Loading Screen: Difference between revisions

* Loading screens in most versions of ''[[Shadow of the Beast]]'' showed little snippets about your eyes adjusting to the dim light, or returning to the overworld to find its air scorching hot, reaffirming your determination to etc. Simple, effective, bloody rare.

** The original Amiga version had also loading screens with images depicting the present location and text descriptions scrolling below those images. While in the C64 version the loading screens were text-only, there were more of them with more text than in the Amiga version. However, the actual loading times were still shorter in the C64 version, which was released on the cartridge <ref>While some of the early games for C64 were released on cartridges, the storage capacity of these cartridges was very limited when compared to cassettes or disks. However, C64 received later more advanced cartridge format, which was supported by both the original C64 and commercially failed [[wikipedia:Commodore 64 Games System|C64GS]]. Unfortunately very few games were released on these new cartridges despite both the high amount of available space and short loading/data access times. However, Shadow of the Beast was one of these and benefitted greatly from the format.</ref> (although there is at least one cracked disk version based on the data of the cartridge release) while the Amiga version was on floppies with no direct hard drive support.

* ''[[Mercenaries]]: Playground of Destruction'' displays biographical information on the main characters, factions and "Deck of 52" members, as well as weapon, vehicle and air strike information and gameplay tips.

* Several ''[[Burnout]]'' games display "Have you seen..." messages on the loading screens, giving you a sneak peek at upcoming levels and cars. Of course, it keeps doing it regardless of whether you have seen it or not.

*** In skirmish and multiplayer for ''Red Alert 2'', a map of your selected country would be displayed, with information on that country's special unit or ability. (Like USA's Paradrop, Russia's Tesla Tank, Yuri's [[Department of Redundancy Department|Yuri Prime]])

* ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield]]'' games typically show some sort of information about the battle you're going to join in its loading screens - ''Battlefield 2'' would show an overhead map of the area, for instance, showing the default placement of control posts. ''Bad Company 2'' goes a step further, where, for instance, joining a server shows its message of the day and has a clickable button asking if you'd like to automatically be assigned to a squad, and loading a new map from that server shows a scoreboard listing the experience and pins you've gained in the last round.

 

== Examples of mini-games included in Loading Screens ==

* Loading a foreign ''Pokémon'' [[Game Boy]] game on ''[[Pokémon Stadium]]'' or ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver|Pokémon Crystal]]'' in ''Pokémon Stadium 2'' showed a pic of the player's party in 3D.

* Older games might actually tell you what they were loading. ''[[The Sims]]'' and some of the ''[[SimCity]]'' games spoofed this by including ridiculous actions such as "hyper-activating children" and the ever popular "reticulating splines." More realistic in ''SimCopter'', where the stuff that you see during the loading screen is probably close to what's done when preparing a helicopter for a flight.

** So does ''[[World of Goo]]'' on startup, listing its status variously as <small>placating publishers...</small> <small>arguing games as art...</small> <small>testing ozone...</small>

** This also shows up in ''[[The Impossible Quiz]] 2'', which even includes the "reticulating splines" message. This is immediately followed by a message saying "Stealing loading messages from ''The Sims''..."