Games with the best UI?

Azureth

Azureth

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Feb 29, 2008
Messages
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Yeah, yeah, I stole someones topic (kind of) but it is worth discussing over. Anyway, I say UT Classic.
 
You should check out UT3. Probably the best UI I've seen since DOS.
 
Hmmm...the original Unreal Tournament had a great UI but what are we looking for here? Are we looking for simplicity along with functionality or just how they look? The original Quake games had a solid UI that didn't have many frills but it did allow you to do what you needed to do in the game. That being said, for sophistication, I would have to admit that UT was one of the best.
 
For consoles, I think Halo has always been the standard for FPS UI, and the general standard for XBL UI.

I really like the Crysis UI. Everything just seems to feel so smooth. Menus, mapping keyboard controls, changing system settings, changing weapon modifiers on the fly, the ease of changing suit modes on the fly. I don't know how well the multiplayer UI works though since I've never used it.
 
World In Conflict, no only is their menu fast, smooth, looks good and is functional, but it's feature complete as well, it's one of the few games with options for colourblind people.

Pay attention developers, this is how you make a UI.
 
Source-engine games and, to a lesser extent, Steamified Half-Life games. Great general menu systems and server browsers (although the server browsers can be a little quirky).

Any Windows-like GUI is an absolute win for me.
 
I had forgotten a bit about the newer Half-Life menus (steamified as phide says). They work quite well in fact and are fairly easy to navigate.
 
I liked Dungeon Siege 1's UI, very cool. Also dig the UI for Rome: TW, the silhouettes fighting the background are awesome. :)
 
WoW being customizable is nothing new though. EQ1 had an xml ui and a great customization community. In my opnion, you have to have a customizable UI in a game like that.
 
Supcom FA

As for game with the most monolithic - X3 has too win that probably (it makes up for it by being awesome, but still...)
 
**waves my fist in the air**

how DARE you steal my topic!! heh actually i was using everyone on the forum for my project ideas, for a class i have to redesign a bad game UI, so its ok i dont hold any grudge as i was using u all anyway :D

anyway to contribute to the actual thread I would have to say that i really liked the assassins creed UI, the weapons were easy to switch between, the health bar was obvious, when you really started to hurt your screen starts flashing red indicating that youre about to die... i just really enjoyed that game :D

ooh ooh and the whole HL series (including TF2 and portal)
 
HL2 and Source games by far. Simplicity at its finest.

Classic UT was great as well. UWindows was a brilliant thing, and thankfully somebody is working on a similar UI for UT3.
 
Who here was into CS when we switched from WONID's to STEAMID's? Steam games now have imo, the BEST UI of any game out there. Barely any bugs to be found and they are all the same. I mean, the dev console in that game puts my nix terminal to shame. :p
 
phide said:
Source-engine games and, to a lesser extent, Steamified Half-Life games. Great general menu systems and server browsers (although the server browsers can be a little quirky).

Any Windows-like GUI is an absolute win for me.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree anymore.
 
Yes, lots of wargames use the standard windows GUI and it is great being able to get to anything from the menu at the top. You can even make it hidden by default and then press a key to unhide it. Microsoft Flight sim does that and so did the Campaign series of wargames (East Front etc.). What I hate are PC games that won't even let you use the mouse and you have to use the keyboard to navigate the GUI. What kind of bonehead designs a GUI like that?
 
Hamidxa said:
Original UT and Crysis.
Click to expand...
I had just actually had a short UT99 LAN session going on the other day and was reminded of how well the GUI was layed out and setup. If only more games could have followed in it's footsteps...
 
One more vote for UT99, still a personal fav. I'd say ToEE also. I know it has(had) it's problems, but I really enjoy the way it's put together.
 
Umm... I think half of you are confusing UI with HUD... probably even the OP... but whatever lol
 
WoW for customization. It doesn't matter how bad an interface is if the user base can modify it.

TF2. Efficent UI. Everything is clear. I can see who gets killed, how they got killed, and who killed them. Weapon switching is not hampered by the UI. When I die, I'm shown where the person who killed me was. There's nothing more frustrating than dieing without ever seeing how you died. Now I can see exactly where I got sniped from, or where those pipe bombs rained down from. With one button press, I can see who is alive or dead on both teams, who is playing what class (my team only), the number of players per team, who I am dominating, who is dominating me, and everyone's ping. Server search is powerful, yet you can figure out how to do even the most complex filtering in about 3 minutes. Integrated friend's list (via Steam), and a server history list. Sort filters by ping, number of people playing, map, etc. Displays about 50 servers on the screen at once. From the main menu, it takes me about 15-30 seconds, and 3 mouse clicks, to select a good server, which wouldn't be possible if I couldn't display a ton of servers on the screen at once.
 
Guild Wars - W/O AddOns
WoW - If you allow AddOns


Guild Wars standard ui > WoW's

First MaMorphager I played that allowed total customization right from the start
 
I agree that the HL and Source games have great UI's. I loved the Orange Box UI on the 360.
 
UT99 popped into my mind instantly when I read the topic. Glad to see lots of people agree with me.

For consoles the halo/halo2 UI is pretty clean and easy to use.
 
It's not even a contest. It's very intuitive and the plethora of options means you can customize it to your taste. The only (minor) gripe I have is that cinematic mode doesn't turn off the HUD completely, but I am sure there is already a mod or file tweak somewhere that does just that.
 
I wouldn't mention WoW's UI at all, for the simple reason that it's complete junk without mods.

I'd go with Guild Wars for MMO UIs. Very functional...does everything I need it to do. It's also very customizable off the bat. The best part? Your UI settings are saved to your account! This has been great, especially when I've stopped playing for months and come back to it, and my UI is nice and shiny and how I want it :). That being said...I don't play the game anymore...the expansions got ridiculous.
 
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