Poll: Elevators or loading screens? Poll.

[DarkhoIlow]

I choose elevators,especially the ones from Mass Effect 1.The time you were waiting to get to a level there would be dialogues between the party that you choose.

If that weren't included then I would probably go with loading screens instead,since they are faster.

 

[TimeLord]

I like the Ratchet and Clank loading screens. Basically it all it is is your ship flying towards the planet you are heading to. But it didn't feel like a loading screen at all.

 

[Woodsey]

I'd prefer the loading screens if they also weren't so long. I can't really tell why they're such an issue.

Dragon Age: Origins had the same problem (took me 5 minutes to load an area once - I timed it) but it was patched out eventually.

 

[funguy2121]

Well this is primarily about the Mass Effect series, other games have this problem aswell. As most people now in Mass Effect 1, Bioware attempted to hide loading screens by putting players in a lift/elevator playing some music/random news clip and taking the elevator ages to 'go up' whilst the game loaded. This recived some critisim as it took the elevator ages to go up. Therefore for Mass Effect 2, they got rid of them, and just went to loading screens with fancy graphics.

Personally I prefered Mass Effect 1. It kept you in the game, and some of the news clips were interesting. Proberly the best way to load a game i've played in was the Metroid Prime system, were you were put into reasonably reasonably small areas (although the size did vary and scale up when needed) with doors conencting, and you shot the door to open the next area, and the game loaded then. It kept you in the game and there were on long waiting time, the main disadvanatge of this was if you were entering a area that couldn't load in the time it took the door to open, you were left waiting, normally shooting the door. Not all games i've felt that try this do this well - Red Steel 2 for example did this, and the doors took forever to open, which rather defeated the point I felt. So what does the Escapist community prefer?

The problems you pointed out regarding the Prime games were very rare. And later games in the series used a lot more than just elevators to hide the loading times. I've never seen it done better. Other M, on the other hand, did the opposite. Since you didn't even have to shoot doors for them to open, Samus would walk through a door, take a couple of steps - and then everything would freeze. Just as soon as you got up to hit the reset button, thinking that a glitch had resulted from another line of shitty code, the game would tell you that it was loading. This would happen during a final fight.

So yeah, I'd rather Nintendo go back to Retro than re-team with Team Ninja for the new system's Metroid game.

Edit: Sorry, this happened during a firefight, not during the arcade/SNES classic Final Fight (Guy's a sissie!).

 

[Funky Flump]

Elevators but sometimes they glitched out and I had to restart my game

 

[Pickle72]

Games need an option (for PC only I would presume) to start loading the next level, DURING THE CURRENT LEVEL.
Considering how many people are moving to quad cores, ssd's and 4+ gigs of ram it shouldn't be too hard, at least in the near future anyway.
(Consoles would probably struggle a lot with this due to their tiiiny amount of ram, Maybe next gen consoles could do something like this)

Jak and Daxter (the first one) did pretty much this, and it was on the PS2.

 

[EllEzDee]

Mirror's Edge lifts were one of the reasons i fucking hated the game.

At least load screens display some kind of information, or hint. Though it does get old as fuck. I've memorised every single quote from the Total War games because of their load screens...

 

[uc.asc]

The transition experience in ME1 was superior to ME2 because of immersion. Walk onto the spaceship, fly somewhere, walk off of the spaceship. Walk on to an elevator, go somewhere, walk off of the elevator. It felt contiguous.

ME2 felt like maps separated by loading screens.

 

[Brandon237]

As comment number 3 mentioned (I missed the quote button and hit the reply by mistake), At least with an elevator you know when the game has crashed. Sometimes. Although the loading in Fallout NV makes perfect sense to me and is the most logical option so... I don't know.

 

[I Resurection I]

Elevators, I feel more immersed in the game when I don't have to put down my controller every time I leave an area.

 

[BoredDragon]

Loading screens break the flow of the game world that you are getting invested in. If you are sitting in an elevator, you feel as if you are still in the game world.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Elevators...or loading screens with tips.

Bayonetta beats them all, imo. Practice mode, ftw.

 

[Caligulove]

While I appreciated the loading screens in Mass Effect 2 being infographics of things going on or diagrams of shuttles taking off instead of a Loading Bar- I still liked the elevators in the first game a lot better. There were no screens to interrupt my immersion in the universe- even to how I would have to run back to the ship and disembark each time I docked or left a location.

Instead of getting rid of the elevators, I would have just gotten rid of the strange Triangle Formation of Awkward that you and your squad would be standing in the entire ride. If no one said anything it was like... "do you guys have to stand so close to me?" Could have had the squad pace around or some kind of special idle animation for elevators- even talking to each other in small quips- or hell! even an option to "press __ to skip" (which would give you the loading screen that ended up in the game)

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Have elevators but with way more different types of music, news items and conversations. They did get quite boring and repetitive like the Oblivion gossip but at least it was a step in the right direction immersion wise.

 

[Pakkie]

Jak and Daxter (the first one) did pretty much this, and it was on the PS2

Depends on the engine and the game/what it requires.
I.E. Try getting the xbox360/ps3 to preload a map for any Unreal Engine 3 game, it'll fail instantly.

Probably possible on a PC, depending on specs.

 

[veloper]

I wonder if it would be feasible to have a loading screen that also let's you juggle your inventory, or read quest journals, while you wait.

Much better use of your time than a random hint and a progress bar.

 

[devotedsniper]

I prefer.. either? it's never really bothered me unless it took games forever to load, or you could do it portals way! an elevator then loading screen, then the elevator again xD.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Cant we load levels during the cutscenes? I doubt the cutscenes take up that much CPU power while they play out, it seems we could work them in the background or while the dialogue sections play.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Loading screens break game flow.
Elevator rides build atmosphere.

 

[Cheesus333]

Proberly the best way to load a game i've played in was the Metroid Prime system, were you were put into reasonably reasonably small areas (although the size did vary and scale up when needed) with doors conencting, and you shot the door to open the next area, and the game loaded then. It kept you in the game and there were on long waiting time, the main disadvanatge of this was if you were entering a area that couldn't load in the time it took the door to open, you were left waiting, normally shooting the door.

Oh my God, that's why the doors took so long!? I thought the locals were just really, really shit at designing doors!

Especially the Space Pirates, who use doors that they lack the capacity to open...

I think I preferred the ME2 method to the original. Yeah, the loading was still boring as hell and far too frequent, but at least you had more to look at than three very bored individuals and a slowly ascending/descending background.