Huge and ugly status panels

[JudasEZT]

Well, AlienBreed 3D must be world record.. on par with Wizard Warz ( which required slightly less processor, and have been already commented )

[Predseda]

This panel is also very ugly and huge

[s2325]

Agent Lux?

[Graham Humphrey]

I think you'll find that the author already hinted towards that himself on page one

[Cherno]

Dreamweb.

It's not as big as some of the more egregious examples here, but it makes up for it for being almost completely useless; The giant Ryan on the left side acts as a glorified, oversized inventory button, nothing else (Oh, the sunglasses sprites also gets added once you put them on, great!) Even worse, he looks like a wuss compared to the super cool guy on the cover and ad prints. I think I know why they did this: They had to include that zoom window because of the hard-to-identify top-down graphics where even one-pixel-peas could be picked up, and then they didn't want it over the main view so they put it in the corner... And now had a tall space above it as wide as the window, so they put Mr. Babyface/Mass Murderer Ryan there!



BTW, the blue and red dotted lines in the top right do nothing at all (from what I know).


Bonus: The aforementioned advertising art.


Second prize goes to Soldier 2000 where one full half of the screen is taken by a ginormous status bar.

[DamienD]

...can't remember is this has been mentioned as yet: Clystron

[roondar]

Did anyone mention Robocop yet?

[Amigajay]

The Final Gate CD32, probably the worst drawn status bar, along with the fact they decided to leave a black chasm, at least Alien Breed 3D had a proper boarder to hide its pitiful small window!

Btw i forgive games like Indiana Jones for having big status bars if the graphics are as well done as on that one.

[DamienD]

Oh, and Yogi Bear's Big Clean Up.

[DamienD]

How about this? Phantasie III: The Wrath Of Nikademus

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by DamienD

How about this? Phantasie III: The Wrath Of Nikademus

See, that status panel has *useful information*. It's packed with info about your party so you can see what is happening to them. It's like a flight simulator where a huge chunk of the screen is taken up by the gauges -- it's that way for a reason as it's an important part of the game.

What gets me are the ones that have the *NAME OF THE GAME* plastered in big letters, static art that does nothing, etc. i.e. not really a status panel and more like bad window dressing. It kind of breaks immersion and reminds you that you're just playing a crappy port of a game that was probably way better on other platforms.

European developers, and especially UK developers, were the worst offenders in this practice. I don't know how the tradition of doing this got started or why anyone thought it was a good idea. If you have to make your screen smaller for technical reasons, leave the rest of the screen blank or have a subtle, unobtrusive bit of framing that directs the eye to the action. Score, etc. should be big enough to be clear and readable but small enough to not distract visually.

[Anubis]

Tusker

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

See, that status panel has *useful information*. It's packed with info about your party so you can see what is happening to them. It's like a flight simulator where a huge chunk of the screen is taken up by the gauges -- it's that way for a reason as it's an important part of the game.

I hear what you're saying... but it does it need to be that large?

Just decrease the fonts etc. and you could make it half the size whilst still displaying all information.

[Anubis]

Syndicate had good and simple status for your party, where not just you could see how they are doing, but also make changes, give them some 'juice' etc.

[Havie]

At the risk of being controversial - Elite has a massive panel and a small window. Granted some of the panel is useful but it's pretty ugly.

(Havie runs off quickly).

[roondar]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I hear what you're saying... but it does it need to be that large?

Just decrease the fonts etc. and you could make it half the size whilst still displaying all information.

Originally Posted by Anubis

Syndicate had good and simple status for your party, where not just you could see how they are doing, but also make changes, give them some 'juice' etc.

Sadly, I played most of my A500 games on a TV. On a TV (well, on mine at least), the Syndicate UI was barely usable because everything was so small and blurry. Later I got a monitor and that changed things.

Not saying that those big status panels were any good - they weren't. But if the Phantasie III one was made with TV's in mind as well, I kind of understand the big font. Naturally, for people playing on a monitor such things are/were not needed.

Originally Posted by Havie

At the risk of being controversial - Elite has a massive panel and a small window. Granted some of the panel is useful but it's pretty ugly.

(Havie runs off quickly).

'Some'? You surely mean almost all of the panel is useful. Over half of it is an immensely useful radar

[Seiya]

After reading the LucasArts apply on Amiga "Color Switching" thanks to control panel and inventory, now i asked me if all these games that have so huge control panel made the same things and so use Copper co-processor to apply more colors to playing area.
I don't know, but maybe someone could have thinked the same things?

[trydowave]

redheat

p.s.

love that rolling thunder one with the massive logo at the top.. in case you forget what game your playing!

[NorthWay]

The sad thing was straight ST ports with side panels. They _could_ have been done with hw sprites, but usually you got the ST code, warts and all. (So no hw scroll etc.)

[Anubis]

To eliminate confusion what game you're playing, Gremlin 2 - The new Batch had its name on ugly status panel.