I agree with the menu ‘sitting’ on the right mouse button. I really liked the way Neverwinter Nights did this, however there still needs to be limits with how complicated these menus get.

Mario 64 (and most console games) don’t need menu’s as navigating them with a controller is annoying and counter-intuitive. I’ve been playing Farenheit recently and it has a really interesting take on the input. By moving thumbstick in particular direction or shape (like a U shape) you will select different options for the character to do. This works really well and allows you to quickly make any of up to 5 choices without navigating through menu’s.

I generally agree that removing all menus is a bad idea, especially for a game like ‘The Movies’. Although, that said I think that particular game is going to have far greater problems than menus, like how to build a decent movie. For one, the characters don’t even have lip synching – actually, in many ways I think it’s a nice idea, but the tech just isn’t there yet. But I digress.

Take blizzard games for example, for the type of game Starcraft is, I think it’s menu system is fat and bulky. In fact, if you don’t know the shortcut keys you’re going to get severly owned if you play against someone that does. However, the other good thing about menus is that you don’t -need- to know the shortcuts, it makes it easy for the player to get into it, and a lot of people are very visually bias so menus work for them.

Yeah, the polar opposite of menus is probably A Bad Thing(TM). Of course, it depends on the game somewhat – Mario 64 doesn’t need menus for example.