What game featured your favourite HUD?

[Smolderin]

First thing that comes to mind is Metroid Prime....I mean you actually feel as if your in the suit itself. As for others, I have always liked the Kingdom Hearts HUD's but in that I am bit biased considering Kingdom Hearts is one of my favorite RPG's. Still, the fact that the HUD changes from world to world is a legitimate reason on why someone would list it among their favorites.

 

[shrekfan246]

As for Dead Space, it does with its HUD what many other games only wish they could do. Everything feels very natural and purposeful, and feels thematically consistent with the world we're presented. It's the half-way point between having no HUD at all (which very few games admittedly do) and having a really obvious, "game-y" HUD (which most games tend to do).

Oh man! I remember the first time I opened my inventory and such and realized it was projecting into the game world and I could rotate my view around the projections... Amazing. They really pulled it off well for a 3rd person game.

Right?

The way they managed to integrate all of the separate functions into that projection was fantastic, too. Pop-up information for items on the ground, the audio logs and video conversations, even the little objective trail that gets projected on the floor when you hold that one button. And even the stuff like upgrading weapons or changing suits in the later games, they really went all-out in an effort to sew up all the seams, and you know what? I have to give kudos for that. It'd be really easy to take the cheap route out, but for the most part they didn't.

 

[Batou667]

I honestly can't remember, because a good HUD is supposed to be unintrusive.

I like it when games successfully go HUD-less, like Mirror's Edge.

 

[otakon17]

Dead Space by and large, loved the HUD on that. Second goes to Borderlands series.

 

[SmittyMcBrimstone]

Definitely the Republic Commando game. I loved that you could turn certain elements of it off and when debris hits your helmet or blood splatters on it after slicing up an enemy, the helmet would have a wiper that would clean off the HUD.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I like the ones in the Ace Combat games, due to their similarity to real life HUDs. The ones in futuristic shooters where it appears on the inside of the helmet/visor/goggles as that is a way that could be implemented in the near future are good too, but I don't like ones that seem out of place; like on historical first persons, or driving games.

 

[Grape_Nuts]

Crysis 1's angled HUD was the most memorable for me. I like the integrated HUD in the dead space series as well.

 

[DeathQuaker]

While it's controversial, the HUD in Remember Me was interesting because, like some of the others have mentioned, it's an in-game/in-character HUD -- i.e., largely what you're seeing is what Nilin is seeing, including all the little labels, tags, etc., thanks to the tech she's equipped with. Interface wise the game could have done better (as it could have done in a number of respects) but it was a cool idea and at least visually interesting.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

As others have said, the metroid prime series as you felt like you were actualy in her suit "safely" exploring alien worlds, scanning and analysing every curious thing with scientific OCD efficiency.
Dead space actually yes that does have a brilliant style of showing information. Especially your health as the light on your backbone. Message much?
Deus Ex HR was good as you had no hud until you got the cybernetic implants. Which do screw up with EMPs etc. But you can upgrade parts of how much information it can show you, as you progress.

Lastly, id say crysis 2 and 3. But in the similar vein to Prime's 'youre in a hardass suit' feel.

 

[bobmus]

TF2's HUD, but for completely different reasons than why it's been mentioned here already - namely how easy it is to customise and how the anti-cheat system allows for editing for use in competitive play. This means you can include more visual information than is in the default HUD (colours to represent low health/ammo) and generally streamline the information to meet your needs.

For instance, I prefer to see health as numbers over a bar, and prefer my information centered just below my (custom) crosshair:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/776058087308271123/BFC5B3019575E0CF7C44042F26F7DAD52BB0032F/
Also seen here that's not part of the default HUD = closed captions to indicate what has happened within 'hearing range' and a netgraph to monitor fps/ ping.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Gotta go with the Metroid Prime series' hud. It had ammo counts, energy level, current weapon, minimap, environmental hazard meter; everything you would expect a super advanced powered armor suit to have. Even better is it was apart of the environment, and that's not counting it being apart of the suit. Bug guts splashed across the visor, it fogged up near steam vents, water trickled down it after breaking through the surface, and you could even catch a glimpse of Samus's eyes in the right lighting conditions.

Spoiler: You could also see in several visual spectrums. How many other FPS gave you the ability to see via thermal, x ray and sonar imaging?

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Metro Last Light on Ranger.

Even without Ranger mode its got some really neat stuff I wish more games would do. For example being able to read up on what you're supposed to do next by bringing up a dairy in game and holding a Zippo next to it to provide the necessary light. Or wiping clean your helmet when it gets splattered with rain, blood or mud.

The "quest log" thing especially. It would work in almost every first person game. And shit, it would bring so much more immersion to say, Skyrim for example.

Not to mention, most of the time the only way to know how much ammo you have loaded (besides that quick inventory screen when you press Tab) is by counting the exposed bullets in your magazine. The Redux engine that's coming out is going to have animations dedicated to tilting the gun forward for you to count remaining shots, much like Red Orchestra or the Source mod No More Room in Hell. It's pretty much the only thing Metro was missing, beside maybe a way to count remaining reloads.

Yeah I loved that too, but unfortunately some of the weapons didn't give you that option if I remember correctly. Might be mixing it up with 2033.

Nah, you're right, a majority of weapons didn't have it. The only weapons I can immediately can recall having that are all guns that shoot 5.45x39mm ammo, the Shambler, and Valve. Technically those ridiculous belt-fed guns too, but they are really rare and they only display when you're running out at the end of a magazine.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Far Cry 2's. In fact, that whole game was just incredibly immersive in general. I loved how the only way to truly pause the game was to pause the game.

And all that, for some reason, became a far cry (pun intended) from Far Cry 3 with its stupid menus EVERYWHERE in the game.
Bleh...

Notable Mentions: Metroid Prime, Halo 3