In My Experience... | I'm buying the Gamecube version. (1288)

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I'm buying the Gamecube version.
[ Posted by Dan on September 03, 2003 | 4 Comments ]

One upcoming game, that has gotten almost zero press, but looks like an awesome game, is Freedom Fighters...

In a world where the Soviet Union won the Cold War, a fierce conflict is unfolding in the streets of America. Taking on the role of Christopher Stone, players evolve from an average New Yorker into a fearless patriot who recruits and leads an army of freedom fighters in the streets of New York City. Freedom Fighters combines the depth of a squad based game with the intensity of an action-packed war game that unfolds in the streets, subways, and buildings of the city.

For the UI geeks out there, one of the more interesting UI designs in the game is the circular weapon selection menu seen to the left. I suppose it's ironic though that this type of menu is best suited to a random access, mouse based pointer selection system, rather than the linear tab-like progression used in the game.

I especially love that a huge monkey wrench is in that menu as a selectable weapon. Blunt force trauma baby!

Previews are available at GameSpot and IGN.

Cooool... can you upgrade it to one of t hose big rachet wrenches they sell for semi truck tires?

Speaking of cool UIs... I was playing Black and White... it has the coolest game UI ever... there isn't one. Almost everything is done by mouse gestures. (there are keyboard shortcuts though)

-Posted by JC on September 4, 2003 12:41 PM

One thing I don't like about the B&W system is that you need to develop your gesturing skills. With normal point and click, there's almost no skills needed beyond gross motor skills.

It looks pretty damn cool though when you make the gestures work.

-Posted by Dan on September 4, 2003 01:00 PM

I have to take that back.. Journey to the Wild Divine has the coolest UI ever.
http://www.wilddivine.com/

there isn't one. Not even gestures. Just biofeedback. You want to solve the puzzle with the floating feather, you just... relax.

Of course, it's not out yet and it'll be expensive when it is ($100+) because it comes with the sensors you hook to your fingers.

But seriously... how cool is that? and it's gorgeous besides! :-)

-Posted by JC on September 4, 2003 05:44 PM

I think the pie menus are a great compromise between gesture and point and click.

I have used them in a couple of apps and they were incredibly convenient. Once you have learned the directions of the items you don't use the icons to guide you and they just become "micro-gestures". Though if the menu items aren't always in the same place I don't think there would be much of an advantage.

The pie shape is great too because it minimizes gesture error by making the target areas larger as you move out from the center. Unlike B&W where I felt like I had to learn gesture caligraphy to make anything happen.

-Posted by Josh on September 5, 2003 05:07 PM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).