Rant and Rave: Loading screens

[Miss G.]

Naughty Dog's games (Uncharted 2 and 3, and The Last of Us)did it pretty well. They did have one major flaw, but once the game started you wouldn't even notice it.

I don't really know the specifics, but they had a single loading screen once you fired up the game... a LONG loading screen, but after that, if you died or something, you were back at the last checkpoint in seconds.

I love it like that. When I put The Last of Us on, I use that initial loading to finish eating my food or for a quick bathroom break and then jump right into my last save. And before I got my copy, the live Let Players that I watch used the time for recapping and stuff.

 

[Bad Jim]

The very reason developers dropped cartridges, storage size, is ironically enough no longer a limitation. Cartridge and memory card technology has evolved to the point that you can store huge amounts of data on them.

Well yes and no. Carts typically had about the same capacity as computers had RAM, so a modern cart based console might see 16GB cart games. However, that only seems a lot when you think about games written for seven year old consoles. The next generation will have Bluray drives, sixteen times more RAM and far more processing power, so the storage requirements for next gen AAA titles are likely to exceed 100GB. In a couple of years, we will be back to the point where games are far bigger than can be cost-effectively distributed on cartridges.

That said, I think the sacrifice of visual quality to eliminate load times would be well worth it.

 

[Roxas1359]

I still think Halo 2 is the best example of hiding in-game loading, probably because Microsoft allowed Bungie to cache a shitload of data to the Xbox hard-drive whenever the game was first booted up. Once you're in the game, that was it. You'd get the occasional bit of texture pop (especially in the cutscenes), but otherwise the game let you traverse those massive great levels without halting your progress at all. And all with only 64mb of RAM. Was absolutely gutted when Halo 3 went back to in-between level loading screens.

Eh I say that Naughty Dog and Insomniac win a bit when it comes to hiding loading times since they both used the same engine for Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank games. Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy had pretty much no loading time, there is one disguised one that's easy to point out when going to Snowy Mountain, and Ratchet and Clank hid the loading screens behind the inter-planetary travels. Jak II and III changed it up by hiding them behind those doors that would separate the City/Wasteland, and you'd only notice the long loading times if the disc was scratched up, something that the HD collection actually smooths out even more.
Plus I remember reading that Jak 3's Wasteland was the largest open area without a loading screen on the PS2, which I wouldn't be too surprised because Naughty Dog is basically Sony's equivalent of Monolith Soft when it comes to pushing hardware limitations. The Ratchet and Clank games made by Insomniac also didn't have bad loading times either as they new how to push the limitations too, especially since they used a modified Jak and Daxter engine that Naughty Dog gave them. Really Ratchet and Clank was clever at hiding their loading screens until A Crack in Time in which they actually had just a screen that said "Loading" on it, but even then it wasn't blank.

Clover Studios, rest their souls (I know they work at Platinum now, but Capcom was mean to them. >.<), was pretty good at making the loading screens at least fun in which you could get Demon Fangs if you timed the 'X' button right. (I'm referring to the PS2 original version as I bought that one when it came out and don't have the Wii version)

 

[scorptatious]

Loading was a pain in the ass in Sonic 06. Really killed the pace of the game. Which was ironic considering it was a Sonic game.

I have noticed that Disgaea 3 and 4 have these long loading screens right before you access the main menu. But after that, there's pretty much little to no loading time between transitioning into levels, cutscenes, ect.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

So I've gotta ask, what are your thoughts on the matter of loading screens and have they gotten longer?

Loading screens don't really bother me. What does bother me is that so many games still have a ridiculous intermediary screen between the game loading and actually being able to do anything; the "press start" screen. Even Skyrim has one. Is there actually any reason for this to exist, or are developers still including it for the sake of tradition?

I think that's just the games way of checking to make sure what controller your using to play the game. I think theres some more technical reasons behind it.

Personally, I hate most loading screens, but I liked how you can destroy the loading screen in Devil May Cry 3, and Bayonetta's I found useful practicing combos in.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Yeah, Mass Effect 1 used in game resources to mask some loading screens. The elevator rides on the Citadel and the Normandy are primary examples. And yet, people complained about it. So much so, in fact, that BioWare basically just put as many "regular" loading screens every-fucking-where in the later titles, and people love those more?

Oh come on.

Mass Effect 1's elevator rides were timed in order to allow loading off the disc.
Which meant, for anyone who installed the game, they're about 5 times longer than they needed to be.
(Also, on an SSD, about 18,000 times as long as they needed to be).

 

[FrozenCones]

The loading screen award should go to WoW. It has a little loading bar under the main loading bar.

Yo dog, we heard you like loading bars, so we put a loading bar under your loading bar so you can load while loading.

I dont mind some of them if they're done well. I quite liked the AC "loading screen" where you could just free run inside the Animus.

 

[Rad Party God]

Some N64 games had loading screens, remember Shadow Man and Quake 2?

Seriously though, they've been a staple for gaming for so long (Commodore Amiga says hi) that I really don't mind them and I even got used to them.

 

[Savagezion]

Nah, gamers have just became more impatient really. Go play a PS1 game and get back to me. They took forever to load small amounts of information. Look at Resident Evil where every ROOM has a load screen. Hell, back when I was playing Diablo on PS1, we used to use the load screen to make sandwiches, go to the bathroom, check out the game or whatever. You literally had 1.5-3 minutes to something. Nowadays people think 20-30 secs is FOREVER. RDR is one that stands out to me against other games comparatively and it has a 20-30 sec load time on PS3. I've timed it many times. Now when I see someone knock the game for that I just see a little QQ baby throwing a tantrum.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I don't get annoyed by loading screens. If you want less just get an SSD.

 

[Roxas1359]

I don't get annoyed by loading screens. If you want less just get an SSD.

You do know that not everyone is a PC/PS3 gamer right? Loading screens are still problems for some although they aren't that bad.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I don't get annoyed by loading screens. If you want less just get an SSD.

You do know that not everyone is a PC/PS3 gamer right? Loading screens are still problems for some although they aren't that bad.

You cant swap out the Hard drive in all consoles? Weird.

 

[Roxas1359]

I don't get annoyed by loading screens. If you want less just get an SSD.

You do know that not everyone is a PC/PS3 gamer right? Loading screens are still problems for some although they aren't that bad.

You cant swap out the Hard drive in all consoles? Weird.

No, the Xbox 360 has their premade HDDs that you have to buy, and the Nintendo games I've noticed have never really suffered from loading problems. PS3/PS4 are the only consoles in which you can upgrade the HDD to an SSD because they just use a 2.5" laptop HDD. Wii U uses flash memory on the inside which is why the largest space for the Wii U is 32 GB, technically 25GB after updates, and is more of a pain to get to. You can install an external hard drive for the Xbox and Wii U, but that doesn't solve loading problems.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

The loading screen award should go to WoW. It has a little loading bar under the main loading bar.

Yo dog, we heard you like loading bars, so we put a loading bar under your loading bar so you can load while loading.

I dont mind some of them if they're done well. I quite liked the AC "loading screen" where you could just free run inside the Animus.

The little loading bar shows progress of game files being downloaded while you're loading a new area.

 

[Noswad]

Don't particulary mind, Sims 3 took the piss a bit, but it was the only one so I'm inclined to forgive it and well it was better that the temporal distortion causing loading screens in sims 2.

Bayonetta that's a game with a good loading screen, practise combos while you wait for the next level, if your going to have a long loading screen its good to have something to do.

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

The elevator rides in Mass Effect were fun because of the radio stuff happening there. And better a in-game loading screen than a classic one.
Although for example it was a great idea to fold an Oregami thingy during the installation of Heavy Rain and the info Riot gives in their loading screens varies between funny, boring and informative and is at least better than before.

I favor the Mass Effect 1 solution and loading screens with actual interesting info about the gameplay and/or lore.

 

[Evonisia]

I think they've only gotten better, of course you'll get a few exceptions every once in a while.

Though I agree with your example, Skyrim seems to have longer loading screens than Oblivion (have both on PC) which baffled me but it wasn't too long. Of course it's balanced by Oblivion occasionally pausing the game for two seconds to load in a third of the world.

Silent Hill 2 slaps a loading screen on every time you enter another room, so yeah loading has gotten much better.

As said before, World of Warcraft deserves some form of award for greatest handling of loading screens.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I actually quite like the odd loading screen...it gives me a chance to put the kettle on or roll a cig. I also like the way they tend to put usefull hints and tips on them so i don't ever need to bother looking up controls or features elsewhere. It also gives me a chance to reflect on what i did to end up needing a load screen - be it a silly death or an area complete and whats coming next.

Sure, it slows things down quite a lot but when my average completion time for a game is between 6-24 hours it adds a little more time wasting and better value for money (not that i actually pay for games anymore, they aren't worth it). I might have to review that statement since LoveFilm discarded my business...but thus is life.

 

[takemeouttotheblack]

Loading Screens don't really annoy me, but then I haven't played much recently that's had a whole load of them. Sometimes, they're even quite welcome, because if you've been playing some really quite button mashy level, it gives you a few seconds to relax before it all starts over again.

The one thing that does annoy me a little is having to backtrack over levels you've previously played across simply to pick up one thing, and the fast travel hubs are in rather useless places, when you might have to go back through five levels to get back to where you where. It's one of my minor peeves for the original Dragon Age; if you wanted, say, to go from Denerim to the Palace at Orzammar, you'd get maybe three or four loading screens just for the purposes of doing a single quest, and it would inevitably drop you outside of Orzammar itself just to go for a jog up to the front gates...

 

[Innegativeion]

Depends.

I don't understand why more games don't go the Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime route of background loading while things are visually happening to keep you occupied.

In Galaxy it's the star-launcher flight sections.

In Prime it's the elevators and doors.

Loading, yes, but you don't feel like your flow is being interrupted.