BioShock 2 PC Has Widescreen Bug; Fix Coming

By Marcus Yam
published

BioShock 2 needs to get its FOV and aspect ratio back on track.

2K Games is now working on a patch to correct a widescreen bug in the recently shipped PC version of BioShock 2.

When the first BioShock launched in 2007, high-def gamers took notice that those still playing in 4:3 were treated with extra image on the vertical axis. This meant that, instead of getting more image to the left and right (making it 'wide'screen), the image was cropped on the top and bottom. Now this same problem is affecting the current version of BioShock 2 for PC.

The reverting back to an original characteristic from the first game wasn't intentional, however, as 2K tells us that a last minute bug fix for a related issue caused this issue.

The good news is that the developers are already testing a patch that will rectify those seeking proper framing.

Before patch

After patch
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • grillz9909
    What? Bioshock(2) has bugs? No way?!
    Reply
  • jakthebomb
    the game also has a delayed Plasmid use bug where if you right click to fire, it takes a good 1 second to respond. it felt like Bioshock original was more responsive to firing than bioshock 2.
    Reply
  • truehighroller
    Hey now, I've been playing at 1920 / 1200 for two days now and I'm on the third or fourth part of the city at this point.. I haven't had any issue's like this so far or a mouse button latency bug for that matter. I have a Quad @ 4.2GHZ and that might be helping along with the 5870 but still, no issues here.

    Wait there is one, when you go in to the gene swapping station where you can move the plasmids around, the screen graphics flicker all funky and screwed up once you go in to the second part of the screen where you select what Plasmid to equip in a given slot.. That's definitely a bug that I've noticed.
    Reply
  • coonday
    They had this same problem with the first game. You think they would have learned their lesson.
    Reply
  • amabhy
    What the fuck?

    From the picture, it looks like they cut down the 4:3 image and left the widescreen ones the same.

    You're supposed to make widescreen bigger so the 4:3 people don't lose out!

    Guess I'm not patching my copy.
    Reply
  • TheDuke
    shouldn't testing catch these problems. Especially the ones that were in the previous games. I hear people having issues with sound like the first one also
    Reply
  • JohnnyLucky
    The folks doing the testing don't usually think of every single possibility or problem that can occur.
    Reply
  • pocketdrummer
    Holy shit, yes it does have bugs. I beat it, but half the game I had both graphic and Audio bugs left and right. Sometimes enemies wouldn't make a sound, or I wouldn't, or my gun wouldn't. That, and it had random blackouts. Ugh. I was quite disappointed by that.

    Not to mention, the mouse still feels weird as hell, and the wide-screen doesn't make any sense (even after the patch). Technically, shouldn't the 16:9 resolution show more to the sides and 16:10 show more up?
    Reply
  • liquidsnake718
    off to see the wizard, and going to buy this game
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    Torrent before one buys always in case of this so one doesn't have to go out to get their money back. So a week or so they will have a fix out no worry.
    Reply