Mass Effect 2′s scaling issues.
by K. Michael Alexander
I love Mass Effect 2. Story wise it’s great, and the UI is much improved over the last game. However the interface is not perfect, it seems while it looks great on an HDTV when it comes to SD televisions the onscreen text shrinks and is unreadable. I wish I could say this shocks me, but having played both Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I can’t say I’m surprised by a BioWare title once again having problems with it’s interface. When it comes to UI their titles constantly been plagued with poor design decisions. Mass Effect 2 was a nice step in the right direction for them, but this SDTV issues have caused a pretty big reaction within the community. It’s a shame that such an amazing title is now shadowed with what really is an easily avoidable problem.
It’s simple, UI designers need to constantly be mindful that not everyone is playing a game on a top-of-the-line system, half of gamers still have standard definition TVs. Half. That’s a big enough percentage that we need to keep the lowest common denominator in mind. Ignoring them is abandoning half your audience. The mobile market is one of the few time where we can guarantee players are going to be experiencing a game the same way as everyone else. When it comes to consoles or PC gaming variables are introduced. Screens change in size, resolutions fluctuate, it should be common place to design around that.
A successful interface, be it menus or the HUD, needs to do two things: 1.) display relevant information, and 2.) do so in a way that the player isn’t pulled out of their experience. An “enhanced” UI can look great on a HDTV but if it doesn’t scale properly, causing information displayed to be unreadable then you haven’t done your job as a UI designer. That’s the truth. No amount of “design choice” can change it.
Comments
Capcom’s Dead Rising, an otherwise very fun game, had the same issue, making it almost unplayable in SD. I muddled through it anyway because the gameplay was worth it, but reading onscreen text was basically impossible.
I’m not sure if Dead Rising coming out so much earlier in the 360′s life cycle excuses the mistake, or if it makes it worse, given that HD TVs were less widespread at the time.
Yeah I’ve heard of the Dead Rising problem. Capcom’s excuse was similar to Bioware’s, they even went as far as offering possible DIY fixes: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/17/capcom-offers-diy-fixes-for-dead-rising-text-issues/
The other example I have seen cited is “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.” It also had a similar issue but Rare actually fix the issue with a patch.