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.

Kotaku posted this interesting little video coming out of Georgia Tech Augmented Environments Lab and Savannah College of Art and Design showing the gameplay footage for ARhrrrr an augmented reality game in development. It’s running on a handheld device from Nvidia called the Tegra. The Menu and HUD are pretty uninspired and clunky, but the possibilities of allowing players to draw their own maps and use real world objects to interact with the game is pretty spiffy.

My friend and boss Peter Roman sent the above video to me today, and it amazed me. I figured I’d share it with everyone here. The speed that this information can be calculated using just an IPhone is impressive, the flowers are great but when you see the tiny Darth Vader walking around on the desktop and moving via touch control is when it really shines.

Imagine the potential of this in gaming; players could eventually be using their IPhones to fight monsters within their city. With the Iphone 3Gs compass now the system will know which direction the player is facing as well. One monster could potentially be seen by multiple players allowing for epic encounters requiring groups of players meeting up in parks or other public spaces to fight some behemoth or defend their city from an invasion.

Augmented Reality could also be turned towards a more mystery/puzzle game where the player takes on the role of a CSI investigator. They could explore their space and work to solve a crime that happened in their own home. Walking around the room looking at the bullet holes in the wall, blood spatter across the mirror all added via AR.

It could even be used with educational gameplay. This type of augmented reality could herald a return of a localized version of Where In [Your City] Is Carmen Sandiego. Requiring players to explore their cities and environment casing the elusive thief. Teachers could take students to a museum and show the skin covering a dinosaur’s skeleton, or animated the background of a life-sized diorama of the battle of Gettysburg.

The potential for new types of gameplay, user interaction, and experience is really astounding. I dropped two more videos after the jump in a similar vein. One is from the same group working on the AR for the IPhone shown above. Around the 1:00 mark there’s a similar demo showing Vader and Ewoks fighting it out in a park. The other is a game coming out for the Playstation 3 by SCE London called EyePet that is a similar AR experience but far less mobile. If this sort of thing interests you I encourage you to check both.

I wrote a post a few months ago lauding EA Sports for the default no-HUD direction in Fight Night Round 3. It was a prefect system, feedback was communicated by the animations and camera effects. I loved it and encouraged all games to do their best and follow this approach. It seemed like a real world example of one of my favorite quotes by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupéry. He said, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Fight Night Round 3 had taken this to heart, the lack of HUD added more to the gameplay than the inclusion of a HUD ever could.

When I downloaded the demo for Fight Night Round 4 I was excited too see what else was added to the game, what else EA Sports had found to communicate as brilliantly as it’s predecessor. I have to say after trying the demo out I am left a little disappointed, the HUD is now defaulted to on. This new HUD is distracting. Instead of feeling like I am controlling a live fight, I am now left with meters describing a character’s Health, Stamina and Block. Reintroducing the HUD as a default option into a game that already communicates the information in other ways is adding unnecessary noise.

Boxing is just as much of a head game as it is game about speed, accuracy, timing, and power. Not knowing exactly where the other fighter stands or how much time is on the clock is as equally important as a fighters endurance. It no longer feels a true to boxing as Round 3 did, the head game is lost.

EA Sports did say that the HUD could be turned off, I am unsure if that turns off the HUD for both players in online matchups or if that switch is turning the HUD off for just yourself. Either way, it’s unfortunate to see extra noise reintroduced into such a ground breaking franchise.

Hit the jump if you want to see a video of the 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.