Menus - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Who here likes a good game menu? When I first boot up a game it always gets me excited to see a functioning, well thought out and unique menu. They should be easy to use, but also have some kind of visual flair and somehow unqiuely tied to the game. It's the firs thing you see whenever you boot up a game so I feel that it's an important thing to get right. it seems that some developers agree and some developers simply don't care. I think it would be good for everyone to post an example of a game menu which they really like and one that you feel doesn't deliver on the experience that the game within offers. Post videos or pictures to illustrate, as I'd like to see both good and bad menus.
 
One of my favourites is the Persona 4 main menu screen (the title screen is pretty cool too). It has a lot of style and the slow melancholy music fits the tone of the game and the style of the other graphics.

PoP 2008 had some shitty-ass menus. It forced this twirly animation thing every time you selected something.

Star Wars Battlefront had a great menu.
 
Star Wars Battlefront II had an ugly menu.

I do love a great menu, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. I loved Fable 2 but yeah, the menus were one of the worst aspects of the game, Green Day: Rock Band on the other hand had some very good menus.

Something that annoys me a little bit is multi platform games with up/down confirm/go back menu keys that doesn't take advantage of the PC mouse. It just takes ages to navigate large menus  with a keyboard, and often you have to go through many layers of selections before you get what you want.

I should probbably post this one since it is what caused me to post the thread, but while watching the Split Second TNT Ryan was mentioning how awesome the menus are and I agreed completely. It's a case where they put a lot to work in to the menus. 

" PoP 2008 had some shitty-ass menus. It forced this twirly animation thing every time you selected something. "

I'm not sure how many of you are hockey fans, but NHL 09 - 10 had some of the worst menus I've ever seen in video games; ever. It was to the point where if your buddy came over, you'd constantly hear "Where the fuck's the game?!?!" as he scrolled helplessly through menus that froze, mis and redirected you all over the place, and generally were a pain in the ass to navigate.

Fable 2 definitely has a garbage menu system. I also didn't care much for the menus in Battlefield Bad Company 2. I kinda like the ones in Halo Reach.

" @Keenblaze god don't remind me, I still have PTSD from trying to quit out of assassins creed. "

It all comes down to speed and organisation for me. I like a straightforward, quick and snappy menu. 3D environment menus like the ones in DiRT2 and their more recent F1 2010 aren't really my thing. Unnecessarily obtrusive bullshit slowing down the process of getting into the game I paid to play.

Best menus I can remember would be Modern Warfare 2. 
 
Worst? Fable II by far.

DiRT 2 FTW

Say what you will about the game itself the menus in Kane and Lynch 2 totally fit the feel they are trying to go for. With the play stop pause buttons and the fact that it says buffering instead of loading.

NHL 97 has my all time favorite menus  
 
  

I hate Fable 2's menu so much. Slow and terrible.

Forza 3 has amazing menus.

Halo: Reach has a pretty slick menu. Bad Company 1 had a pretty cool menu as well, what with the jazz music and all.

The MGS4 menus were cool. 

The Saboteur had a pretty cool menu. It showed a nice view of a city street along with some soothing tunes.
It also had this.
  

Funny. I was about to mention P4's menu and GUI as well but I figured people might be sick of hearing about P4. But yeah I really do like P4's menu. It's got flair and simplicity without being too flashy plus the yellow/black colour scheme feels fresh and cheery. It's not often you get a menu like that. 
 
Just about any Wipeout game has a slick interface to it as well. 
 
The worst I can think about right now is DiRT2. It doesn't look bad or anything but after a while I do get impatient when I've seen it a million times plus it's slightly confusing on what you can or can't select at all.

Brutal Legend, easily. 
 
I finally bought it the other day and was stoked with the gatefold vinyl, but it wasn't until a couple of hours later when I exited back to the menu and pressed across to discover the full extent of it's awesomeness. 
 
Also, Halo: Reach's menus are pretty damn slick.

Good .. I think I'd say Mirror's Edge there. Maybe not the most functional, but not confusing, and while slightly animated it's not animated to the extent that it feels slow. Been quite a while since I played that though, I might be remembering wrong, but that, Persona 4 and Age of Wonders were the first that popped up in my mind.

Bad: Conquest Earth. Overanimated, slow and unresponsive, with ridiculously long transitions between every sub menu.

Ugly: Sim City 2000. Ugly as hell, just default Windows buttons with text on them, no graphics at all - ugly, but certainly functional. 

Say what you will about the game itself, but WET has some interesting and fun menu designs. They all went in hand with it's 'grindhouse' style and quirky sense of reality. In terms of aesthetics and set pieces, it's an inspiring game.

I want to bitch about menus that have a starting animation which take 10 seconds to finish and won't let you interact with them until it finishes...except I can't remember the game.

I really like Dirt's, Starcraft 2's, All of Valve's games and Castlevania LoS' menu system. I really hated The Force Unleashed menus it had to load sub menus.

DA:O's is pretty sexy

One that hasn't been mentioned was Psychonauts.
Starting off on the big floating brain to pick you mode then choosing between bunk beds for your game file was brilliant.
Another reason to love that game.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU'RE DISCUSSING MENUS! FUCKING MENUS! 
 

" One that hasn't been mentioned was Psychonauts. Starting off on the big floating brain to pick you mode then choosing between bunk beds for your game file was brilliant. Another reason to love that game. "

"Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory didn't so much have a shitty menu as it had an unskippable, like, three-minute prerendered Goddamned demo of the game you're about to play that you had to watch every single time you loaded the game. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking."

I just remembered, the PC port of Braid had terrible menus.

Bayonetta has some pretty bad menus. The screen you use to switch weapons and accessories is confusing, and the option to skip cutscenes requires more button presses than it should, given the replayability of levels in the game and the amount of cutscenes.

I was a big fan of the Metroid Prime 3D menu used in ... Metroid Prime 2, I know. I can't remember if it was in the first one as well. It was slick and fit in great with the UI elements in that world.

I totally forgot about Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin's Creed 2. Freaking amazing menus.