I cant decide between this three. 1. Need for Speed. Surprisingly stupid but common in nineties driving games. No text, just random images, no clue what each is for and crazy loading times due nonsense videos around. 2. BreakNeck. Amazingly complicated menu in simulation mode, lots -i mean, lots- of icons with no clear reference and thounsands of stadistics. Gran Turismo is a joke compared to this. 3. World Cup Italy 90. Worst colors, no options, two modes, stupid world map. Big deal here.
Going off recent games, while Fable 3's was incredibly annoying at times...Dragon Age Inquisition has to have one of the worst. Bringing up the map, setting attribute points, etc. It just felt like it could've been made so much simpler.
In my experience, I have to point out Super Smash Bros 4, particularly on the Wii U. -It's poorly organized (why does fucking Smash Tour get front billing on the menu, yet regular Solo/Group modes are classified under "Games and More"? I have a similar gripe with Smash Run on the 3DS version). Also, "Options" are in "Games and More" (when they deserve front billing), and they're tucked away in the corner as the smallest icons in "Games and More", at least in the 3DS version. -As a subset of the organization issue, there's like a layer or two too many of menus... -...and part of the issue is because many of the icons are unnecessarily huge and/or weirdly shaped, not leaving sufficient room in some menus where Nintendo really could've otherwise stuffed further options. I can maybe see why this was done for the 3DS version considering the 3DS top screen only has a resolution of 400x240, but the WiiU version runs at 720p and 1080p. Inexcusable considering Melee and Brawl had their shit sorted out running at 480p. -Why the bloody fuck does the game need loading times for the options for Smash (i.e. multiplayer) mode? That stuff popped up instantly in the previous games. -These are the fourth and fifth Smash Bros games; why the hell have we still not yet gotten the option to save settings for Smash mode? I'm never gonna play a timed points match. -This isn't exactly a menu issue so much as it is alack of a menu, but who the hell decided to not present a menu after failure of an Event match, especially since (IIRC) they were present in Brawl? It's so tedious to wait for the game to load back to the Event menu, confirm that I want to try, and wait for the Event to load again, all because I fucked up and lost. -I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but if I go online on the 3DS version and hit B while it tells me "please wait", the game takes about 30-50 seconds to go back to the main menu. I can't exit and I can't go to the home menu in the meanwhile. -Oh and you can't dick with the menu camera with the C-stick anymore. Booooooo.
That menu was quite nasty. I could start a game of SSBB, Kid Icarus: Uprising, or Kirby Air Ride with my eyes closed its that complicated.
SHELLSHOCK! I know it's obvious (once you actually bother to read the instruction manual, that is), but when I first got this for the Saturn it took me about 30 minutes just to figure out how to start a game instead of just aimlessly navigating around the hangar talking to people and not yet being able to much. From what I'd seen of this ahead of buying it, I was expecting a pretty decent tank simulator - not a point and click adventure like Myst or The Mansion Of Hidden Souls! Whatever happened to really obvious text options that spell out what you need to do in order to see some action? In fact, I seem to recall giving up and throwing the game across my room, sticking on Virtua Fighter Remix for a while instead, as I'd also just bought that the same day. Being an AM conversion, its menus were far more simple, allowing me to jump straight into the experience promised to me. Ironically, now their roles have been well and truly reversed, with VFR rarely being in my Saturn long enough for any heat to transfer to the disc, while Shellshock has become something of a personal favourite, its once perplexing presentation now contributing to the overall charm.
Oh I know the pain that is the Shell Shock menu system. It's really bad. I also had a hard time getting to the actual game.
Does that really count as a menu? I mean it just starts the game, it's like a poorly drawn "Press Start" screen.
I guess it would count more as a title screen than a menu. Of course it might count if it meets certain criteria. Then again, that "game" sucks.
Gran Turismo 5 - The constant loading, popup boxes,... Not to mention the terrible design, making you constantly enter sub-menus. It's slow and dumb. It was so bad they made articles about it: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/12/the-failure-of-gran-turismo-5-the-power-of-menus-and-ui/ Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale - Design? What's that? $0.99 games on iTunes and GooglePlay have better menus than this. No, i'm not exaggerating
Came here to post GT5. Some of my favorite features: –Originally, if you tried to start a race without the right tires, you'd have to go back to the main menu to buy the right tires. What's worse is that you could actually start a race on inferior tires (since there's no way to quickly check which tires you have without going to the pre-race options screen), meaning you pretty much sat through a race loading screen for nothing and had to go back to the main menu. Eventually this was patched so you could buy tires from the pre-race menu, but it's baffling that they designed it like this, plus the patch was released months after release. –Want to change your assists during the race? Too bad, you have to quit the race to do that. If you want to disable the terrible soundtrack, you have to go all the way back to the main menu and wade through two or three menu screens. Oh, and better not select Restart by accident in the pause menu, since your race will immediately restart without any kind of prompt. They eventually released a patch that added a prompt to the Quit option, but not to the Restart option, so if you're 23 hours and 59 minutes into Le Mans, tough shit. –A car could originally only have one setup. This wasn't changed until the Spec 2.0 patch, a year after release. Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words: Someone barfed icons all over my screen! Particularly useful are all those tiny ones with no description, since there's no way you'll figure out what some of them are at a quick glance.
GT5 was just a major cockup. I think any menus which have JUST icons. I can't remember which Extreme-G it was but one was like that. As a kid I had so much trouble navigating.
Was going to post Gran Turismo 3 + 4, but it seems you guys have already picked apart 5. I have this theory, that the guy who gets to design the menus for GT is basically a massive sado-masochist who gets his jollies from knowing that he managed to get his monstrosity past QC and onto pressed discs.
The extraordinarily obtuse menus are one of the main reasons I've never much cared for the GT series, especially since you need to spend quite a bit of time in them just to do anything useful.
The Car Delivery, at least for me, was the stupidest thing ever. Won a championship or bought a car? Great, now you have to individually select a ticket on the car delivery icon and wait for a animation to load. Only to be prompted if you want to use the car immediately. Every time for every single car! When they released the first DLC, i had to do that for 15 cars. Fifteen! Believe it or not it took a while for them to realize that was dumb. I'll agree that GT4 simulation mode map system is awkward, but GT3 was simple and easy to understand. Call me nostagic, but i love everything about GT3 UI: Also just check the Arcade mode track selection for every game since. The difference is mind-blowing. GT3 - Shows a full screen preview video of the track, so you know what you'll get. Displays a transparent track layout, lenght info and surface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5fkM5Jztzs GT4 - This time the tracks are divided by style, more organized. There's still a video preview, but this time is in first person. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzWGJPJvp1o GT5 - "Wow, a HD presentation? Let's just slap a bland gray background with a couple of small pictures." The first time i booted the game (after tons of patches) i was like WTF?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maD8JNBys5U GT6 - Organized yes, but just as lazy as GT5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP4ZxJG6Zw4 Anyway, here's some of the PlayStation All StarsBattle Royale menus. No, i'm not joking.
Oh man, I forgot about the constant annoying prompts for everything. In this video you'll see three different, pointless prompts for installing one single tuning part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUQFsop_qFc Also, I'm not exactly an expert on UI design, but the random sizes of the icons in the main menu really bother me.
Let's not forget the PSP-esque installation that takes 1 billion years to install. Thanks 2x BD-ROM drive and 5400 RPM Toshiba HDD!!!!
Click Purchase "Purchase Complete" Click OK "Do you want to install this now" (Is this some kind of joke?) Click Yes "Installation Complete" Repeat that a lot. By the 10th time you're already smashing the X button.
Oh man, I used to have that button sequence down. Buy part, no I don't want to install, move to next part. It was far quicker to just buy everything and not install it, then install everything at once. I haven't played GT5 at all yet (iRacing FTW) but I'm astonished that it could be any worse than 3+4.
