Loading Screen: Difference between revisions

[[File:vcs_loading_8006vcs loading 8006.jpg|link=Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories|frame|''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games give you both a progress bar, and pretty pictures.]]

''And tell me have you seen

''All that the load can bring?

''Just a little somethin' while the cartoon loads,

''Watch a looping animation that you can behold!''|'''Coach Z''', '''[[Homestar Runner]]''' }}

** For the [[PlayStationPlay Station 3]], it was turned into a medallion (same one as in the hourglasses) switching between its sun and moon sides.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls FourIV: Oblivion]]'' has this too and moreover, many "tips of the day" are deliberately ''false'', in accordance to the "ambiguous history" doctrine that all in-game books follow: no event in Tamrielic lore is described uniformly across different sources.

** The Xbox port of ''[[Morrowind]]'' shows gameplay tips in the loading screens that would show up whenever you load a new or saved game, or when you use one of the [[Warp Whistle|Warp Whistles]]s in the game. Compare this to the PC version of the game, which simply shows creature art in its loading screens.

* ''[[BioshockBioShock (series)]]'''s loading screens included a combination of ominous/interesting excerpts from the game's audio-diaries and gameplay tips.

* After hitting the X button to start loading a level in ''[[Little Big PlanetLittleBigPlanet]]'' (Story, Create Mode or otherwise), the screen shows information about the level on the "Pod Computer" screen. You can move the left stick to change windows between level information, items collected in the level, and popularity and tags (if an online level), with your Sackperson moving the Pod Computer (which is pretty much a [[PlayStationPlay Station 3]] controller) controls the same way. Also part of the loading is the word "Loading..." slowly rotating around the level icon on the planet or moon, and a running, monochromatic Sackboy with two arrows circling him in the lower left-hand corner. Unlike in most games, the loading can be cancelled mid-load by pressing the Circle button. (Sackboy only touches the buttons to load a level or cancel a load. But he always moves the analog sticks in response to the player's controller.) When the loading is done, the level icon literally "unzips" around the edge and the camera goes into it, with a white light followed by Sackboy popping out of the Entry Barrel in said level. Returning to the Pod from a level doesn't take as long to load, but the camera still does the white-light thing.

* The [[Loads and Loads of Loading|atrocious loading screens]] in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)||Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' provide a "helpful" map of the area that is loading, or else remind you what buttons to press during gameplay to perform certain tasks.

** [[Game Mod|Game Mods]]s for Brawl replace one of the tournament-banned stages with that training room so as to have more neutral stages in [[Tournament Play]]: Brawl+ replaces New Pork City, while Balanced Brawl cuts Hanenbow. Why anyone would want '''two''' Final Destinations is beyond us.

* In the 80's Commodore 64 (along with many other computers from the same period) used tapes as storage medium for both homebrew and commercial software. While the accessories of C64 included also a disk drive and while disks were also quite common medium, many individual owners at least in Europe had only tape recorders. This resulted in [[Loads and Loads of Loading]] with commercial games. Eventually it became common for publishers to include loading screens and music for player to watch and listen while waiting for the loading to finish (while commercial games often used their own loading software to make loading faster, the increasing size of games meant that loading times were still notable). The tape releases of ''The Last Ninja'' and ''Last Ninja 2'' were notable for having individual loading themes for every single level .<ref>Disk release of the former had no music during loading. However, it had separate title screen, which played the loading themes of the tape release in the background for those who wanted to listen to them. While the disk release of the sequel did not play the music during loading, either, it did show the loading screen for the next level and played the respective loading theme of the tape release ''until'' player pressed fire and the disk version would actually start loading the level.</ref>. Other "gimmicks" include slowly drawing the picture during loading (often used by Ocean) and having scrolling text in one of the loading screens with additional information .<ref>Used also in the tape releases of The Last Ninja, Last Ninja 2 and Last Ninja Remix (later rerelease of Last Ninja 2 with new intro and entirely new soundtrack - unfortunately without separate loading themes).</ref>.

* Older games might actually tell you what they were loading. ''[[The Sims]]'' and some of the ''[[Sim CitySimCity]]'' 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.

** ''[[Spore]]'' does this as well ("disinfecting germ cells...", "reticulating [[PunA Worldwide Punomenon|spines]]"), so much that it's fun to see when it's saying what it's loading and when it's a joke. It also shows a "You may encounter" list of critters and buildings at the bottom of the screen.

** The [[Lucas ArtsLucasArts]] game ''[[Afterlife]]'' does it as well ("Love is: never having to say XX% loaded...").

* The ''[[Lego Adaptation Game|Lego Adaptation Games]]s'' tend to have loading screens that are nods to their source material. For example, Lego Star Wars has story-recapping text scrolls, while Lego Indiana Jones imitates the red-line-moving-across-a-map transition.

[[Category:Loading Screen{{PAGENAME}}]]