Rockstar‘s Red Dead Redemption looks great, as the video above shows. I like the trimmed down UI, and the quick shot of the “store” UI looked pretty slick as well. Interesting choice for that persistent mini map in that lower left. Looks like it with lifted right from Grand Theft Auto IV.

Early, early, early this morning Touch Arcade’s Eli Hodapp (who apparently doesn’t sleep) posted the above video for the release of Anrufen Online, a cross platform MMO, now available on the App Store [Link for the Bold.]

I guess subscribers to Anrufen Online might find this exciting, but the video did little to peek my interest in the MMO. Still, I summoned my courage and I downloaded it. I’ll be honest, I spent very little time with this game. Maybe ten to twenty minutes, what I found really put me off.

Inglorious appears in the world of Anrufen.

The UI and control scheme is, well, at it’s best it’s awful. I found the UI to be clunky, confusing, crowded and ugly. Icons are a muddy mess, surrounded by these stylization elements that server little purpose. When screen real-estate is at a premium, you don’t waste precious space by over styling your UI. A large majority of the screen is covered up by the players thumb when moving about. Onscreen text is a mess, and I am not sure whats going on in that mini map in the upper right hand corner.

So, this might have viruses in it? Wait a second!

While technically impressive to port your MMO to the IPhone, all it does it strengthens the idea that while it’s possible, is this really necessary? If you’re looking to get your MMORPG fix on the go, I’d look somewhere else, or hope and pray that Anrufen’s developer WiSTONE‘s takes a solid pass at correcting the issues after this first release.

Avatar isn’t going to just be a new movie from Titanic director James Cameron; it’s also going to be a new video game developed by Ubisoft. It’s gotten a significant amount of press for a movie tie-in, even dominating a sizeable space at PAX for a booth featuring a replica of the cockpit of one of the flying machines starring in the movie… er… game.

As this video posted on Kotaku shows the graphics are impressive, however I’m not awed by Ubisofts choices for HUD layout. Persistent elements are thrown in every corner, and numbers and icons fade in and out. I understand the idea of keeping action the center of attention, but with a display this scattered it takes a lot to check health, know where you’re going, what you’re fighting with, how much XP you have, and if an ability is ready to use.

Here’s my take, I’d group things differently and focus on making it easy for the player to get the information needed without spending too much time looking away from the action. There are four persistent elements on the screen, a combo health meter and ammo meter, an XP bar, a mini map, and a radial menu for abilities. Randomly things like weapon ammo, selected weapon, target’s heath and hits, will pop in and out as well. These could have been grouped in a much nicer manner giving the player one location to look at as opposed to scanning all edges of the screen to get the important information.

Grouping elements at the bottom

This example sets the grouping together at the bottom of the screen. The selection weapon is displayed below, and the users aren’t forced to scan every edge. The nonpersistent elements could easily be displayed between the radial menu and the Minimap, or above the various bars on the left or the right. I’ve done one other thing as well. I’ve grouped action related elements, ammo, health, abilities, on the right side of the screen, and bigger picture elements: mini-map, XP on the left. This gives the user one place to look for action and combat information, and a second area that can be ignored until needed during more exploratory moments.

Grouping elements on the sides.

Similarly Ubisoft could opt to group each set on the sides. This unclutters the bottom and provides the user only two locations to look at as opposed to four or five. Again as in the above example, I’ve split the grouping between necessary action related elements and more bigger picture elements.

The goal with any HUD design is to blend so seamlessly it’s unnoticed as a player interacts with a product. A few quick changes and a scattered HUD can be streamlined allowing an easier play experience. Easier play means more immersion and more immersion allows for better storytelling and ultimately a more memorable experience. With a few changes and Ubisoft could be well on their way to creating that memorable experience.

In case you haven’t seen this amazing video of the gameplay from Avalance Studio‘s Just Cause 2 I suggest you give it a look. The game looks beautiful and appears to have the potential to be a heck of a lot of fun. As it stands in this demo there’s an awful lot going on onscreen for me to get excited about the UI treatment. A lot of this could be streamlined to create a better experience for the player. As of right now I see a lot that would frustrate.

On the positives I do like how when not in use the ammo and the weapon display fade get it out of the way if not in use, otherwise I don’t see much more in the way of innovation. If anything I see a lot of typical mistakes being made. The inconsistent messaging is of particular concern. Money earned and something called chaos are tracked in separate locations from altitude and damage messaging these in turn are in a separate location from subtitles. This scattered HUD requires the user to look all over the screen to gather important data and look away from the action. I am more partial to seeing developers use other forms of feedback like damage showing on the avatar via Fight Night or the screen going red around the edges like in Call of Duty. A player shouldn’t have to look away from the combat to see if there is a collectible nearby, it’s distracting. At the very least center information on the action, Half-Life‘s centering of weapon selection is a great example of this.

The game HUD should be nearly invisible; everything should work in harmony towards focusing the player on remaining engaged. Just Cause 2 looks like and amazing action hero romp and it’s not due till 2010 this should give the plenty of time for Avalanche to put in that extra polish.