Worst User Interface Ever!

[Aerevolt]

There have been some pretty unforgiving UIs over the years l, like the legendarily bad Atari ET.
This thread is all about games that were unintuitive, buggy, and impossible to play through.
My vote is for Laura Bow the Dagger of Ammon Ra. I'm not sure if I just had a buggy version, or if I just didn't go around the room and click on every possible thing (because who doesn't love that) but I couldn't even make it to the party. I would get into the cab and the driver would ask, *Where to?" And I had no way of giving him the address. I tried for hours at a time, over several months, and never really got to play the damn game. It was so frustrating.
Please tell me I wasn't just inept. I had no problem playing through Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

 

[sageoftruth]

Just about any game played on an iOS device will seem like it has the worst UI if you've already played the game on console or PC.

 

[Jamash]

I don't know about worst UI ever, but one thing that immediately comes to mind was the save game UI for Area 51 on the PS2.

When you went to save the game, it said something like:

Do you want to save the game? ^=Yes O=No

But then on the next confirmation dialogue it swapped the question or buttons around and asked:

Are you sure you want to save the game? ^=No O=Yes (or it might have been O=Yes ^=No)

For about a week I couldn't figure out why every time I went to load a game I had to start from the beginning and there were no save files to be found on the memory card.

I know I should have read the dialogue more carefully, but the UI mimicked every other save game UI on every other PS2 game, except for the sudden and unexpected switcharoo of the Yes/No buttons on the second confirmation screen.

The rest of the game's UI was perfectly fine and functional, but I have know idea why they felt the need to be unique and divert from the accepted norm on something as mundane yet essential as the save game UI.

 

[Pyrian]

Dwarf Fortress. /Thread

Seriously, there's a game that virtually nobody plays without multiple mods to supplement the UI, and the UI is still terrible. FFS, why does it need three different sets of up/down buttons for navigating menus?

 

[Cowabungaa]

Dwarf Fortress. /Thread

Seriously, there's a game that virtually nobody plays without multiple mods to supplement the UI, and the UI is still terrible. FFS, why does it need three different sets of up/down buttons for navigating menus?

Y'know what's weird?

Even Dwarf Fortress doesn't give me such a UI headache as Alpha Centauri does. That's the only game I ever quit playing because of its UI.

And that's saying something because good lord DF's UI is...something alright. I don't use mods for it though. Modding DF is way too Matrix-esque for me. I'm just a tileset using scrub.

 

[Pyrian]

That's still a mod, isn't it? Also, you should probably at least pick up Dwarf Therapist, which gives you a separate UI to manage dwarf settings.

 

[EHKOS]

Assassin's Creed. Syndicate is pissing me off when I try to do anything with moving. When I try to zip-line my character turns around and latches onto a ledge behind me, and trying to free run and descend is fucking maddening. Then I'll get stuck to a wall, or jump for something and my character will jump PAST that thing and jump in the middle of the street and get hit by a carriage. Like, there are so many of these things, Ubisoft, update your damn movement prediction engine. FFS.

 

[Breywood]

I've got a few, one that will likely to get me a good singe.

Dark Souls (PC). It should not need a mod to bind keys and shuffle through menus effectively. It should not require a console controller. The PC port could have been so much better if I didn't have to think about buying another piece of hardware specifically to play this game. Outside of that, I'm proud to have it in my games collection.

X-Wing. It's just one screen and it's an old game, but it's the most memorable headache: Map screen, you need to click on buttons for *everything* I think if the Rebels were using this interface to plan their missions, there wouldn't be a rebellion. Especially after I joined the Empire and used their map interface.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Dwarf Fortress. /Thread

Seriously, there's a game that virtually nobody plays without multiple mods to supplement the UI, and the UI is still terrible. FFS, why does it need three different sets of up/down buttons for navigating menus?

Yes! I've recently been giving the game another chance and the UI is just atrocious. In addition to the constantly switching navigation buttons, there's also the fact that all the menus are in random order so you have to read through the entire list to find what you want. For a game primarily about navigating lists, alphabetical order is pretty much essential.

That's still a mod, isn't it? Also, you should probably at least pick up Dwarf Therapist, which gives you a separate UI to manage dwarf settings.

Yeah, the LazyNewbPack is absolutely necessary to make the game halfway playable, and as simple as installing the base game.

 

[Erttheking]

Alpha Centari like someone else said. I want to go back and play that game again, but the sheer amount of shit it throws at you without explaining is frustrating.

System Shock 2 can be rather cluttered, especially since for some reason on my version you had to set up all of the keys for drawing out weapons manually, so it was either time doing that or the cluttered mouse interface, which isn't really that good when you're trying to get your shotgun out because a hybrid just smashed your kneecap in.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

As I said before, the Borderlands inventory system isn't geting any awards for being counter intuitive as fuck.

 

[Denamic]

As I have said before, Skyrim (though it might now have an equal in Fallout 4).

While I won't dispute that those UIs are terrible, if those are the worst ever for you, you really have not been gaming for very long.