ZOOMIE1980
Posts: 1284
Joined: 4/9/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: nihilimus My biggest concern when buying this game was whether the gaming interface would be cumbersome or intuitive. Unfortunately, it is the former. Much like its difficult-to-use web site (with various popup windows, hidden and moving scroll bars, links to pages without content), Matrix Games has a game design that leaves much to be desired. Before I get further into that criticism, I want to say that even with the shortcomings, the game is admirable in scope and depth. However, playability is hampered due to the frustrating and poorly implemented user interface. A few notes: · Why can’t a find arrival dates of aircraft in the database? Why doesn’t sorting by type work? (And various other issues here). · Watching the battles is hokey to say the least – and time consuming. So I turn that off but have no visual way to go back and view where the battles occurred or with a quick click get a summary. Instead, I must be satisfied with a text display that gives me coordinates… Yet, there is no way to hover over the map and determine ones coordinates. · Stepping through task forces is a pain. I can only “next task force” within a hex. If I open the menu to list all task forces, I can click on a task force, get its info but am not immediately taken to that portion of the map. Even if I did, I could see what was behind the menu without closing it. Same is true for airfields and air groups. · Where can I find battle losses? · I must continually scan where they placed the “exit” button. Sometimes in the lower right. Sometimes on the top. Who knows? I’ll get used to that after awhile, but it is still power design. I’m sure I’ll find more to criticize after playing longer, but a poor UI is the death knell of game – or any software. I feel that those of us starved enough for a quality game with all of its historical glory will deal with these limitations, but I truly wish Matrix would work harder to get it right. I have similar fears for other upcoming games that I’m eager for from a gaming perspective. Been playing this game now for about a month, and I have to say, this is a GLARING weakness. Overall, I love the depth, and complexity and the combat resolution and attention to historical detail is excellent. But the UI, frankly SUCKS. I will NEVER understand why game developers refuse to adhere to standard WIN32 user interface standards. They continually insist on "rolling their own" when it comes to UI's and it never ceases to amazing how completely and utterly short sighted that is. Just give us a standard Windows UI. What is so damned hard about that???? Dialog boxes with universal standard checklist style listboxes, combo boxes, pushbuttons, etc.... Sometimes I think the programers have never coded a Windows interface in their programming lives. But inspite of the UI, this game is very good. Sadly, it could have been even better with standard, intuitive, Windows UI. Hint, to the programmers......take a look at the wxWidgets toolkit. It works, it's easy to use. But it's C++, a seemingly forbidden ground for guys stuck in procedural antiquity....
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