10 Best Video Game User Interfaces
When gorgeous fashion meets glorious function.
Perhaps the single most under-appreciated aspect of video game design is that of the user interface (UI), because when it's great, you don't really notice. You can effortlessly glide through menus and play the game precisely as the developers intended.
UI design tends to be more noticeable when it's poor, in turn affecting the user experience (UX) and potentially making even simple tasks a hellish slog of nested menus and arcane navigation.
But what, exactly, defines a good UI? There certainly isn't an all-catch answer and to an extent it's subjective, though most will surely agree that it revolves around the pitting of fashion against function, of creating a menu system which is stylish yet not at the expense of ease-of-use.
We've all played games with gorgeous-yet-clunky UIs or interfaces that were snappy and efficient yet hideous.
These 10 UIs, however, generally achieved an impressive fusion of the two, reinventing typical design conventions in ways which were often massively influential throughout the industry.
Whether they drew attention to themselves or not, these 10 games are all striking examples of what a masterful, first-rate UI looks like...
10. Metal Gear Solid
It cannot be understated just how influential Metal Gear Solid was upon the third-person action game, and among its many highly-lauded features we shouldn't forget its terrifically ground-breaking UI.
The brilliance of its interface lies in its creative simplicity: holding L2 or R2 allows players to cycle through their items or weapons respectively in a manner quite unlike any other game.
Between the satisfying snappiness and fantastic sound effects, it became an instantly iconic mainstay for the series - albeit with variations - such that it's surprising more games haven't shamelessly ripped it off over the years.
In a series that affords so many combat and stealth options to the player, being able to quickly cycle through your gear is absolutely vital, and this was a genius solution to a potentially daunting design problem: too many toys, not enough screen real estate.
Aptly, the interface is as sleek and versatile as Solid Snake himself.