Another of this year's development trends was 'doing the user interface a little bit different'.
Winner: Dead Space (PS3)
What's this? An EA game getting prize for something new and exciting? But the truth is that both Dead Space and Mirror's Edge tried something a bit knew this year, and both turned out as really really good games. Dead Space ditched the normal UI (ammo counter right bottom corner, health top-left, you know the drill) and instead shifted everything to dynamic displays on the main character itself. The back of his suit contains a health strip, and ammo displays hover around weapons. And it all works brilliantly.
Runner Up: WipEout HD
WipEout's crystal clear UI really supplement the crisp rich visuals and techno soundtrack to give a futuristic vision of racing. The option to use the racing interface from old WipEout games is a nice addition.
Runner Up: LittleBigPlanet
LBP's cloth-covered everything is so adorable. The Pod serves as both a menu and multiplayer lobby, and running around and decorating it all is great fun.
Runner Up: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Midnight Club doesn't do anything that diferently - its not as slick as Burnout for instance - but it does have some cool spinny 3D effects, and best of all, it zooms out dramatically to see the whole map with a press of Select.
Runner Up: Fallout 3
Again, Fallout doesn't switch up the menus that much, but the inclusion of all of the options on your in-game Pip-Boy, and the faux-modern UI elements add to the world of the game.
Honourable Mention: SingStar
SingStar in its original PS3 form came out last year but the pumping out of song disks means it deserves a mention here, for serving up easily the slickest menus and interface on the PS3, which even inspired this summer's PlayStation Store redesign.
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