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Great games with terrible UI

by mosespippy

Some games are great. Sometimes they also have terrible menu systems or poorly convey information resulting in frustration or confusion. These are examples of that.

Showing 1-8 of 8 items

NHL 11

1. NHL 11

Want to play a certain position? You can lock it so that you are always that player, but the camera will always follow the puck so you won't be able to see where you are supposed to be half the time. Hope you don't mind spending half the game off screen.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

2. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

Where would I go to find a list of quests? Makes sense to check the System menu first.

Gran Turismo 5

3. Gran Turismo 5

Warhawk

4. Warhawk

There are plenty of menu design issues with this game, but the biggest UI problem breaks this game. It's selecting a weapon. Players will frequently select the wrong weapon because of how close the diagonals are to the vertical and horizontal options in the radial menu. Got a bunch of missiles on your tail? Oops!, you just dropped an air mine into them killing yourself instead of selecting the item to scatter the missiles.

Deadly Premonition

5. Deadly Premonition

How functional does a map need to be? 0% functional.

Rock Band

6. Rock Band

Want to play a song? Go through 8 menus to get to the game part of the game. Want to go to the main menu? Hit the back button 8 times. In career mode and want to practise? Easy, that's 1 button press away. Practiced a song and now want to go back to career to do it for realsies? Please visit these 12 menus first.

Rock Band 2

7. Rock Band 2

Like Rock Band 1. No improvements were made. These devs are musicians, not designers.

Rock Band 3

8. Rock Band 3

Hey, we heard you like menus so we put a bunch of menus in our game. Just try to find what you are looking for. We dare you.