Best Game Menus

I did graphic design at university and still sometimes work as a web designer and graphic designer so user interfaces alway interest me.

How do you make something both functional and engaging is the essence of graphic design.

I want to praise the design work for the Colin McRae: Dirt 2 - (Codemasters, 2009) menu system.

At first glance I hated it but when I realised how smoothly it ran without load times, I gradually warmed up to it to the point it rate it now as the best game menu ever.

Never before have stats after races and choosing tracks been so exciting.

By coincidence another Colin McRae Rally 2.0 (2000) game has a menu which stands out, this time as being so clever in it’s design purity with none of the grunge of Dirt 2.

But I also admire the work on Wipeout by rock star design studio of the time (now defunct) Designer’s Republic. Probably closed due to being tied to a specific style so when people get bored of the DR look, you run out of work.

But I recall a Wipeout game, I think it was on PSP, which had awesome animated menu’s in the DR style. But none of the Wipeout game menus I’ve looked at are particularly striking from a design perspective and I just can’t find the very best Wipeout menu I can only remember from looking over someone's shoulder on a train one time many years ago.

The Menus on PS4 Wipeout are cool enough but don't stand out like the colourful box art of the early Wipeout games and the menu I can't find.

Does anyone else have a favourite game menu?

No need to be a racing game, it's either just coincidence or racing games just put more effort into their menus for some reason is why I chose three racing games.

The worst has to be PUBG. It's so slow and sluggish and laggy and buggy!

The Cuphead one has the best music I think.

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but the simpler a menu is, the better for me. Sure, it can have a detailed stats section, but first and foremost has to be clean and simple.

Non come to mind, despite all the games I enjoy, cannot think of one with a well designed selection menu, without it coming across as overly simplistic.

Graphic Designers tend to work more on websites, fonts and logos in modern gaming. I think those that handle interfaces, even majority of layout cannot be professional designers.

- Persona 5 (Just so stylish)

- Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Not the best but I appreciate having a choice between 3D and anime character models)

Dungeon Siege 1 had a pretty awesome menu for the time. It was an over the top contraption – probably made by the goblins – made out of wood and gears and such. Every time you clicked on an option, parts would move around to show the next set of options.

The only downside was the as the novelty wore off, the animations started to get in the way.

THUG (Tony hawk underground) was one of the best.

I think the little planet you walk around on in Psychonauts was very cool. With the bunkbeds for selecting your game.

And the Arkham games had a cool menu with various action-shots og Batman.

Final Fantasy 9

I loved dirt 2, my favorite of the series. It really captured that x-games essence along with that menu.

Gran turismo 1, 2 & 4 had that map layout which I liked a lot.

I'm gonna locked this thread due to necro bump and if anyone wants to make a fresh start on the topic, feel free to do so.