Load times - especially "restart"

[Ryo Saeba]

It wasn't totally seamless though, I sure as hell noticed the freeze and then checkpoint save... unlike the fantastic Metroid Prime where incomplete loading of the next map segment was justified by a blast door hesitating to open. And most of Halo's levels were repeated sections anyway ruined by invisible checkpoints that kept repeat saving if you happened to backtrack by accident after losing your bearings during a firefight.

You can't really compare some of the massive open environments of Halo, with the small enclosed areas of Metroid Prime.

I think you're right though, nearly all developers are using Bungie as a bar to aim for, which explains why nearly all games that feature guns are **** thesedays.

Believe me, that's way better than Metroid Prime as a design goal. Imagine gameflow interruptions cause of all the scanning and reading (Bungie did this aspect of telling a story in an FPS way better in their Marathon series, years ago) and subpar controls with auto-aim being a standard in games that feature guns, I certainly wouldn't want that.

PS: I don't think that Halo is a good blueprint of the "ideal FPS games" either. I'm still bitter, that Goldeneye didn't have any lasting influence on the genre.


As far as loading times are concerned, they're really unacceptable for me in arcadestyle games, where you just want to have a quick go on the game (like in 2D fighters) or, as mentioned, where you have to restart often.
I hate the PS2 version of Neo Geo Battle Coliseum with a passion.

[dataDave]

I'm still bitter, that Goldeneye didn't have any lasting influence on the genre.

Same. Perfect Dark pushed the bar even further with it's accuracy and made it seem, in my eyes anyway, a true next gen FPS. It's still my favourite game of all time. Going back now however, I wish they'd delayed it and made it a launch title for the Gamecube - if only to shut people up over the framerate.

I suppose the comparison between MP and Halo SP loading, caching, whatever, is a little unfair given scale, although Metroid is 10x more intricately detailed with it's level architecture with absolutely no repeat sections whatsoever. I got a little fed up of 'mirrored' corridors on Halo tbh, same with Halo 2 and I'm expecting so with Halo 3. I don't think American development people (outside of 93-97 iD software and of course Retro Studios) have the slightest clue about designing interesting levels which make you want to return and explore.

I suppose after years and years of playing class such as GE/PD/OoT/Mario64 or whatever I'm a little over expectant for fresh ideas when it comes to building a level.

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You've only got to look at the levels in Lost Planet to see what Capcom were onto - they wanted to produce a mass, mindless, 1-player assault with big open levels and repeated inner-sanctums to appeal to the Halo crowd, at the same time as offering a solid multiplayer offering.

LP was all about the bosses, the levels were ****e.

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Totally off-topic but that's me.

[eastyy]

i hate loading times

neogeo battle collisieum for the ps2 was pretty bad

but i hate it even more when the atmosphere is shattered by the now loading thing popping up like in the original release of oblivion

think they should hide it like i think castlevania symphony of the night had corridors that acted like loading buffers

[Wools]

That might be acceptable for an FPS, but for racing games and others where you can "mess up" within a few seconds of starting, it's still too high. 5 seconds absolute tops.

Very true, I was only basing my view on the adventure genre but for racing games it must be small. GT4's is brillant with Outrun 2's boardering on the long side but that was forgivable seeing the size of the levels.

I suppose the comparison between MP and Halo SP loading, caching, whatever, is a little unfair given scale, although Metroid is 10x more intricately detailed with it's level architecture with absolutely no repeat sections whatsoever. I got a little fed up of 'mirrored' corridors on Halo tbh, same with Halo 2 and I'm expecting so with Halo 3. I don't think American development people (outside of 93-97 iD software and of course Retro Studios) have the slightest clue about designing interesting levels which make you want to return and explore.

You've only got to look at the levels in Lost Planet to see what Capcom were onto - they wanted to produce a mass, mindless, 1-player assault with big open levels and repeated inner-sanctums to appeal to the Halo crowd, at the same time as offering a solid multiplayer offering.

Coulden't disagree with every point you made more than I already do except one. GoldenEye and Perfect Dark are both bloody brillant. It's such a shame both games have aged so badly, I wish Rare could nail the original Perfect Dark's theme well on the next generation.

[eastyy]

burnout 3 takedown if i remember correctly in crash mode if you restarted from the pause options it was very quick

but if you actually did it and restarted from the menu after you have done the crash then it seemed to take ages

[charlesr]

The whole menu system in the Burnout games got gradually worse, so that by 3, if you completed a race you unlocked 2 cars that you'd never use and didn't want and it took forever for it to show them to you. Gah. I just wanted to get on with the good bit - the racing.

[eastyy]

yeh i noticed that took ages to get to races


think could also mention long unskippable cutscenes

was playing valkirie profile for the psp and it just took AGES before i got to the game proper....also the fact that its using up battery time is annoying


lol i do miss cartridge based games thats for sure

was always thinking with ps3 and x360 perhaps games can temporary install alot of data at start up to cut down the load times

[J0e Musashi]

Every fighting game should have an option to restart the round upon defeat; but devs retain the arcade feature of taking you back to the character select screen and reloading.

Tekken has this feature, every one in the series I'm sure of it.

[sadat]

conversely excite truck is the opposite of a lot of these streamed racing games - instantaneous restart.

it got criticised for not having the best graphics out there, but it just plays a hell of a lot better than a lot of competitors and this is one of those reasons.

[Ryo Saeba]

@Sadat:
That's one of the advantageous of "withered technology" as Gunpei Yokoi liked to call it.
You can focus on the gameplay.


PS: Not directly related to the topic, but another thing that really bugs me when it comes to restarting or continuing, is when you're doing it in the first level or first race of a championchip, so that you're sent back to the beginning and they decrease your lives/ retries even if you theoretically could restart the whole game and therefore restart with all your retries/ lives. It's just so stupid, but it can be found in nearly every game.
They should just give you infinited retries/ lives, at this specific point in the game.

[parkinho]

This thread reminds me of one a while back - think it was a WWE game on the PSP that took the best part of 3 min to load up a get started. Nice work developers.

I don't get nearly enough game time anymore so any game with noticable loading is just a waste of my time.

@Fallows: Echoes > Prime

[Kotatsu Neko]

what people don't realise is that because more and more games are streaming, when you restart it has to load the beginning segment again.

It's not just streaming. Some games have areas of memory which are actively modified as gameplay progresses so they can record all kinds of in game events. To reset that means reloading the default from the disc.

Basically it will come down to how much visual or audio fidelity do you want to sacrifice so enable an instant restart? Current gen games max out their host platforms just as with previous generation games, and it will be quite a few generations yet I'd say before developers have a comfortable amount of slack.

This isn't always the case of course. Some games are just badly structured from a code perspective.

[bootmonster]

tony hawks got this right

if there had been any loading on a restart in TH games i would have quit playing them looong ago