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Why's everything so tiny?
Seriously, I can't read this shite.
The latest generation of game consoles are the most powerful yet, capable of incredible amounts of detail in their graphics, stuff unheard of just a generation ago.
So why the hell can't I read half the text in these games?
Granted, I play my Wii more than my bro's PS3, but whenever I play the latter, at least half the games have some text in them that are just unreadable. Weapon and item names in MGS4, item names in Soul Calibur 4, and just about everything in Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, they're all too damn small for me to read.
And the crazy thing is, I've seen screenshots of the same games, usually only like 600 pixels wide, where I can read the text. Is it my TV? Do I need an HDTV to be able to read the stuff in these games? Thankfully, with the exception of Sacred 2, it hasn't been for critical stuff like dialogue and the story, but it's still a pain in the arse to squint at the screen to try and figure out just what piece of equipment I'm slapping onto my custom fighter, or what gun Snake picked up.
My TV isn't exactly the biggest thing in the world, but it's a pretty good size, and every previous consol generation's had perfectly readable text.
I have to wonder whether anyone who worked on these games even thought about this, or did they just assume anyone who could afford the PS3 could also afford an HDTV?
Comments
Wow, I suffer a similar dilemma. Well, I used to at home, because I didn't have an HDTV, but I still do at the GF's. The HDTV will take care of your problems, but it is definitely expensive. Couldn't really tell you why the text can't scale, I'm not a programmer so I don't know how difficult that would be.
At my GF's though, playing BF1943 literally gives me a headache whenever I spend more than a half hour playing.
This is an issue that doesn't get enough attention; good call, BSM. With games like Dead Rising, it really doesn't matter how big your TV is. I can just barely read the text on my 42", and my buddy's 65" isn't much better. Sacred 2 is a a great example of this, as is Lost Planet.
The reason you can read the screenshots is because they are usually taken from an HD source then re-sized to fit whatever page their on. Your TV is most likely 480i, which means that it has 480 vertical lines of pixels where HD has anywhere from 720 to 1080. Those extra lines leave a lot of space for tiny text to be readable.