The Order 1886's Aspect Ratio (Black Bars) Is a Complete Sham.

[Jizz_Beard_thePirate]

LemonSlice said:

Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Well, with games, I expect a fullscreen experience without any black bars but for movies, since the aspect ratio most movies are recorded in is not the standard 16:9, we are forced to deal with the black bars unless you get a cinema wide monitor cause the black bars aren't hard coded into the movies, they are mostly provided by the media player and as the aspect ratio of ur monitor changes, so will the size of the black bars. With games on the other hand, since the Black Bars are hard coded into the game, it will be there no matter what

And I understand that the Order might not be for me but that doesn't mean I can't critize it when it does something so odd like this. There are many games that provide a cinematic experience without going into such nonsense. I understand its a design choice but I think its a poor design choice. I would argue that Uncharted and the Last of Us provide a "Cinematic" experience that will be better than The Order and those games don't need to employ these black bars in order to provide a better "Cinematic" experience at all. I highly doubt anyone ever plays a game and is like, "you know what would be better, if the game had black bars on the top and the bottom cause then, it would feel more like a cinematic experience." Like seriously, I doubt anyone does that and I also doubt that if people had a choice when watching movies between fullscreen or blackbars, that they would choose blackbars cause it offers a "better" experience. And I hardly even count Visual novels as "games" but rather an "interactive" story telling experience.

As for shmups. I don't really mind it cause thats how they have traditionally have been but at the sametime, I don't really play them very much if at all. But I mean, even shmups that go from left to right don't have that black bar nonsense such as Astebreed. And a lot of pillarboxed games have generally been just old games or games that give u that retro feel (even then most are 16:9) when 4:3 was the norm and I won't really complain that developers from the olden days didn't make them at 16:9 when 4:3 was the norm. (For obvious reasons)

A 16:9 ratio can provide a cinematic experience, even a 4:3 a ratio can provide a cinematic experience. But the kind of experience is provided is affected by the ratio, and the decisions that go into designing the game areas and even the gameplay and other things as well are affected by that ratio. It would have been a different game in 16:9 because the game was designed around that aspect ratio and it has affected a lot of decisions that went into designing the game. Heck, if you have noticed how cinematic the games have got in the 7th gen it's in no small part "thanks" to the stardardization of the widescreen aspect ratio. Even in 6th gen the more cinematic games were those intended to be played in 16:9. How many times have you seen the cutscenes switch to a wider ratio?

And actually, the traditional shmup ratio comes from old 4:3 CRTs being turned sideways, or a 3:4 ratio. 

Yes, I do agree that it goes into game design hence why I said in my previous comment that I think that its a pretty poor design choice. Giving us less screenspace is not a good thing and I think that no games should be designed in such a way when games are perfectly capable of giving us equally if not better experiences when they are in fullscreen. Heck, if you look at the front page, it gives u examples as to what another game would be like without those Black Bars and imo, it looks much better! (Yay for mods) To me, its distracting and pretty annoying and it goes in the list of things that games should 110% avoid doing. Of course, that is not to say people can't like it cause it is my opinion after all so if you like it, that is perfectly fine, I just hate the design choice.

And cutscenes can have blackbars all they want, I just don't want them when I am playing the game. Having less screen space while playing a game really doesn't help the overall game experience and I highly doubt it makes the game more say, "immersive" seeing those black bars everywhere you go. When I am playing a game, I want to feel like I am in the world and not be reminded that it is a game that is trying to be a movie by giving us the worst part about watching a movie which are those black bars