BIOSHOCK ON STEAM!!!

[Innoc]

I thought open discussion of things such as where to pirate was prohibited here. Am I mistaken?

[Spiderm4N]

sry =/

[StrickNine]

Just played through the demo. This game looks to be pretty amazing! Definintely buying this. Runs great on my modest system too.

amd athlon x2 dual core 3800+
1gb ram
BFG Geforce 7800 GT OC

[Spiderm4N]

Originally Posted by StrickNine

Just played through the demo. This game looks to be pretty amazing! Definintely buying this. Runs great on my modest system too.

amd athlon x2 dual core 3800+
1gb ram
BFG Geforce 7800 GT OC

how do i play the encrypted version? :S

[GhOsT]

Err....why would you need to? You can download it at a bunch of places now.

[Spiderm4N]

Originally Posted by GhOsT

Err....why would you need to? You can download it at a bunch of places now.

yeah i know
but i downloaded that and i would like to play

downloading from steam now btw =/

[Jifcuits]

Tried to purchase it over steam, apparently its not available in my country

[StrickNine]

Originally Posted by Spiderm4N

how do i play the encrypted version? :S

you just have to hit the check button on the dl manager.


So I bought this game today and started playing around 1pm. It is now 11pm and I really had one hell of a time tearing myself away from this game.

The art and design of rapture is so well done... it really seems like it once was a bustling underwater city... and its fucking beautiful. They nailed the atmosphere... I'm constantly creeping slowly around.. checkin' every corner.

I think this game just about blew my speakers too. When you have two hacked turrets shootin' splicers, and you're fighting a big daddy by throwing explosive barrels and propane tanks at him, and he's tossin' land mines at you that other splicers are setting off.... that makes for a lot of impressive bass heavy explosions!

[Tennovan]

Its just too bad widescreen gaming is jacked. The devs used vert- instead of hor+ to support widescreen aspect ratios and left out the ability to change FOV which makes it unplayable for most (EDIT: because everything feels zoomed in). The result?

Examples:
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/sho...84&postcount=1
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/sho...&postcount=355
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com...=108450#108450

Threads:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com...ic.php?t=11658
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4883

And the kicker - http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=659

Originally Posted by ckline

You will see more in widescreen. We use a different projection matrix; there is no squashing or stretching of the image involved

- Chris Kline, Lead Programmer, Bioshock

[gizmofo]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=182421
-This is how awesome the game is supposed to be.

[Jiggles]

It's fun so far; they really nailed the atmosphere. I can't believe they based this on the original Unreal engine.

Though there's no way in hell that, after surviving a plane crash, I'd hop into an unknown bathysphere and pull the lever

[Dospac]

Haha Gizmofo. Prolly summer temps that led to his pc's demise. That sucks though..

[Tennovan]

Racer_S at WSGF has released a fix before 2k haha.

Version 1.1:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com...3f278c8#108642

I think they're still working on some issues with Vista 64-bit so you might want to scan the rest of the thread. They've also posted different FOV settings a few pages after the fix

[Harken Dellspawn]

Originally Posted by Tennovan

Its just too bad widescreen gaming is jacked. The devs used vert- instead of hor+ to support widescreen aspect ratios and left out the ability to change FOV which makes it unplayable for most (EDIT: because everything feels zoomed in).

Widescreen owners rage over Bioshock

Bioshocking support for standard displays

By Wily Ferret: Thursday 23 August 2007, 09:22
DESPITE THE awards being won around the web for its must-play shooter Bioshock, developer 2K Games is under fire from hardware enthusiasts who have invested big money in widescreen displays - only to find their vision is more limited than those on skanky old CRTs.

Here's the thing: most games, unlike films and TV these days, are written for the standard 4:3 aspect ratio. Widescreen support, if it exists on the PC, generally enlarges the field of vision in the same way that a widescreen view of a film gets rid of pan and scan. Since Bioshock is also an Xbox 360 game, however, the whole thing was designed for widescreen and so PC owners with big monitors were chuffed at the prospect of lording it over their poorer mates.

Not so. Rather than chop the sides off the widescreen - making the square display - 2K Games has added more to the top of the picture, thus making the square. And, in the process, effectively making widescreen gamers second-class citizens who now get less picture on their screen than 4:3 gamers, not more.

Now given that widescreen monitors are still much rarer than standard ratio monitors, this isn't necessarily a bad design choice. But given that those buying widescreen monitors are the loud, enthusiastic, vocal minority, you can see where the problem comes in.

For its part, 2K felt compelled enough to issue a statement clarifying its position:

"Instead of cropping the FOV for 4:3 displays and making all 4:3 owners mad in doing so, we slightly extended the vertical FOV for standard def mode: we never wanted to have black bars on people’s displays. (This way, everybody is happy).

"This does mean that people playing on a standard def display see slightly more vertical space, but, this does not significantly affect the game-play experience and, we felt that it best served our goal of keeping the game experience as close as possible to the original design and art vision on both types of displays. Reports of the widescreen FOV being a crop of the 4:3 FOV are completely false.

"One thing we can assure you that all these decisions were made with the best interests of the game in mind. " Although he explained the history of the game development in a bid to justify his statement that the widescreen FOV is not a crop - how the 4:3 FOV is an enlarged version of the widescreen FOV - the fundamental point he makes is, nonetheless, clearly wrong. However you choose to phrase it, widescreen gamers get less action. That said, 2K Games has clearly said its part on the matter and that's that.

For our part, we suggest people stop worrying about the viewing angle and get on with the business of playing one of the greatest games ever made - and just be thankful that, given the massive success this is going to have on the Xbox 360, it got ported to the PC at all.

But, as always, the saga doesn't end there. PC owners are reporting problems installing the game - if you install the game more than twice, users say, the Bioshock activation process locks you out. This will happen if you fail to uninstall the game before removing it - for example, if you just format your system and reinstall Windows. This is because 2K games has contracted Securom to manage 'activations' for the game - more than two activations and, like Windows, the software starts getting antsy.

2K said that "if you use the game as you normally do, you won't notice this at all". Obviously, 2K's spokeswoman has never met crazy hardware enthusiast people. More details on the workaround for that are here.

[Tennovan]

I can see where they would think providing more vertical space is logical... simply because hor+ might take away from the game atmosphere. I wouldn't have so much of a problem with this if they provided an option for widescreen gamers to either play as intended or play as they want. Many WS gamers have mentioned that the current FOV is vomit-inducing, making them feel sick after playing for a while.

The community has released a hack for it so its not so major anymore. I just think 2k should have included the option instead of dumbing down the PC version because Microsoft wanted the game XBox'd.

[tu!]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...e=pcg&skip=yes

LOL!!!

[Anshinritsumai]

Oh sure, people are whining over the stupid Widescreen vs Standard issues; when there's still the problem of the random crashes or fail to even run issues... god damn, there's other shit that needs to be fixed instead of just a simple aspect ratio....

[Tennovan]

Originally Posted by Anshinritsumai

Oh sure, people are whining over the stupid Widescreen vs Standard issues; when there's still the problem of the random crashes or fail to even run issues... god damn, there's other shit that needs to be fixed instead of just a simple aspect ratio....

And yet you're bitching about an issue that doesn't affect me. How are we any different?

[Anshinritsumai]

Originally Posted by Tennovan

And yet you're bitching about an issue that doesn't affect me. How are we any different?

The widescreen vs. standard issue is pretty much nothing more than "omg i can't see my character's tatoo's anymore!!"

Compare that to "I've got all the system requirements, better than actually, and the game fails to even run or runs horribly when it does."

It's aesthetics vs. playability. You can at least play it.

[Etzell]

He can play it. Thus, he doesn't have your issue. Thus, he can bitch about the next thing on his list to bitch about.