HUDs up! A look at GRAW's next-gen interface

Stephen Totilo has written another excellent article for MTV, continuing his streak of wearing away at my natural, innate aversion to all things Music Television, be they neither about music or on television. This time he looked at GRAW from a unique perspective. Yup, we're talking about the Head-Up Display, or HUD. While it's something that might seem simple or inconsequential, this feature is an example of how gaming can benefit from the increased power of next-gen consoles. Totilo writes, "During the development of GRAW it turned out that one extra window wasn't enough. Another one was added to the screen's upper right corner to provide talking-head mission briefings. Like a computer desktop running a couple of programs and an IM window in the corner, the game supplies a lot to keep track of."

What's impressive is how capable the 360 is of handling the added load of the picture-in-picture HUD as well as the game's praiseworthy graphics. Totilo explains, "The multi-windowing doesn't sap the 360's strength, and [Production Manager Adrian] Lacey pointed to other graphical achievements that were pulled off in the main window. Each character onscreen is rendered by 15,000 polygons, the same number of polygons used to render an entire level of 2002's PS2 Ghost Recon."

Nintendo's Revolution is often singled out as a lone console carrying the torch of innovation for next-gen gaming. While we won't besmirch Nintendo's system, or their concept, the argument that increased computing power is only valuable for prettier graphics, and that graphics add nothing of substance to gameplay is erroneous. It's not a couple months in and one of the first killer apps for the 360 is already using that power to deliver real next-gen gameplay.

Be sure to read Totilo's article and also check out MTV's GRAW "Peep Show."