Can font size be increased in a video game ?

H

hallatie

CAG Veteran
I have some vision problems and playing some video games is becoming increasingly difficult. For example Mass Effect is fine but I can hardly make out words on the screen in Mass Effect 2. I have an XBox 360 Elite. Is it possible to increase font size?

Any help is appreciated -- thank you.
 
Some TV's & monitoros allow you to change the resolution, I haven't seen any games where you can increase font size however...ME2 on a small tv is rough, especially during critical paragon/renegade moments when lingering is not an option.
 
What kind of screen are you using? If you're like I was and on an SDtv, then I would suggest grabbing an LCD monitor to game on if you're like me and couldn't afford a full HDtv at this point.

It makes a world of difference, though some of the text is still too frickin' small.

You might also want to try going into the PS3's safe mode menu(Google it) and if you're using an HDtv with an HDMI cable you may want to opt to switch the video over to SD mode by selecting NO when asked if you want to use HDMI, as that does make the text come up bigger on the screen.;)
 
I really hate the small text in 360 games too. It seems that the developers are all designing for 100" TV screens that you sit 3 feet from. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but it's definitely the case that there are numerous games that I can't play from my couch with our 32" HDTV. I have to get a chair and sit right up near the screen to be able to read the text. For example, GTA IV. I really wish they'd give the option to increase text size.
 
I dont think any games allow you to change font size, but this is an option that all games should have by default, like mandatory subtitles for all spoken text (for the deaf), and fully remappable controls.
 
[quote name='Puffa469']I dont think any games allow you to change font size, but this is an option that all games should have by default, like mandatory subtitles for all spoken text (for the deaf), and fully remappable controls.[/QUOTE]

Couldn't agree more. The sad thing is, it would take 5 seconds of coding to add these options too. It's crazy that in the almost 6 years that the Xbox 360 has been out, developers haven't seen this as a problem. I know Dead Rising had awful text issues, and just recently, I was surprised by how small the text in Mafia II was. Just add in a small/medium/large option and let everybody be happy. Making your game that much more accessible with no added cost seems like a no brainer.
 
[quote name='n8rockerasu']Couldn't agree more. The sad thing is, it would take 5 seconds of coding to add these options too. It's crazy that in the almost 6 years that the Xbox 360 has been out, developers haven't seen this as a problem. I know Dead Rising had awful text issues, and just recently, I was surprised by how small the text in Mafia II was. Just add in a small/medium/large option and let everybody be happy. Making your game that much more accessible with no added cost seems like a no brainer.[/QUOTE]

It's not just "5 seconds of coding" to add in a larger font. You have to redo your artwork to fit a larger font, which can take weeks depending on the layouts of your UI's, etc. It's not a simple fix. The same with subtitles. If you have no subtitle system in place in development, this isn't something you're going to add easily when all things are considered. You have to not only build the mechanics for the subtitle system, but account for screen space, testing, etc. Again, this isn't a "5 seconds of coding" task.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']It's not just "5 seconds of coding" to add in a larger font. You have to redo your artwork to fit a larger font, which can take weeks depending on the layouts of your UI's, etc. It's not a simple fix. The same with subtitles. If you have no subtitle system in place in development, this isn't something you're going to add easily when all things are considered. You have to not only build the mechanics for the subtitle system, but account for screen space, testing, etc. Again, this isn't a "5 seconds of coding" task.[/QUOTE]

Maybe we're talking about two different things here. I'm referring to overlaid text that appears in the corner or bottom of the screen (not just subtitles). Why would any artwork need to be changed when text is just sitting on top of it spanning the length of your screen? I'm not talking about text bubbles or graphic style presentations. Just text instructions, objectives, and other things that are essential to playing the game. When the current text only takes up 5% of the screen, there's no reason it can't be resized fairly easily.
 
[quote name='hallatie']I have some vision problems and playing some video games is becoming increasingly difficult. For example Mass Effect is fine but I can hardly make out words on the screen in Mass Effect 2. I have an XBox 360 Elite. Is it possible to increase font size?

Any help is appreciated -- thank you.[/QUOTE]
I know that Vanquish has an HDTV/SDTV toggle in the options that makes the text taller/more readable.

Mass Effect 2 is one of the worst offenders out there, though, even on a monitor.
 
Microsoft could easily mandate that all games released for their console have these types of accessibility options. Every game needs to have goddammed achievements, why not large type font or mappable controls?

I'm sure there are plenty of disabled or otherwise challenged gamers that would still love to play their favorite games.

Why arent there one handed controllers? Almost any rpg or similarly slow paced game can be played this way if the controller was available.
 
Figure I'll chime in with my overscan issues. I have an HD CRT TV that displays in 1080i just fine, but its screen shape cuts off some of the visuals when displaying HD picture. If only all game producers would include the option to move or resize HUDs.

Whenever a game does include that option, especially where viewing the HUD is essential, it makes me so happy. I remember playing GTA 4 and never knowing how much ammo I had...yeesh.
 
Amen, man. I've got terrible vision too (20/200), and I can barely play the Kinect because I have to stand too far away to be able to read any instructions. Otherwise I just sit like two feet away from the TV :)
 
It is an option they should have. I don't have issues as I game on a 50" HDTV, but it seems like it would be an easy option to add for those gaming on smaller tvs.
 
I'm in on this wish too - LARGER FONTS. Argh. I need an electron microscope to read the font... and get zapped by someone while I'm squinting at who else just got killed in-game.
 
When I got my Xbox 360, I had a small SDtv. I booted up Dead Rising and turned it off, promptly going out to buy an HDtv somewhere that had 0% interest.
 
Agreed... I played my xbox on a 27" SDTV for 2 years. Forza 3 was impossible to read from the couch and GH:WT was also tough to read the score and what-not. A year ago I finally got a 42" 720p TV which made a world of difference. It was obvious towards the end of my SD playing that games were being designed for HDTV's without any QA being done to check this kind of stuff on SDTV's. For an RPG like ME2 I can see not being able to read the text a huge issue. Much bigger than me not being able to read split times on Forza.
 
I honestly can't play these new generation systems on a SDTV but thankfully my PC monitor does have HDMI. I know some games (probably a small handful) have the option to increase text size.

But I can see why that they don't take that extra time to cater to the SDTVs either. While we can easily say that "Oh, it shouldn't be that much of a big deal to do this and this," game developers have to spend that much time QAing and debugging any short bit of the game. Adding on something like bigger text would essentially double the workload to make sure that every single line of text isn't cutting off in boundaries or running over other aspects of the UI or anything like that.

Now I just do all my gaming on my 23" monitor in front of my face on my desk. At least until I get an HDTV, I'm just reserving my SD for my old systems.
 
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