While it’s fairly common these days for console games (Wii excepted) to launch with widescreen/16:9 support, PC games aren’t so fortunate. Even in 2008, with widescreen monitors becoming so popular that even the Xbox 360 natively supports many of their resolutions, a ton of PC games don’t ship with proper widescreen support. Widescreen Gaming Forum to the rescue!. If there’s a workaround, you’ll find it there. If there’s complaining to be had, it’ll start there. So it’s great seeing that the site have just held their first “Widescreen Gaming Awards”, to both honour and shame the best and worst in supporting widescreen gaming on the PC. Awards were handed out in three categories: Field Of Vision (for devs who work hard to implement proper support for widescreen), Narrow Minded (for devs who fail to support, or even actively discourage, widescreen gaming), and an overall Game of the Year. And the winners were: Field of Vision: Valve, Introversion Narrow Minded: DICE, EA Sports Game Of The Year: Call Of Duty 4 As someone who does the bulk of his gaming on my 24” widescreen monitor (got both my PC and 360 hooked up to it), I can only say…DICE & EA Sports, you’re doing it wrong.
HOUSTON, TEXAS, October 22, 2008 - Widescreen Gaming Forum (WSGF) announces the recipients of its first annual awards. Field of Vision - This award recognizes developers for implementing proper support of widescreen and Surround Gaming displays. * Valve Software (Half-Life 2) - For their 100% track record of producing games that become WSGF Certified for perfect widescreen support. Their Source engine provides perfect widescreen and Surround Gaming support, enabling any developer to embrace widescreen. * Introversion Software (Darwinia and Defcon) - The indie developer, which bills itself as “the last of the bedroom programmers,” proves that studio size does not preclude technical excellence. Both Darwinia and Defcon are WSGF Certified. Narrow Minded - With tongue firmly planted in cheek, the WSGF recognizes developers who actively discourage or prevent support of widescreen displays. * DICE (Battlefield 2) - While always describing their Battlefield games as “cinematic,” DICE forcibly limited the aspect ratio to a decidedly non-cinematic ratio of 4:3. Additionally, they helped foster the idea that playing in widescreen constituted “cheating.” * Electronic Arts (EA Sports). Beyond publishing the Battlefield series, EA consistently removed widescreen support from the PC versions of its EA Sports titles - while including full support in console versions. Game of the Year - Call of Duty 4 was voted by the members of the Widescreen Gaming Forum as 2007 Widescreen Game of the Year. Only releases certified by the WSGF as having perfect widescreen support were considered. For additional details visit http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/awards About the Widescreen Gaming Forum The WSGF is the world’s leading resource for information on widescreen displays, widescreen gaming, and Surround Gaming. It works tirelessly to analyze how games operate in widescreen and Surround Gaming resolutions, and provides custom solutions where the developers' efforts fall short. The WSGF website features detailed game reports, a comprehensive collection of widescreen monitor and notebook specifications, and an excellent support forum. Additionally, the WSGF provides screenshot and gameplay video comparisons to showcase the benefits of widescreen and Surround Gaming. The WSGF offers pre-release Certification services to game developers to ensure their games properly support widescreen and Surround Gaming.