TWP Awards 08: Best Interface

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.

Store Detectives: 28/11/08

Hello again, and it's quite a big store update this week, so let's get going:

There's both a demo and full release for Capcom's Age of Booty. My advice is most definitely to get the demo first, because as much as the game intrigues me from what I've played, you'd need to really like it to justify the £8 price tag. But, if you feel like a gamble, there are much worse games than this on the Store. AREN'T THERE GTI CLUB? Yes, yes there are. I was willing to give the Club the benefit of the doubt at Eurogamer seeing as it was quite fun, but from reviews and the demo now available on the store, I would like to admit I was wrong (hear that women?), and in fact, the game is quite shit. There's also a Dead Space demo, which I downloaded, and which also only confirmed that I quite want this game.

Syndicate Wars is a difficult game to talk about. Before you ask, I haven't downloaded it and here's why: it's not the sort of game that ages well. Admittedly the same could be said on less of a scale for Crash Bandicoot, but Syndicate Wars, although being pretty amazing in scope and gameplay for its time (and the series still has a great plot), it doesn't hold up at all nowadays. Which is sad, because it was an awesome game. Good point: great quotes. Bad point: the story doesn't make sense because the original wasn't available for PlayStation and so isn't on the Store. Get it if you want, but my recommendation is to avoid.

To add-ons then! The LBP Chimera costume is awesome (although why its 60p more than the MotorStorm one, I don't understand) and if wandering around with a giant turkey on your head is your thing then go ahead and grab this weeks freebie too. No other content for any of the games we have this week, my copy of FarCry is only borrowed, but for the amount of stuff in the expansion, it seems well worth it. And did anyone genuinely buy G1 Jockey 4? Why is there even a 4?

Oh, guess what? This week's Tomb Raider video is still shit. And the fact it is labeled "Enemies #1" scares me into thinking there'll be more next week. I'm pretty sure everyone that wants the game now has it, although with the amount of 360+Underworld advertising going around, I don't even know if people are aware its out on PS3. The two Resistance videos (one the regular TV spot, and one a new action trailer) really sum up the atmosphere of the new game in comparison to the old. Basically, less British. As much as I loved the original, the sequel seems a bit generic in amongst all the new and interesting games this month, maybe I'll pick it up later on. The Naruto trailer interests me even less - it looks just like all the other anime-based games around.

Oh Shoot, why must you ruin it so quickly? After a fantastic film last week, this weeks (by a Frenchman - double gah) is pretty rubbishy. Here's hoping for next week eh? Oh and the HVB theme is ugly as sin. Don't Sony realize people only use nice-looking themes?

PSP-wise there's the marvelous LocoRoco 2, continuing Sony's promised streak of Store-released new games, and Super Stardust Portable also appeared earlier this week.

Okay...so this week my recommendations are: the two LBP costumes of you have that game (if not, why not?), the FarCry content if you've got that, the Dead Space and Age of Booty demos, Resistance action trailer, and if you've got a PSP, both of the new full game releases.

WWAP #5: Busy Edition

This week's been one helluva mixed bag games-wise: both the Wanderer and I have been busy with various activities, including of course Eurogamer Expo, but somehow (as ever) we've still found time to get some solid game time in.

I myself spent the beginning of the week getting to grips with Mercenaries 2: World at Flames on PS3, playing large amounts of online co-op with Aquatic and one or two other online buddies who also have the game. Post-Eurogamer and the PlayStation Store update I've been playing around in the Mirror's Edge and EndWar demos, and rather annoyingly, my Bluetooth headset died halfway through a run-through of the latter - SingStar microphones to the rescue - but at least now I have a decent excuse to get the official PlayStation one when it comes out.

Mr Aquatic has been just as busy as me, and after starting the week showing me the ropes of Mercs, he has been splitting his time between Uncharted: Drake's Fortune that he picked up the other week on the cheap, and his new best friend Dead Space. Unfortunately for him, the new LPB release date of the 5th falls directly on the day he goes to Italy for a week, which is just pure bad luck (the lucky sod), and unfortunately for me, I have no money to buy it either.

And that's just the start - I think Penny Arcade put it the best (click to see the full comic):

Although obviously the dates are different (thanks SCEE!) it's gonna be mental from here on out until Christmas. Here on the blog, this week will be just as busy as we continue with our Eurogamer reportage, and try some new things. Keep em peeled!