I recently picked up a copy of Mass Effect 3, and although it’s the first in the series that I’ve played, I’m having a pretty good time. Besides being reintroduced to a magnitude of characters that I’ve never met before, I have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on. I can attribute a lot of that to gameplay, visual cues, and even the user interface. That’s not to say that the interface doesn’t have a few faults.
For the record, I’m playing on an Xbox 360, so the experience may be different for other platforms. I’m seriously considering picking it up on PC to see how the interactions are handled with a mouse.
Squad Members Status
One of the things I immediately noticed after getting out of the tutorial zone, was how awesome it was to control the position of my two squad members. Pressing in the left control stick controls my left hand man, and the right control stick controls my right hand man. Controlling my units was all fun and games, until I sent James around the corner — where he was shot in the foot and killed.
At that moment his portrait turned red and it was clear to tell from the UI that he was incapacitated and unusable. I yelled (naturally disgruntled) when I realized there wasn’t a way to see the health of my comrades. Knowing the current status of your squad is a pivotal piece of gameplay. Imagine playing an MMO where the health of the main tank is a mystery, the consequences could be dire (I’m looking at you, vanilla WoW).
Mapping of Radial Menus
The radial menus are a great way to display lists of content quickly. I don’t mind them as much as I mind the conversation radials (they feel a bit old school and rudimentary). I like that the weapon selection and special abilities selection are mapped to bumpers and not the start menu (much like Skyrim).
One thing that really confused me however, when I first started playing and even now, was the mapping of the radial menus. By default, the left bumper is mapped to the weapon radial, while the right bumper is mapped to special abilities. This is all well and good, except for the fact that right trigger is mapped to the weapon trigger. My brain automatically makes the association that my right hand manages all things weapons related, but it doesn’t. This doesn’t necessarily break gameplay but is definitely frustrating when I’m out of ammo in my sniper rifle and need to rotate to my shotgun and my first instinct is to use my right hand. Default values are extremely important when learning and adopting a game, they often determine on whether or a not a gamer plays till the end.
Cover Tech
I really like the cover gameplay in Mass Effect. The enemy AI is smart and responsive, and uses cover just as well as the player. Cover is available at nearly every surface, and the HUD arrows remind you that you can cover there without being totally in the way. I can really appreciate the time Bioware spent to make icons for cover, jump, jump over barrier, and climb.
However, my last gripe has to do with the responsiveness of the player going into cover. I have raged many-a-time trying to go into cover behind a short wall, when instead all I do is continuously somersault head first into it. This is extremely aggravating when a massive Atlas Mech is blasting you in the face, and you begin to shout “OH DEAR GOD, WHY AM I SMASHING MY FACE IN THE WALL RIGHT NOW” waking up your unsuspecting roommate who gets up and expects you to make food at 3am.
Overall HUD
The overall heads up display — shield, health, and weapon information — is surprisingly simple. I appreciate how it’s positioned and contained at the bottom of the screen. The information is important, and although it’s kept surprisingly meta, it works pretty well. The information could probably be positioned a little lower, as to not conflict with the camera when it’s behind Shepard.
Conclusion
Overall, the UI compliments the game without overpowering it. The blue and red transparent colors work well in all environments, and are never too distracting. That isn’t to say that things couldn’t have been handled a little better. Adding a thin health bar (similar to Shepard’s shield bar) above each squad member’s portrait would give you at least SOME idea of how your party was doing. The default mapping of the radial menu’s could have been thought out a little more, and the cover tech could have been ironed out just a little bit more.
What did you think of the game’s UI? Let me know in the comments!