No fix planned for small Nuts & Bolts text

by Dustin Burg { Nov 5th 2008 at 2:15PM }

If you've tried the Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts demo (now available on the XBLM) and played it on a SD television you may have noticed that the text is Dead Rising itty-bitty small. Heck, HD television owners claim the text is rather difficult to read. And if you think team Rare can / will fix the small text issue in the retail build of Nuts & Bolts, then you're sadly mistaken because no text embiggening will be done.

Rare community manager George Kelion informed CVG that "this is an issue that doesn't look like it will get changed," confirming that "the text you see in the demo will be the same as that which you find in the retail version of the game." Our advice, get an HD television, a new pair of reading glasses or sit seven inches away from the screen. No more, no less.

[Via Evil Avatar]

Tags: banjo-kazooie, banjo-kazooie-nuts-and-bolts, nuts-and-bolts, rare

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Dirty @ Nov 5th 2008 2:29PM

Guess Im just weird.

Kevin PSN: Keviseg15 @ Nov 5th 2008 4:40PM

same here cuz i can read it just fine

Nutmeg @ Nov 5th 2008 7:43PM

I can see it, and I have glasses....

Pudge @ Nov 5th 2008 2:31PM

So one of the most appealing parts of a Banjo game, the witty dialogue, is thrown out the window for SD users?

Eh, it's not so horrible. The demo's vehicular gameplay was so distasteful and broken that I canceled my pre-order. Stick a fork in em, Rare's done.

Chris Thomas @ Nov 6th 2008 12:41PM

My TV is big enough to make it easy to read. Who reads video game text anyways? Really?

Studley @ Nov 5th 2008 2:36PM

'Embiggen' is such a cromulent word.

TheSipe @ Nov 5th 2008 8:10PM

Frontalot FTW!

Seriously, I got pissed when Sony more or less stated that they don't care if you need to get 2 or 3 jobs to be able to afford their system, because I felt like they were saying "Don't care about your worries, quit bitching". Then Capcom and now Rare are saying " your desires aren't worth our time". Seriously, cash is tight and there are a ton of great games comming out. While I am stoked for this title, it did get lowered on my buy list ( and I have a 46" HD so I could read it fine). You might not give a shit about our wants or needs, but at least fake it when I'm paying attention.

Adam @ Nov 5th 2008 2:34PM

Text looked fine to me. But my tv is 61", so that could have something do with it.

Prox @ Nov 5th 2008 2:42PM

I never noticed a problem on my 46" tv, either.

Kyle @ Nov 26th 2008 1:11PM

Yeah, try a 27" tube TV...I really need a new TV... :(

Tony @ Nov 5th 2008 2:43PM

Honestly, I loved the gameplay and thought it was a lot of fun gathering parts and making new vehicles...

But the text is too small. I could read it, but it's definitely straining. Plus in-game (outside of cutscenes), text goes by too quickly... i'd be straining to read it, get halfway done and it was gone.

DJcube @ Nov 5th 2008 2:54PM

The text in that image is easily readable on a 19" monitor. I don't even need my glasses on.

Anyway, I tested N&B on a small SDTV to see what the problem was (It's fine on a 19" HDTV) and I honestly couldn't see a problem.

cloud858rk @ Nov 5th 2008 5:48PM

Well I was playing it on a small SD TV and it was very clear there was a huge problem. Rare should fix this, unless the plan to give out coupons for eagle vision.

Shafnitz @ Nov 5th 2008 3:00PM

I have a 37" HDTV and the text still wasn't great. What year is this that we have to read that much text in a game? Ever heard of audio? After playing the demo, I've lost all hope for this game.

DJcube @ Nov 5th 2008 3:17PM

Because some people still enjoy reading in games.

Dirk Dorkelson @ Nov 5th 2008 6:43PM

I can't wait for the future, when we don't have to read anything!

Shafnitz @ Nov 5th 2008 7:38PM

I'm obviously not saying we need to stop reading. I'm saying there are better ways to teach people how to play a game without making them read text for 10 minutes straight. It seems like laziness on Rare's part.

Fire Fawkes @ Nov 5th 2008 3:00PM

Didn't realize this was an issue. I have a 22 inch HD TV and everything looks fine. Tried the demo on my roommate's 32 inch SD TV and really didn't have any issues either.

skfireboy @ Nov 5th 2008 3:44PM

Call me crazy, but this is reason enough to not buy the game. Screw Rare, if they don't want to even offer a downloadable patch/update to fix this, then its reason enough to NOT buy the game. How miserable an experience is it to not even be able to read the text? Sorry Nuts & Bolts, sacrifices have to be made.

Shadowman @ Nov 5th 2008 3:13PM

I played the demo and went damn near blind, The Text was too fast, too small and left me squinting into oblivion. I had hoped there would be a fix but this has made me think again about buying it.

Robert @ Nov 5th 2008 3:28PM

I think it's lame that the game companies are using smaller text to encourage gamers to get HD tvs. I know that they want the gamers to buy HDtvs, but do they have to do it in such an underhanded way?

R_Fusion @ Nov 5th 2008 3:31PM

wow! I have an eagle vision! Guess Im weird.

bigjrussell @ Nov 5th 2008 3:58PM

Demo was terrible.

Also, LOL at "No fix planned for small Nuts...."!!!!!

Paul S. @ Nov 5th 2008 3:58PM

I haven't had the chance to play the demo of B-K yet, but I'm surprised this is even an issue. The original 2 games had fairly large text whenever there was dialogue... so why didn't they stick with the same style for the 3rd game?

NvM @ Nov 5th 2008 4:19PM

Yeah this pissed me off.
It'd be different if Banjo has voice acting, but ti doesn't and alot of the charm is lost.

Ghede @ Nov 5th 2008 4:53PM

Time to do a cost benefit calculation!

Ok.
Cost: Several hundred dollars. +60.
Benefit: Play a game.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Yeah. Not doing it. I was looking forward to this game too.

flameofdoom666 @ Nov 5th 2008 7:53PM

its +40.

Paustinj @ Nov 5th 2008 5:41PM

F that S
This game will be unplayable for me.

robotoid @ Nov 5th 2008 6:12PM

like everyone has said:

too much text. goes by too quickly. and it's too small. that's not a nice combination at all.

I had high hopes for this game because I loved both banjo games, but after playing the demo, besides the problem with the text, I didn't find the vehicle gameplay as interesting or compelling enough to keep my attention and entertain me for long. I think it's not really that easy to pick up and play like the past games. (and it doesn't help that so many great games are out right now and still coming).

ryan @ Nov 5th 2008 6:35PM

This sorta depends on how far away you play games from the TV right?

BobTheElephant @ Nov 5th 2008 6:49PM

I played the demo on a 26" HDTV, if I put my back against the opposite wall(which is where I normally play games)-about 12' it was tough to see however, when I laid down on my bed it was no problem(8')...

Lord Hennessy @ Nov 5th 2008 10:21PM

So why is it that all of these people with "HD" consoles are bitching because their outdated TV's can't handle the task? If you have an SDTV, trade in your 360 and get a Wii. Nintendo doesn't care about visual fidelity. Besides, you can get smaller HDTV's for the friggin launch price of the 360 nowadays.

From Walmart.com
Vizio 22" Class HD LCD Television
$297.00
Was $327.00

Vizio 32" Class LCD HDTV with Digital Tuner,
$497.00
Was $527.00

These Tv's aren't on par with mine.... but if you hav SDTV still... you haven't room to bitch.

magicmoo @ Nov 6th 2008 8:29AM

I'm guessing your TV size must be on par with your arrogance.

Anyway, there's absolutely no excuses for developers to put text this small in their games. On the other side, not everybody is able or willing to spend 500$ on a TV just to be able to read some damn text.

Seriously, how hard is it to check if your font size is readable on a SDTV? This should be part of certification.

tDI Hennessy @ Nov 6th 2008 3:49PM

Seems to me that if anyone here is arrogant, it would be the people with "HD consoles" that complain that the picture isn't perfect on their obsolete tv, and furthermore expect developers to adjust everything to account for them. There are plenty of consoles (ps2, xbox,wii) that are recent consoles that nobody has to worry about HD content not showing up well on their SDTV's. Don't expect developers to spend more time and MONEY when you can't be bothered to drop $300 to upgrade upgrade your obsolete gear. You don't hear me in here bitching because my PC is only 6 months old and can't run Crysis do you?

themizarkshow @ Nov 5th 2008 11:28PM

a lot of games seem to have that issue. On Dead Space it was impossible to read any of the textlogs I picked up while playing at home on my parents SD tv. And although you can argue that stuff wasn't "vital" to completing the game, it did advance plot and give you a better idea what was happening and why.

I think that with the technology just moving more towards HD stuff, we'll see more games using it to push people to buy the newer tvs/monitors so that their gaming experience is how the developers want it to look/feel.

DarkStar @ Nov 6th 2008 5:02AM

I had absolutely no issues with text in that demo. The size was perfect. I was neither playing on a HDTV nor on a SDTV, but on a 20'' LCD computer monitor connected with the original VGA HD cable.

And I'm also weird, cause I can read the text on that screenshot. But I agree this would be too small.

SadisticHam @ Nov 6th 2008 8:33AM

So lets get this straight, the text zooms by at an unreadable rate, it's to small and they don't plan to do anything about it?

Alright, no buy from me. Keep your game, i can seriously afford to be this picky with so many games coming out.

Ujn Hunter @ Nov 6th 2008 11:11AM

Serves you right for buying another crappy* RARE game! :P

*Note: The only game made by RARE that I consider to be any good would be the original Viva Pinata... nothing else they EVER made was good. Not even GOLDENEYE! Goldeneye was only good because no one had apparently played a single PC FPS. :)