Games with good menus?
06-21-01, 03:44 PM
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Now, I know this sounds weird, but I was curious what games you all remember as having good menus. I was playing Twisted Metal Black last night (good game, but f$$$$$$ difficult), and was awestruck at how seamless and beautifully animated the opening interface was. Simply amazing. Thinking back, I recall the Quake/Doom series doing this well, and the more recent Tropico deserves some points for a nicely animated-without-being-intrusive idea. For the slightly more old-school among us, how cool was that awesome intro to Zelda I (NES)? Great music.
It seems somewhat petty to focus on the menu, but most of the games I recall disliking instantly either crashed or proved unwieldy before I could even get into play. Menus are, after all, often your first and last impressions of a title; they should reflect a level of polish. Oh, and on PCs, crashing during menu sequences is a very bad idea.
By the same token, what games do you recall hating the menus on? Wipeout 3 was simply awful, what with text too small to see on my TV and illegible numerical values instead of bars for the ship stats. The original Unreal had a simply awful interface, crashing repeatedly and actually dropping back to windows to set advanced options. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 had OK menus, but that hideous 3-second jazz wannabe sound clip at the select screen - "I wanna take you for a ride, dadumdadum, [repeat ad naseum]" - led me to actually mute in between rounds.
[Edited by MWoody on 06-21-01 at 03:27 PM]
It seems somewhat petty to focus on the menu, but most of the games I recall disliking instantly either crashed or proved unwieldy before I could even get into play. Menus are, after all, often your first and last impressions of a title; they should reflect a level of polish. Oh, and on PCs, crashing during menu sequences is a very bad idea.
By the same token, what games do you recall hating the menus on? Wipeout 3 was simply awful, what with text too small to see on my TV and illegible numerical values instead of bars for the ship stats. The original Unreal had a simply awful interface, crashing repeatedly and actually dropping back to windows to set advanced options. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 had OK menus, but that hideous 3-second jazz wannabe sound clip at the select screen - "I wanna take you for a ride, dadumdadum, [repeat ad naseum]" - led me to actually mute in between rounds.
[Edited by MWoody on 06-21-01 at 03:27 PM]
06-23-01, 01:36 AM
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The good:
- the first Colony Wars (PSX) menu, made you feel like it was the future
- ace combat 3 (DC)
- ace combat 2 (PSX)
- Wipeout XL (PSX)
- sonic adventure (DC)
- grandia 2 (DC)
- perfect dark & goldeneye (N64)
The bad:
- Wipeout 3 (PSX): just horrible, why did these "designers" win awards?!?
- Bangai-0 (DC): though the game is excellent the menus look like they came from the 8-bit era
- many recent DC car sims: why can't anyone come up with a menu system that doesn't take 10-20 seconds to load?
I'm hoping the XBox pretty much eliminates delays in loading menus and the game sections, making it easier to stay immersed in the whole experience.
- the first Colony Wars (PSX) menu, made you feel like it was the future
- ace combat 3 (DC)
- ace combat 2 (PSX)
- Wipeout XL (PSX)
- sonic adventure (DC)
- grandia 2 (DC)
- perfect dark & goldeneye (N64)
The bad:
- Wipeout 3 (PSX): just horrible, why did these "designers" win awards?!?
- Bangai-0 (DC): though the game is excellent the menus look like they came from the 8-bit era
- many recent DC car sims: why can't anyone come up with a menu system that doesn't take 10-20 seconds to load?
I'm hoping the XBox pretty much eliminates delays in loading menus and the game sections, making it easier to stay immersed in the whole experience.
