Borderlands 2: Mission Information When You Need It

Borderlands 2 logoIn comparison with the original, Borderlands 2 hasn’t changed all that much. Gameplay-wise it’s more of the same, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are definitely a few tweaks in the game’s framework – obviously new classes and skills, 87 bazillion guns, at least one new currency, and a lot more shininess in the UI.

And speaking of the UI – there was one relatively minor change that caught my attention. The Fast Travel Network screen shows players where the missions are that they need to complete right where they need to see it. I really appreciate tiny changes that make big improvements from game to game, and this definitely falls into that category. It’s not a new concept for sure, and it’s even been featured on That Game’s UX before from another game, but it’s still worth celebrating. Read on to find out more!

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Magic 2013 for iOS: Too Many Screens Before the Main Menu

Magic: the Gathering logo

I played a lot of Magic: the Gathering for a few years back in the 1997 range. I spent a fair amount of time and money on the game, but eventually I ran out of people to play with, and that pretty much ended my Magic career. My wallet was thankful, though I always missed playing. Fast forward a few (quite a few) years to 2012 when Magic 2013 for iPad was released. Card games on the iPad seems to be a natural fit, and I was excited to pick it up.

Firing up the app for the first time, I immediately noticed how many screens there are before I could make it to the main menu. A few weeks ago I mentioned how video game intro videos must die, and it’s never been more true here. But it’s not just an intro video – it’s a whole series of screens that are absolutely useless to the user.

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Borderlands 2: Thoughts on Usability

Borderlands 2 logoIn last week’s article, I talked about how the crazy amount of loot and the lack of a good, simple method to compare items can make an otherwise great Borderlands 2 a sluggish inventory-management fest. After a little bit more playtime, I’ve come up with a few more usability related thoughts on this game including:

  1. Various methods of picking up loot
  2. How much I love the world map in Borderlands 2
  3. Scroll bars are your friend
  4. The skill tree is more focused, but probably less useful
  5. Some unnecessarily sexy visual effects in the menu screen
Read on to find out more!

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Diablo 3: Auction House Usability Revisited

It’s been a few months now since Diablo 3 was finally released. In that time we’ve covered usability issues with the Diablo 3 auction house twice now. And Blizzard hasn’t been resting either; a frequent stream of patches has brought changes large and small. Most recently, patch 1.0.4 made a handful of changes with the auction house aimed at improving its usability.

So lets take a look back at our previous articles on the topic and see what has and hasn’t been addressed in the original list of complaints.

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Game Accessibility Guidelines for Everyone

Recently, a project arose to create a list of game accessibility guidelines in the form of a living document style website. In the last couple of weeks it was released as the very appropriately titled www.gameaccessibilityguidelines.com. Accessibility in games isn’t something that’s regularly covered here on thatgame’s(ux), but it’s super important. The site references a recent survey in which 15-20% of casual gamers reported some form of disability.

So gameaccessibilityguidelines.com gives game developers a simple, understandable checklist of ways to improve the accessibility of their games, ranging from easy to hard. This is awesome particularly for disabled gamers, but implementing many of the guidelines will benefit everybody. I’d like to take a quick look at a few of my favorite guidelines that I wish more games had just for the sake of usability. Continue reading