Loading Screen: Difference between revisions

 

 

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

 

* 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>.

* The first ''[[Civilization]]'' is remembered for its epic slideshow during world generation. When ''Civ IV'' came around they got [[Leonard Nimoy]] to do it as a voice-over.

* ''[[Loco Roco]]'' features the locos bouncing and playing on the loading screen. It's cute enough that you're almost sad when the game finishes loading.

** ''LocoRoco 2'' has a MuiMui slowly digging a tunnel for treasure. It is ''not'' related to how much a stage or menu is loaded, though actually makes and keeps its own progress as the game is played and amounts to a [[Collection Sidequest]], although there's a chance the treasure is a dud.