In-game incidents improve the interface: I imagine it's incredible

Events that happen inside the game improve, not your units or your stats, but your means to control the game world. I find that I love this effect, but it's proving very rare. Am I just looking in the wrong places?

In the original Command & Conquer and Dune 2, the player got a minimap by constructing and powering a radar installation. It was vulnerable to power shortages and destruction.

In System Shock, the player can collect cybernetic enhancements like target identifiers and a better health display.

In Staflight and the sequel, a trained navigator would make certain things visible, a trained science officer would give more info on scanned planets, and a trained communicator would translate more of the aliens' speech.

Well, equipping the Solemn Vow in Team Fortress 2 allows you to see enemy Health, but I never used that.

Also Command And Conquer showed the building sidebar when the MCV deployed or you have access to training structures. Very handy when on solo missions for observations.

edited 17th Sep '11 3:14:21 AM by Ailedhoo

Yeah, that was always a nice feature of C&C and it really mattered in gameplay.

The new Deus Ex has a lot of that. For instance, if you want to see what the enemy's cone of vision is, mark and track enemies wherever they go, or see what the last known position of your character to the enemy is, you need to get a Praxis upgrade to use it.

Interface add-ons in World Of Warcraft.

Full stop.

Those aren't acquired in-game.

Leveling up Rise's social link in Persona 4 gives you interface thingies like being able to see if a move will be effective against an enemy.

edited 17th Sep '11 8:38:25 AM by Talby

In Steel Sentinels, you can equip a limited number of modules at a time. One of the more useful modules you can unlock predicts other player's movement trajectories, and extends your firing arc projection.

I'm often skeptical of the idea, since "good interface" is not something you should have to earn in-game. If an in-game upgrade adds to your interface, it should be giving you new and advanced information, not stuff the UI should have been telling you already.