BioWare: No fix for Mass Effect 2 SDTV 'tiny text' issue

Dudes, the text was kinda small even on my 22" HDTV.

Dudes, as much as love ME2, the text WAS kinda small.. even on my 22" HDTV.

@Massmass

I think you should have done a little more research online. You can easily get a premium brand TV for around the price you paid for the Insignia.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=37&sel=Detail;133_269_17320_18147,Price;Price7

But you do have a excellent point about the 3D. I was about to buy another HDTV but, with 3D TV's coming out I'm going to wait until HDTV prices fall a little bit more and then buy one of those. I still think though if you don't have an HDTV there's no point in waiting because everything is pretty cheap right now for you to get a generic for next to nothing.

@Jedi Master

Agreed I'm a full-time college student, work a full-time job and I pay my student loans off as I go. A few months I disciplined myself to only go out 2 weekends a month and to stop eating out as much and I saved about 3-4 hundred dollars a month. A lot of people that complain about affording items 90% of the time could have it if they knew how to budget their money better.

Really saying you can't afford to game in HD today is like saying you can't breathe air. I know times are hard for people but, grab a monitor. $10 for an adapter and spend a few hours on craigslist searching for a monitor and you'll be gaming in HD in no time...

I actually find the text on both ME2 and Dragon Age to not be very crisp on my 50" HDTV, haven't noticed that on any other recent games I've played. It's totally readable, just not quite as crisp and easy to read as some other games.

Only problem I see on my 37" LCD TV is that the text color is sometimes hard to see (light blue). Wish we had the option to choose text color for subtitles.

Glad to see developers are continuing to be lazy and ignoring the millions of people who still have standard definition TVs. The *fact* of the matter is we represent a small section of the gaming populous, and most people don't have HDTVs. Down vote me all you want, I couldn't care less. You're wrong.

One of my next purchases will be a better TV, most definitely. I'm also someone who prefers to game in the comfort of my couch as opposed to the chair at my desk. I also live in Canada, so this ups the price of every TV by at least $100. Before anything, though, I must pay off the summer semester tuition. Yay.

For a lot of people, it's not a matter of getting the "Full experience" out of consoles. If Mass Effect is a game that can't be enjoyed without mind blowing HD graphics, then its not much of a game. A lot of people who like to play games on their PC's, but can't afford to buy a video card every few months to keep up with the technology and get the full effect from the newest games. But they can still enjoy the games, because they can turn the settings down to something their computer can handle.

Now, I'm playing ME2 on a laptop, and it runs fine, everything on (literally. The video settings for this game are lacking). It's not a top of the line game, graphically, from a PC standpoint at least. It looks amazing, but it's not the best.

So for the console versions of these people, the kids in highschool, the poor saps like me in college, or the people who just have limited funds and have to budget, dropping money on an HDTV, regardless of how "cheap" it is (skewed view of "cheap, imo), is not an option. The consoles support SD, and for a reason. It's a game console, not a pretty picture box. If the game can't be enjoyed on a standard definition set, it's lost it's fun factor to whatever percentage of Gamers still own an SDTV. As in, all those raving reviews amount to shit in the toilet.

@ arkweld

After spending $300 on a console, $60 for every new game you buy and tons more on DLC, subscriptions, and accessories, not everyone can afford to spend a bare minimum of $300 or $400 to get an HDTV of comparable size to their current standard def set.

I have an HDTV, but I didn't a couple of years ago. Luckily for me, developers like Bungie made their titles scale on-screen text when Bioware is being just as lazy as Capcom was 3 or 4 years ago with the Dead Rising debacle. It's 100% unacceptable and you're being a close minded elitist by letting it go. Congratulations.

Just do what I did. I went to Best Buy and bought a cheap-ass Dynex 32 inch for about 300.

Guess what? It works awesome, and still looks really good. No, it's not as good as a Samsung or Sony, but if you're poor, then choices are slim.

I'm still using a 32" SD. Between house payments, epic utility bills, and children, I have a hard time justifying the purchase of a new TV when this one still works. The text was small (and I find it funny that this became a post) but I just turned up the sharpness and adjusted the contrast. Not perfect, but it's readable.

Because of the text in Mass Effect 2, I move a chair in front of my 42 inch HD screen because it's too hard to read from my couch. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but I feel like the text was designed for a PC monitor and not a console on *any* TV. The text should have been bigger.

To anyone claiming budget as their restriction from getting an HDTV, Craigslist is your friend...a year ago, I scored a 36" Sony WEGA w/ 4 HDMI inputs for $100. Those sorts of deals won't always be there, but a shrewd and patient buyer can always find what they need for the price they are willing to pay. You've gotta be a bargain predator :D

I have an HDTV at home (using standard-def cables, but even then 360 games look amazing) but play on standard-def at my room-and-board on campus. My room is so small that I probably wouldn't be able to fit an HDTV in the damn thing anyway.

And I can squint pretty well :D

Just w8 till a month after they bring out there 3DTV's (facepalm) and they say no one has any form of non 3DTV

until i can watch a TV without glasses i dont want a 3d TV the only time 3D should be getting involved is with holograms and then the TV isnt involved anyways

I ran into this problem but it wasn't THAT bad, I got over it. I'm not rich and our family only has one HDTV, and if I hooked my xbox up to that I wouldn't have much of a chance to play it because other people would be on that tv :/

I don't own an HD tv, and pass by MANY games, xbla games, and xbl indie games because I can't fscking read the text. (Penny Arcade comes to mind)

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. But the fact remains, it makes the game more tedious to play. And other commenters have mentioned games where it has been almost unreadable. I just can't imagine why a developer would let it happen. It's not something that you can really miss when testing.

And yeah, I was just using the computer thing as an example, of not being able to upgrade technology and still have fun with the game. But yeah, I'm sure you've a point there.

I'm late to the comments but.. I just got an HDTV recently solely because I was saving up for it forever and knew I wasn't going to play Mass Effect 2, God of War 3 or Final Fantasy XIII on my standard def.

I got a decent 32" which is perfect for where I have it set up and Mass Effect 2 looks beautiful on it, from beginning to end (and what an ending!) I'm not sure about other 360's but I have the RE5 bundle which came w/ an hdmi cable.

I also got 2 hdmi cables for 7$ (13 w/ shipping) from monoprice.com for my ps3s. If cables are so cheap and you already own the systems, why wouldn't you get an HDTV?

I notice some people are saying on here that there are reasons they can't afford it and to that I say fair enough, you've got a point. That aside, since when did a developer making an optimal product become our babysitter?

If you really want something, you'll find a way to get it. If you can't afford to, it doesn't mean you don't deserve it, but I don't know where we get this idea that Bioware has to hold our damn hands. Get out there and educate yourself.. use the internet.. ask people who know who's opinion you trust.

Sorry if I'm in the minority on this one but I don't think it's Bioware's responsibility. When I was playing Dead Rising on my SDTV the biggest motivating factor in getting an HDTV was the fact that I couldn't see shit. My 2 cents.

Leon Said:

"Okay. I can perfectly understand people out there not having enough money to buy an HDTV. That is perfectly acceptable.

BUT, the fact that you are buying $300~$400+ game consoles and video games for $60 a pop is nothing short of stupid. If you cannot afford a TV, you shouldn't be able to afford these either.

And maybe you should have gotten an HDTV before you spent easily the cost of one on a console and games."


Could not have said it better myself. TV should come before the console, otherwise the console and games for 60 a pop are a waste of money.