Split Second integrates the typical race HUD in a rather ingenious way.

There’s no doubt you haven’t heard of Black Rock Studios upcoming racing game Split/Second. A lot of interested has been bubbling with the recent videos showing some pretty impressive gameplay. The game flips some of the traditional elements you’d see in a typical racing shooter by adding destructible environments and special abilities that allow for some intense fast paced gameplay.

As seen in the screen shot above Black Rock has rather ingeniously introduced a integrated HUD into the mix. Instead of the typical direction with HUD elements located on the periphery Black Rock has clustered it all near the rear of the players vehicle and angled it in a way it feels like it’s apart of whats happening on screen. This not only puts relevant information right where the players are looking, the  center of the action, it does so without interruption.

Black Rock takes it a step further by adding effects to the HUD making it feel just as much apart of the action as the exploding buildings, crashing cars are. The HUD flickers and fades, glows hot and shifts around compensating for the moving camera. This adds to the action and these small but important effects serves to not only pull a player into the gameplay but still deliver important contextual information. When you see Split/Second’s clustered integrated HUD in action it really feels cinematic. It’s rare when a HUD can ads to the drama of the gameplay experience.

Be it be ammo readouts located on a weapon like some modern shooters have done, or health displayed on a playable character model similar to Dead Space. HUD integration is a good way to draw a player deeper into the experience. I encourage you to check the video after the break to see Split/Second’s HUD in action.

Found this impressive video from the crew at EA’s Need for Speed: Shift on Joystiq and it has me all a titter. If what this video shows is an accurate gameplay experience, not only is it embracing the idea of no-HUD gameplay I talked about at length. The gameplay is also doing a fine job of communicating pertinent information to the player video other clever ways. The G forces effect in particular, the blurring of the peripheral vision, perspective shifts, the drivers view bobbing around. All this enhances the players experience by giving them then information they need without interrupting the immersion.

Racing games are always full of interface elements that provides important details to the player. Just like a real vehicle the HUD has instruments covering everything, speed, RPM, fuel, and even little gps-esque mini maps. Because most games deal with such similar elements racing games usually feature more of the same with slight stylization tweaks. The above video posted on Kotaku shows a fresh take on an old element: the navigation arrow.

Fuel’s navigation is quite a bit more dramatic and as a result more helpful than the classic floating arrow. It gives the player a line to follow not just a vague direction. This is a big deal, instead of a closed track in the vein of like Gran Turismo and Forza, Asobo Studio’s Fuel features a large open world, so going completely off track is entirely possible, and the more classic navigation elements (GT’s arrow & Forza’s track line) won’t help. There’s even game play modes that embrace this new direction, the goal being to get from point A to point B as fast as possible with no track or checkpoints.

It’s a nice direction and much more dramatic, and as long as it can be turned off (and the official site says it can) I say it’s a welcome addition. Nice work.

According to EA Black Box’s Need for Speed World Online blog, the new racing MMO will have a fully customizable UI that embraces the PC platform. Pretty exciting news, I am always fond of completely customizable UI, in the article Scott Henshaw from Black Box says:

“Key to the concept of NFS World Online is the user interface which has been built from the ground up to take advantage of the PC architecture. Instead of a traditional console view of a game, we’re using a user-selectable gadget interface designed specifically for the PC. The system allows the gamer to choose which components of the interface they want to add to their game. The gadgets are really flexible and offer a wide range of display options: docked/undocked, floating in the game window or just sitting outside of the game space. A lot of gamers now have more than one monitor so you could keep the game window entirely clean and then have all the gadgets sit in the other monitor. We think it’s about time PC gamers had games that allowed them to arrange their information their way.”

Via Kotaku, Evil Avatar, and WorthPlaying.