Diablo 2 is an older game, initally released back on June 29, 2000, with the expansion Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction released almost a year later on June 27, 2001. While approaching the ripe old age of being a decade old, and being released in the US before the Playstation 2, this console has seen three generations of console gaming (Playstation/Dreamcast/Nintendo 64, Playstation 2/ Gamecube/XBox, Wii/Playstation 3/ XBox 360), and, yet, still stands in Gamefaq’s top game as of this writing (and second most frequent message board), which is updated daily. This is reason enough to see this game as a major influence in the gaming industry.

Diablo 2 was released by Blizzard and developed by Blizzard North. The game is a sequel to the earlier Diablo game, released November 30, 1996. It features te rise of the Prime Evils.

The game is done promarily in the gameplay screen, which features your characters health, items, and the world of Sancutary. The game uses a panel system (like the earlier Diablo) to show different information about your character. Enemy information is on top of the screen, with health and energy of the player represented by glass globes.

The panels open and close with a single click or button press. Te main panels are character, inventory, and skills. Skills has 3 subset of tabs for different skill trees, which are unique to each class. Inventory show the remaining space left for your character as well as what is currently equipped. The character panel shows current status of ytour character, from current and max health and energy, strength, dextereity, stamina, and intellegince (with modifications) and other stats for ytour character, like resistance and chances to hit.

Blizzard has their items color coded based on rank; Blue items are superior and have caracter boosters, Green are items part of a set that grant extra bonuses when used together, Yellow are epic and superior to Blue, and purple, which is superior to Yellow, and Gray to show an item is not worth your time. Each color is very distinct and when you hoever over one in the game screen, you know instantly if you want to pick it up or not.

A complaint I do have – enemy health bars. They are placed so out of the way (top of the screen), that it’s hard to play whack-a-mole with Demons, monitor their hralth, and mine as well. Placing them over the actual enemies would work much better. Would be even better if my health was above my head, as well.

Another thing – the map. The map takes a cue from the original, and places itself, by default, right over the character, obstructing the view of your character and surronding monsters with pointy swords. Since the game supports corner map it should have it in the corner by default.

Overall, the interface for Diablo 2 stands the test of time. It wasn’t badly put up in the first place, with only a few minor problems that could of been fixed if they had been noticed earlier. Everyone, look forward to Diablo 3, coming out whenever Blizzard feels we need a new addiction.

Summary:

Game: Diablo 2 – Lord of Destruction

Pros
- Panels used to hide information
- Good use of colors

Cons
- Health bar too far away from action
- Map covers up too much key information

Suggestions
- Move the health bar above enemies
- Push map into corner, or allow user to move map

I will, however, say that I have three new features planned for the site, and over the next three weeks, a review using each will be written.

Head to Head (h2h) - This feature will compare two commong prodocuts/games own interfaces and to determine which one is the better interface, or if theya re just as good.

Retro - This feature will look at older games, but games that still have a lot of influence in the industry today, and see what parts of the interface has influenced today, for the better or for the worst.

Evolution (Evo) – This will look at the progression of an interface style from a series of games, from changes made from game to game, to reasoning and limitations at the time.

That’s all from me for now – see you tomorrow with a new review!

Anyways, onto more interesting matters – Metal Gear Solid 4.

I wanted to write this one before going away, but time didn’t permit it.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is the fourth installment of Hideo Kojima’s series of Metal Gear Solid. It’s a sequel to his Metal Gear Solid 2 game.

As per usual, the Interface discussion will be divided between two areas: the game play area and the menu.

Gameplay wise, the Interface is nice. Everything is tucked away into corners; map is in the top right, item bottom left, and weapon bottom right. This is the same layout from all of the previous Solid games, so any changes might confuse long time players. This does, however, limit the interface, as it cannot stray to far from the standards built from previous game. It is not bad at all, however, it would be more interesting to try and keep portions of the interface together, like the Item display and the Weapon display together, in one corner.

A new camo index has been included, based on the camo from Metal Gear Solid 3, which uses text to represent the current stealth of Snake. If we wanted to take an approach from trying to use as little text representation as possible and use symbolic and faster recognition, we would notice that the difference to the player between a camo of 84% and 85% is very little, and even 75% and 80% makes very little difference to the player. We can then consider using a color to represent the current camo value, having pure white being not camoed at all and pitch black to being very well camoed. A player can look at this value and see if the color is black enough for their purposes or find ways of increasing it. As well, this would increase immersion, as it’s very unlikely that any given system would be able to tell you how visible you are to the enemies.

As well, a new threat ring has been added. This threat ring surrounds Snake, showing what direction different sounds are coming from. A peak on the ring indicates a direction of a sound, and the higher the frequency, the louder the noise is. In systems where Stereo is used, this can create a more immersive feeling with Snake, as we can “hear” like he can. It actually uses the same kind of representation as sound does, which is neat. Is there anyway this can be improved? I leave that for you guys to figure out.

Now, onto the menu.

The menu is very quick and easy to navagate – most areas of it are navagatable within a few button presses. It’s clean and organized, and everything that it needs to be to be effective. The Codec section is much nicer, as it is easier to navigate frequencies.

The menu now includes a mission map, which is done in 3D and can be navagated through controls. It’s a very nice feature and it’s easy to pick up and learn.

Metal Gear Solid 4 keeps to the many standards set by previous releases, while trying to break out and do something new. While the Menu and Item sections are the same, the introduction of the Threat Ring, is quite nice. The menu has been rehauled and has many neat inclusions (which I will not get into, as it doesn’t affect the User Interface), and includes a 3D map. In the next game, however, it would be nice to see a a whole new system, as the current one has been in use since 1998, and, while very functional, could be holding the game back a bit.

Summary:

Game: Metal Gear Solid 4

Pros
- Very familliar interface
- Unique Threat Ring
- Spaced out and not intrusive at all

Cons
- Some items are spaced too far apart
- Older style UI could be holding it back

Suggestions
- Group similar items together (Item and Weapons, for example), so that the user can do one quick glance to check both
- Go with a new UI for the next installment

Another project has been taking up basically all of my free time for the past week, and, such, I have not been able t write another review. As well, since I am leaving for a competition this Saturday, and cannot gurantee internet access, next week’s update is also been canceled. But, I will see about having a review done up for the week after.

Everybody enjoy themselves.

Microsoft Office – one of the most popular software packages out there for home and business use. Having been an MSWord user for years (and briefly switching to Corel for a few years, and happily switching back), and an avid user of several of the programs in Office 2003, I have to say, the sudden change in GUI has me, as a user, really confused.

For the most part, Office 2007 applications – Word, Excel, and Access – use a new “Ribbon” as opposed to the once standard tool bar on top, with File, View, Edit, etc. While this new approach is far more graphically pleasing, I find it much harder to use.

The first problem was the new grouping. While all the old “File”, “View” and other tools were still named the same, the selections below them have changed. As graphic buttons, instead of text, there is more wealth of information in the icon. Unfortunately, it’s such a radical change, that even with the new additional cognitive recognition techniques, I still have trouble finding features in 2003, and am convinced a lot of my favorite features were removed, since I can’t find them. For example, in 2003, by going under view, I can add new tools bars to my shortcuts, and be that much more productive. In 2007, after several months of using it, I still can’t seem to find that particular feature.

Another problem with the new ribbon is the amount of space it takes up. Each graphic is easily four lines of old commands in height. The new ribbon consumes screen real-estate like there’s plenty to go around, often pushing commands off the ribbon itself, to the little arrow to the right side of the screen, where users have to click it to get more options. Luckily, we can hide the ribbon by double clicking it (which I learned by experiment), but it would be even nicer if we can resize the ribbon, reducing it’s height, and have the icons dynamically change in size, adding the icons dropped onto the arrow onto the actual ribbon, instead of being hidden for all times.

While Word, Excel, and Access are all laying with their new Ribbon, Outlook is using the old design from 2003 by not using the Ribbon. This seems very inconsistent and, again, confuses the user. While users are adjusting to the Ribbon for word processing, when they go in to check e-mail and their calendars, they have the old interface staring back at them.

Why didn’t Microsoft make the Ribbon more… optional? Encourage users to use it, but don’t force it on them. User should of been able to select new mode or old mode, as they feel like it. I have no trouble in at least trying to learn how to use it, but I don’t like being forced to re-learn everything. When I have a big deadline coming up, the last thing I want to be doing is fumbling through the GUI, trying to find how to highlight things. I want to be able to switch to old mode, highlight something, and then continue working.

Also, it would be nice to see some application of Learning-Algorithms. For those not familiar with the term, a Learning-Algorithm is an algorithm where the computer learns as it processes data, and adjust itself for greater effectiveness for new data. An example of this can be seen in FireFox’s 3 new search feature of past sites, where the returned results are ordered based on relevance to the query, as well as frequency of visit and last visit. By visiting particular sites frequently, FireFox starts to learn that these are very relevant sites and might be of interest for any searches that meet the criteria. A second example is the Quick Program launch in Wndows XP and Vista under start, where frequently used programs are shown, for easier access. Office can use this idea by monitoring what functions and features users are using on a regular basis, and adjusting their position, having very regularly used functions and features appear higher on the ribbon, and pushing back what’s not used. Of course, since this changes where things are placed, this should be an option, otherwise, an unaware user might be wondering where the Font feature went to, when they’ve been doing alot of text alignment for the past little bit.

While if this has been a new suite of software, instead of a next-generation of the Office Suite, this change would of been fine – users would of expected to learn how to use it and explore the features of it. However, considering that most users using Office 2007 are not new to the product, but were users of the 2003 version, this sudden change can be very frustrating.

Also, what happened to the Help? 2003 had some of the best Help documentation I have ever seen in any program. I could type in really weird functions and request and find the right result would always be in the top 5 returns. Now, in Office 2007, when I do a help search, it brings back so many irrelevant documents, it’s quite ridiculous

My last beef; the office icon in the top right corner, that replaces the “Files” commands. There is no intuitive action that says this is actually clickable. Usually, the top right hand corner holds the programs icon, which has no real use, outside of closing and moving the window in most cases. Now, it houses the area about saving and new file creation, and more functions related to Office in general. There is no reason for experience users to actually know it has a use, unless they’ve been using Vista, n which the new “Start” icon (which is now the Windows symbol) is located and looks fiendishly familiar. Again, there’s no reason to think this is clickable by it’s location and appearance, unless you actually click it or hover over it (in which, there’s a change in the highlights).

When users want to upgrade to a new version of a software, the only question they should have to ask themselves is “Do I want to spend x amount of dollars on new features?” and not “Do I want to spend x amount of dollars on new features, as well do I have the time to learn everything from the very beginning?” The ribbon is a good concept, don’t get me wrong, but forcing it on a new user base, when, as long as I can remember, the interface to Office has not changed that much, other then adding some new commands.

It’s not that the Ribbon itself is bad; it’s a nice feature, using icons and text to represent what a function is, as opposed to just text. However, it’s the method of deployment Microsoft went about doing it. When you release software where every day business requires knowing where commands are and thousands of deadlines depend on knowing where to change the layout the page, people don’t want to be fussing about, trying to find it. Give people the option, so that, when their job isn’t on the line, they can learn how to use it. The ribbon is probably a far more efficent tool then the old method but it requires to be trained in how to use it, and some people don’t have the time to play with it out of the box.

Summary:
Program: Microsoft Office 2007 Suite

Pros
- New icons are more intuitive

Cons
- The ribbon is too different from the old system; old users need to be re-trained
- Inconsistent new layout; some use the new ribbon, others do not

Suggestions
- Make the ribbon optional, but make more of a push on load to change
- Give Outlook the same ribbon

One item that makes writing a review on the Interface of WoW hard is the fact that Blizzard allows the use of Add-Ons. Add-Ons are additional modules (usually developed by individuals who play the game) to extend or modify the capabilities of the original system. As such, any problem you may have with the Interface, there’s a strong chance that there’s an Add-On already released that changes it to something you would much rather. I like this approach, as it allows for users to create an Interface that they are comfortable with. For the purpose of this review, I will be discussing the normal WoW-client, as how the game comes right after a fresh install.

The general gamescreen that players will be staring at the most, while slaying giant rats and rabid dogs, is laid out with the map in the top right corner, character health and energy/rage/mana in the top left corner, enemy health top-center, and action toolbar bottom center.

The map is fine. It shows the immediate area around the player, with adjustable zoom levels. Players can select from a drop down if they want to “find” something, which displays the object in question as a yellow dot on the mini-map. NPCs with new quests are shown as yellow ‘!’ points, and those that are the destination for finished quests are yellow ‘?’ marks. Nothing much to say about the map. Pretty standard and no real faults or praises I can give it.

Moving on to character and enemy information. Hovering over a character brings up a small text box, with minor information, like level and name (this use is expanded greatly by Add-Ons). One interesting thing is the characters mana/energy/rage bars. Instinctively, looking the bars alone, informs the user if it’s a warrior, a rogue, or a caster. This is a quick and easy way to tell the difference between a Warrior and a Paladin (both mail/plate wearers) and a Shaman and a Rogue (not that’ll be seeing the Rogue before it’s too late). However, there’s no way to tell the difference between casters by the bars and avatars alone. It’s a little unbalanced, as it gives the two more melee classes away faster then the magic ones. Different colors for each class would be nice, however, with abilities like Mana Burn, which drain mana, different colors for each class would be harder on the players, trying to figure out if Mana Burn would be effective (where, on Rogues and Warriors, Mana Burn has no affect on them).

Next up; the action bar placement. WoW places the tool bar on the bottom of the screen, akin to the placement of a dashboard of a car. Most people follow this logic and place similar tasked items in the same location. However, considering that most of the action in WoW happen on the ground, where the action bar is placed, as opposed to the air, the top portion of the screen that is relatively left free, makes one wonder why the action bar is placed on bottom, interfering with objects that are more relevant to the player’s gaming experience, then the blue skies of Azeroth? Again, as seen in Grand Theft Auto 4 with the stats page, this is commonly seen in most games (Diablo 2, StarCraft, as two examples) where this is seen, and can probably be marked down as “This is how it has been done in the past, so that’s how we are going to do it”

A shorter review then usual (650 words instead of 1000+), but this comes from WoW’s ability to customize the expierence. With Add-Ons and built in interface options (scrolling combat text, dialogue pop ups, etc.), it’s hard to do a review to cover all of WoW. I’m rather impressed with Blizzards ability to allow users to make their own custom interfaces, hand tailored to what the player wants, which might make WoW one of the best interfaces in the industry, though, not nescarily the friendliest, considering the pain it is to keep up to date all of your Add-Ons with new epansions and patches are released. Whether there will be a review when World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King is released or not, depends on how many changes are made, which I don’t suspect there will be much.

See you all next week!

Summary:
Game: World of WarCraft: Original/Burning Crusade

Pros
- Custom built Interfaces from Add-Ons and Options
- Different color bars to tell what kind of secondary points the player has

Cons
- Color bars give some classes away, and conceal others
- Action bar placement at the bottom of screen

Suggestions
- Different colors or bar styles to represent classes/secondaty point types
- Placing action bar at top

You play as young Nathan Drake, treasure hunter and grandson to Sir Francis Drake. You join Drake on his adventure to find El Dorado, the City of Gold. Along the way, you will have to solve puzzles, track down treasures, and fight a nearly never-ending supply of buccaneers. Sadly, there be only one wrench in the whole game.

Ok, enough pirate talk. Onto the GUI talk!

The Heads Up Display (HUD) is very clean. The top-right corner of the display holds the information about our current weapon, how much overall ammo is left, and how many shots are left in the chamber. My only gripe is that bullets left in the chamber are represented by bullet icons – three little bullets means that there three shots left before reloading. I always found this odd, especially for weapons that have high number of projectiles in the chamber, like weapons of the SMG and Automatic variety. However, this does work well for when you’re running low on your current clip, as I find this system works best when you’re low on ammo, and I would much rather know precisely how many shots I have left before I need to take cover to reload.

One of my favorite all time technique for GUI I see in Uncharted; grey-scale images. As the player takes damage, the world the player sees goes from being bright and vibrant to being dull and monochrome. This technique works very well in Uncharted because the game’s main selling point is the bright and colorful worlds, especially in a generation that focuses so much on browns and greys and very dull colors, that try to be more “realistic”. As well, this technique penalizes the player three times; the player loses the bright colorful world, loses health and has a harder time seeing foes, as the greyed world has less contrast and the distinction between a wall and a pirate becomes less distinct. It works on a lot of different levels, all of which encourage players to avoid getting shotgunned to the face. This only works because of the recharging health bar, that has been made popular with the release of the original Halo, since the player does not need to know the players exact health (like with Med-Kits, to maximize their use), but only know if they are at full, half, or near dead,

While on the topic of damage, when the player is hit, a blood spatter appears on the edge of the screen, to show which direction it came from. Works well in a 2-D area, but Uncharted is a 3-D adventure game. This has been a problem in a great many games – how to represent a 3-D vector (direction of the hit) on a 2-D surface. We can’t map a 3D concept directly into an understandable 2-D format with no information lost, in the same format. For example, do we map the top portion of the screen to shots directly ahead of the player or above the player? What about top right? For the longest while, games have always used static images – images that don’t change – to represent direction of hit. What if the images were more dynamic? What if we made it such that the shade of the indicator adjusted, depending on if the attack came from different heights, such that the placement on the screen indicates Front or to the sides, and colors represent if it came from below, the same or higher height? The location on the screen would be used for two pieces of information, and the color would be used for the third.

The menu is worth it’s weight in booty. In any action type game, pause in mid-conflict is always unavoidable, with grub, wrenches, and the little-pirates room calls, only to have you to come back, forgetting where you left off, and finding a load of lead in your face as soon as you unpause. In Uncharted, however, when one pauses the game, it preserves the action in the background of the menu, allowing to see how the screen will look when you unpause it. so, when ye return from the calls, you can continue to swash-buckling, and not take by surprised at where you left off. The menu colors also fit into the theme of the game, with bright browns and golden colors, which are nice colors for a game about hunting treasure.

It’s not all praises, however. Uncharted also has action sequences, where the player has psuedo control. The character is almost automated, except the player does get to enter the right button at the right time, to avoid death. Sometimes it’s done well, but most times, it’s not (which, I won’t get into, but I will say that Indigo Prophercy has done it best to date). Anyways, in Uncharted, they have action sequences. The proper button to press is in the bottom right-left hand corner, waiting for the player to press it or watch some form of death to occur. The problem with it is that it’s always in the same spot. To make the games more exciting, why not place the buttons where the danger is coming from. If Drake is being cased by a giant boulder Indiana Jones-style, why not place the button over the boulder? If a stone slab is falling, why not have the button indicator move with the object? Something coming from behind? Place the button behind Drake’s head, to show something is behind him. This should make the experience more immersive, as you need to be made more aware of the game’s surroundings (like Drake does), and not focusing on some obscure corner, where nothing is happening to.

Bright colors, very minimal gaming HUD, a menu layout that doesn’t block the game, Uncharted has a lot of elements in it’s GUI design to make it one of the better ones I have ever used. I think, for now, that, when someone asks me to list off the best GUI I have ever used in a game, I’ll point them towards Naughty Dog’s first game for the PlayStation 3 as something to strive for.

Summary
Game: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Pros:
- Uncluttered HUD
- Good use of color for health
- Menu system doesn’t block the flow of the game

Cons:
- Action sequences doesn’t place the buttons very well

Suggestions:
- Place the Action buttons/reactions next to the item we should be focusing on, that we want to react to

My first article, and I plan on starting big. I’m talking about the most anticipated game of the year and has broken the for highest grossing title on it’s opening day. I’m talking about Grand Theft Auto 4 by Rockstar Entertainment (interesting note; GTA4 was the first game I ever went to a midnight opening to buy).

This is Rockstar’s 8th title in the Grand Theft Auto series, including the PSP games. Good game, though the game does have a lot of areas it could use some extra work. However, we’re not interested in game design, but the graphic user interface which is quite nice. However, there are a few areas that could use some modifications.

First thing first, the HUD (which stands for Heads Up Display; the interface on the game screen) is very clear. Not a lot of elements to distract the user. The only text present (which, is harder for user to interpret – the user needs to focus on it to gain any kind of information from it) deals with the amount of ammo left and money, which both can easily go beyond a 1000. Representing an accurate value of any of these attributes would be spacious and much more laborious on the user to find the exact amount. On top of that, money and current weapon status dynamically hide themselves, based on these values remaining static. So, if you’re not firing your gun at a hooker or spending money on them, they disappear from the screen, making the screen even cleaner.

Now, we’re not done with the game screen. The old health and amour bar has been changed from two separate bars, to a single bar (with two colors) that goes around the mini-map. Interesting way to conserve space, as well as bringing the three main focus items (map, health and armor) in one area and the closer we can keep things together, the easier for the player to keep track of these things. However, my main concern with the armor/health bar is that it creates an illusion that the armor is an extension of the health bar. However, from analyzing my health while getting hit, the armor doesn’t always absorb all the damage, as I had armor left, but my health (green) bar was depleting

This could be rectify by having two separate bars, one on each side of the mini-map. This would display to the user that they are separate entities but, because of similar appearances and location, that they are related. This approach will ensure that the player know that the armor is not an extension to health, but a separate entity, as well as keeping armor, health and the map all in one area.

(Left) The original map/health/armor indications; (Right) My suggestion for that map/health/armor indications

Now, that’s enough on the HUD. Onwards to the menu!

The menu system has multiple views, that go from the map, to stats, to audio, visual and so on. The menu system is divided into two pieces; the top focuses on the list of sub-menus (listed above) and the bottom to hold the actual sub-menu items. This is good, as the user is always reminded of all the sub-menus that the game does offer and where they are in relation to the current menu.

Now, onto the map. The map… is a typical map. It doesn’t stand out. It does have a GPS system, that lets users find the point on the map on the mini-map, and then find the optimum legal (i.e. the least fun) route. Nothing really exceptional. However, the icons on the map do merit some concern.

Everything on the map, outside the occasional mission target, vehicle, or foes, is in plain black and white. The map topography is represented in three colors; black, white, and grey. The icons used to denote areas of interest, like contacts and restaurants, are black and white icons. There’s even a case where the icon for darts (a bulls-eye) and the icon for the internet cafes (an @ symbol) are hard to distinguish because they are the same color and almost the same icon design (circles with swirls in them). As well, with contacts moving and new contact positions not being known, the icons can blend in with the fullmap, making them even harder to find. What would be nice is if each icon had a bit of color, to stand out from the map, or, via the legends menu, a user being able to put emphasis on a particular icon, and give it a color to stand out. A way to remove icons from both the full- and mini-map varieties, to make both less cluttered and we can focus on the mini-map for landmarks of actual relevance to the user (instead of seeing car washes all the time) would be nice and make navigating easier.

The last item of discussion is the stats screen from the menu. The stats screen has lines and lines of text. Each line of text is divided into two portions; the first is the stat name, with the second, aligned on the other side of the screen, is the value. The Stat’s sub-menu has no spaces between each line, and most items are grouped such that they tend to have similar data values. This causes the eye to easily stray to another line, and read the wrong value. The best (and easiest) way to fix this would be an alternating pattern of white text, gray text, white, etc. This would improve readability, as the reader, if they read the wrong line, receive the wrong color, and know they are reading the wrong value.

Overall, the interface to Grand Theft Auto 4 is quite good. It meets mostly the standards that most games have. A few fixers and the interface would be even better. It’s not a problem that just exists in Grand Theft Auto 4 – it’s a problem that a lot of interfaces for video games, and I won’t be surprised that, look at other games, I will be mentioning these items again and again.

See you all next week!

Summary:
Game: Grand Theft Auto

Pros
- Clean HUD
- Good condensing of the Health and Armour
- Good Sub-Menu selection in the Menu

Cons
- The Health and Armour bar can be misleading as a single bar
- Map icons are hard to read
- Stats page is hard to read

Suggestions
- Separate the health/armor bars, but still keep them by the map
- Make map icons colored
- Allow filtering on icon types
- Alternate text color on stats page

Interfacin’ has been a small project I have attempted a few years back. I want to use this as a way to test and gain some experience in designing user interfaces, before heading into the real world, as well as build up my writing capabilities. Any comments would be greatly appreciated, and pointing out any flaws in my thinking thinking would be great.

A little bit about myself – I’m a Graduate Student studying Computer Science, doing my research in Information Visualization. I’m 22 and have been an avid gamer since the age of 6 (when I received my Super Nintendo) and a lighter console gamer before that (with an Atari system).

Sometime next week, I hope to have my first critique, so I shall see you all then!