HUDless

Lately, in the all mighty quest for immersion, game developers have been moving away from using a heads up display (HUD). Overall, I am in support of this movement. Games look so much nicer without being plastered with an overlay covering everything the art designers spent so much time making look so good. No offense to the HUD art designer, but how awesome can they really look? On the other hand games have to sacrifice the conventional means of communicating information or remove the need to communicate the information at all.


Games like Flower and Mirrors Edge have nothing on the screen aside from the game itself. There is no health bar, ammo counter or crosshair to obstruct the game. Flower was designed from the ground up to not necessarily need any of these things, but a game like Mirrors Edge has gun ammo and a health system it needs to convey. The way the player gets the health information they need is through a dimming of the screen whenever she takes damage. This effect has been used a lot in tactical shooters where you can die so easily a health bar is practically unnecessary. The ammo indication is essentially nonexistent; this was dealt with by never allowing a gun to have more than a few bursts worth of bullets.

These tricks work for Mirrors Edge because the game is not a shooter, but trying to overcome some of these issues with a full-blown shooter is another story. Far Cry 2 did a few interesting things to free up the screen, which also doubled as a “never break first person” effect that has been popular ever since Half Life. FC2 uses tricks like having the in game avatar pull out a map in game to look at rather than pausing the game to display the map. Even still, the game has a modest health bar and ammo counter. It is very minimal, but it is still there.


Dead Space manages to display all the conventional information a shooter normally would, while still having no HUD whatsoever. Its method is clever, but not terribly radical by any means. Instead of putting a health bar on the top part of the screen, the characters suit has a lit up spinal cord that shortens as he takes damage. The ammo counter is displayed on the gun and all the cutscenes and map are projected from the suit in game. This also has a neat horror ramification in that as a player you are never safe while checking your inventory, map or watching a scene.

One other thing worth mentioning, despite this being kind an old trick that doesn’t really change anything about traditional HUDs, games like Metroid Prime, Halo, and Half Life all try to make the player feel like they are wearing the power suit their characters occupy. Therefore the HUD displayed on the screen is also supposed to be displayed on the visor of the suit the character is wearing. This is usually conveyed early on by the things other characters say. Things like, “your suit is coming online” as various pieces of the HUD start to appear. This works quite well if the game is first person, but in third person games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter it seems a little out of place.


Taking the HUD out of games has had some spectacular results, but at the moment it will only work with specific genres and specific instances. Pasting the HUD onto the character like in Dead Space is really just a relocation of specific elements. Removing the HUD entirely out of a game like God of War seems like an insurmountable task. How will the player get the essential information about their health and magic without altering the core of the game in some major way? Perhaps the Afro Samurai approach of having various effects on the screen correspond to things like low health and a built up action meter. This could potentially work, but for something as varied as a large health bar I cannot see this working. God of War does remove the health bar from the screen when it is not needed however leaving nothing on the screen. Without reinventing a lot of genres a HUD will not be going anywhere anytime soon. Could you imagine playing a JRPG with turn-based combat without any onscreen menus? I cannot see that working without a drastic simplification of the game.

What do you guys think, do you like the lack of a HUD in games or do you prefer the more traditional styles? They both have pros and cons, but every time I see a gorgeous game like Mirrors Edge totally unobstructed, I can’t help but support the idea.

Far Cry 2 as told by Jebus

As Slevin mentioned, we are playing Far Cry 2 in conjunction with each other. Our original idea was to play the game and after each night or two compare our experience. We got this idea after I found this interview (which is totally worth reading) about how Far Cry 2 will have some bold new fully interactive narrative. According to the interview, the story is told in a series of vignettes (missions) that can be done in more or less any order because they are designed to not have a chronology. We thought this would lead to two very different experiences of the same game. Sadly after playing for about 7 or 8 hours and getting through what I think is the first third of the game, this does not appear to be the case.

After I typed up a brief synopsis of my first session, then read Slevins’ and then played another 4 or 5 hours it became quite apparent that the story in this game unfolds similarly for everyone. There is some, but not much choice as far as the main story is concerned, and there are a 3 or 4 different side quests lines you can do at any given time. So I’ve decided not to bother boring you with my journal entry style post because if you already read Slevins’ you probably won’t want to read mine.

Having said all that, I still think this game is fantastic. Like I said, I’m not entirely convinced they accomplished their new story telling structure as I had imagined it in the interview, but there are some exciting things all the same. For one, the buddies allow for you to make a choice of how you want to accomplish every mission, but most of the time it seems to get you the same end result. This isn't the case every time because after my last big mission Slevin ended up with nothing but the payment, and I ended up with a pimped out Jeep and a full fledged med pack at all my safe houses. I might also be on very very bad terms with the UFLL when I get back, we’ll see. Also your buddies can die permanently (one of mine already has) so I imagine if a crucial one bites the dust that could lead to no alternate choices on missions. All these are differences you control, but none seem terribly narrative altering in a significant way.

I think the real unique player experience they were going for really shines through in the way you play the game, and not necessarily the missions you take. For instance you can stealthily sneak up on a base with a sniper rifle and a camo suit on and snipe everyone before they can do anything about it. Alternately, you could do it my standard way and plow through the entrance in your jeep, running over as many people as you can in the process, then blowing up said jeep with a grenade on your way out possibly killing more people and starting a huge brush fire. Then simply picking off the rest amidst the chaos. My way tends to lend itself nicely to a lot of those “Holy shit, that was awesome” type moments.

Though even with all that choice, I don’t feel like the game has really done that much new. You could take on missions in various ways and orders in GTA4, and you can focus your play style into sneaky, or Rambo or whatever in games like Oblivion. The entire game feels like a really polished Ubisoft take on GTA if it was set in Africa during a guerrilla war. I said it was fantastic because that is hardly a bad thing.

Far Cry 2

I just started playing Far Cry 2 this week. The open-world nature of the game allows it to be approached differently by each player. I'm going to keep a log of some of my time with Far Cry 2 and see how my experience differs from Jebus'.

This should (hopefully) be interesting.

Entry #1

The sun is going down, dancing its way through the tree tops to the jungle floor. I'm headed to the northwest to destroy a weapon cache of 'shit AKs' for a weapons dealer. He'll provide me with a few new guns for my trouble.

Leaving my safehouse in my dune buggy I stole from a guard outpost, I run into a guard checkpoint. I end up losing my ride after the rebels race toward me in their truck, which I blow up with my rocket launcher, causing my dune buggy and their truck to both explode. I steel another truck from the checkpoint.

On my way to the northwest, I notice an opportunity for a mission from a satellite tower. A man in a Saw like voice gives me a target to assassinate. I need the diamonds, so I head off.

I run into a problem trying to pass through Mokuba. I narrowly miss being killed when my car is hit with an RPG. I am overwhelmed by rebels here and go down. Thankfully, my buddy Marty shows up to save me, and we clear out the camp. It begins to rain as I head through the brush and follow a river towards my target.

My GPS is going crazy while I'm trying to get back to a road. Scouting ahead, I see it's at the top of a hill, which happens to be a safehouse currently guarded. I sneak up the road with my knife ready and stab the first guard before he knows what hit him. He rolls down the hill a bit and in a last ditch effort to stop me, draws a pistol from his holster. Before he can fire I stab him in the chest one last time. I kill the other guard, unlocking my new safehouse. I find the diamond behind the house. It's dark out and raining, so I decide to head out in the morning.

I wake up to my buddy Marty. He's dropped by to remind me of the close call we had in Mokuba. I thank him and head towards my target.

My assignment is circling an airfield. A river runs along it, so instead of confronting the rebel checkpoint, I steal a boat from the dock and head towards the airfield.

The mark is traveling in an SUV protected by two trucks. Using my monocular, I plan an ambush as they drive closer to me. The lead truck is well ahead; as he passes the ridge I'm on, I take out the gunner. The rest of the convoy is on to me. I use the newly freed machine gun on the other truck. The SUV empties and two guards begin firing on me while my target flees. I kill them with my shotgun and grenades and chase down my payday. I almost feel bad for killing an unarmed man. Almost.

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Needless to say, my initial impressions are favorable to Far Cry 2 right now. I've spent a little over three hours with it and I only have a couple complaints - respawning checkpoints and AI that can be a little too good at finding where I am. Otherwise, I'm impressed.

The world Ubisoft has created feels alive and open to me. Maybe it's just seeing my hand reach out to open doors, or healing myself with pliers, or having a friend help me during a fight and tell me to watch out for myself, pulling up my map while driving; it feels like I'm in a living, breathing world and not just a floating gun pressing a button to open doors and shoot everyone to get to the next room. I have a choice in how the action plays out, where I'm going and what missions I'm going to take. The dynamic weather, lush environments, fire propagation and graphics also help me feel immersed in this world.

After I finish the game I will post my final impressions of Far Cry 2.