'll tell you! (Not really!) But first, another paragraph:

There is no "correct" FOV. I suppose you could achieve a "realistic" representation by adjusting both the horizontal and vertical Field of View based on the size of your screen and your distance from it. Of course, that would suck for most people (to see why, hold your hands out so they line up with the left and right side of your screen. Now keep your hands in exactly that position and look around the room through your hands.. how much can you see between them? That's all the game world you would be able to see at once. Unless you are rock-and-roll like me and your screen is like 7 feet wide.. or unless you are sitting waaay to close to the screen, that's not much of a view).

So if there is no "correct" FOV for a game, how does a developer decide? It's a matter of "feel." It is absolutely possibly for a video game camera to show you a full 360 horizontal Field of View all at once! Meaning you would be able to see what is in font of you and behind you on the screen at the same time. While that might make for a good gimmick in a game (a gimmick that'd probably make you puke), it definitely wouldn't "feel" right. When EA released Battlefield 2, they claimed it lacked widescreen support (more importantly, a wide FOV) because they thought it would give some gamers an advantage. Most might find that kind of a weak argument, but it argues that there are several things to consider when setting the FOV.

The word from 2K is that the game was developed primarily for widescreen and that all testing was done on widescreen displays. This means that they decided on their 75 degree horizontal FOV while running in widescreen. When the time came to then reformat the game for 4 by 3 displays, rather than squash the image down to fit on the slimmer screen, and instead of cropping out the top and bottom of the screen to preserve the 16 by 10 aspect ratio, they decided to allow the game to render out those extra few degrees on top and bottom. Given the indoor environments and that constant, creeping sensation that the walls are closing in around you, I can understand 2K's decision to go with a smaller FOV, even in widescreen. Nobody is getting screwed here... well except maybe me.

I'm playing Bioshock on my 360 over VGA, 1024 by 768 ... which is 4 by 3... and the image IS cropped. Where is the outrage over CosbyTron's plight?! Poor.. poor CosbyTron