Anyone remember Batman Forever for the SNES?

"please wait loading"


On a cartridge based game? WTH?

On the other hand I really loved Batman Returns. Kind of a Final Fight clone. Thought Batman Returns would have been more of the same.

me too... played it for a few hours and gave up on it... think it was the load times and at least the part I played just didn't pull me in.

Yep, I quit playing it after about a week because of that.

Yup, the PSP is a lot of fun, but the load times are NOT.

Here's something I never understood : Why in racing games to you have to wait to reload a track if you want to restart a race? I totally get that when you come in from a menu you have to load the track in order to race on it, but why if you're already on that track would you have to wait to reload it just to go back to the start line? Almost all games to this, but I remember the technically impressive Rallysport 2 for the Xbox being one of the worst offenders (pre-PSP, anyway).

One game that had terrible load times was, "Stuntman," for PS2. The game was quite hard, and you had to make sure not to screw up anything in each stunt run, or else you'd have to restart. That would mean waiting for about a minute, during each loading screen.

Recently, I picked up the, "Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life SE," for PS2. I thought about getting the Gamecube version, but I decided to get the SE for PS2, because I figured there had been some additions to the game. But, after playing it for an hour, I decided to sell it and buy the Gamecube version instead. Whenever you: go into a building, exit a building, go into your inventory screen/exit your inventory screen, pause, etc...it LOADS for 30 seconds. I couldn't stand it. Harvest Moon is not the type of game that should have terrible load times; it doesn't add up.

Seamless loading.. racing games load what's coming up as you're going down the track so when you restart it's got to reload the beginning of the track and such. Seamless loading (or lack of) is also the reason the PSP has such bad load times because developers are discouraged from using the technique due to excessive drain on the battery from constant disc access.

the worst i've experienced was Smackdown! vs. RAW 2006. I love the game, but boy is it annoying when it loads constantly. The character creation is almost impossible because it pauses for a few seconds to load the new outfit/design/etc. This is a reason i miss my n64.

Definitely.. Part of the reason I don't play my PS2 is because I hate to wait for the game to load every time you save or advance to the next level or whatever

Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast, mind you the load times aren't long, but there's such an overabundance of battles in the game - the loading of each battle seems to last a fucking eternity.

Also, Far Cry Instincts, I think the Xbox is broken half the time.

PGR3? Is it just me? Especially if i want to restart a challenge, it has to reload the whole course again it seems. Drives me nuts.

HA! I made a pun.

Driver for the psx, I loved the game but damn were these some long load times, used them as bathroom breaks many a time.

Yeah, I remeber that one. You'd make a wrong turn, the guy would get "too far away" (sometimes you could still see him!), then you'd have to wait like two minutes to reload the scenario. Yuck.
Double yuck for Stuntman. That game was pure agony.

Not all Ps2 games are loading nightmares, though. My holy trinity of PS2 platformers (Sly, Ratchet, Jak) have very brief load times and start right back up after a death. That makes them much more fun to play, IMO

I was just playing Ratchet: Deadlocked and noticed, for the first time, the load times when you switch planets. I probably wouldn't have even noticed it if not for having started this thread. I think the fact that the load time contains 3 or 4 cutscenes, even if they're just of your ship flying around, really helps to cover up the loading time. Noticed the same thing with the beginning to levels on Lego Star Wars. While the game's loading, you get the classic Star Wars scroll that explains where you're at in the game. I'd think that more developers would catch on and put something on the load screen to make it feel like you're not just sitting there for 30 seconds or more. Going back to my original post, I think that's what makes Psychonauts times so bad: the fact that the screen is just a handful of birds bouncing around for what feels like an eternity.

That one was unbearable. And as the game went on, the load time became longer and longer until eventually it was three minutes of loading for every five minutes of gameplay. I couldn't take it any more, so I quit playing. A shame too, since it was a good game.

when you load a track (or level), we don't load the whole level. it'd be pointless and a waste to draw everything in the level when most of it is obstructed anyway. We'd load a set viewing frustrum (usually what you can see) and load more as you go along. Whatever you drove past is released from memory unless it enters your viewing frustrum again, when then is redrawn. so yeah, when u restart a level, it needs to be reloaded.

Ok, that makes some sense to me. Thanks.

I think you've all forgotten the king of load times. Soldier of Fortune for the Dreamcast had the worst loading times of all time. Ever.

= J

If you're bothered by PSP load times, I hear there's a method to cache the game using the memory stick for faster loading. I don't own a PSP and can't be more specific.

I'm pretty patient when it comes to load tiems, but one game comes to mind that took so freaking long that I just quit after the first level. Soldier of Fortune on Dreamcast. Just...minutes and minutes of waiting.

Hmmm, I'm guessing you young whelps never grew up with 8-bit computers. My trusty Commodore 64 could move an amazing 300 bytes per second. Ten minute loading times were not unheard of.

Taught us patience, it did! Not like you youngins today, complaining about 30-second load times. Hard to make a nice meal in only 30-seconds.

I had a Commodore 64 growing up and a huge number of games, I don't recall a single one taking particularly long to load.

I think the load times were for the game itself. I don't recall any in-game load times.

You know, when Ridge Racer, one of the launch titles for the PS1, first used the initial loading time to allow you to play Galaga, I thought that that would become common practice. I think Namco still has that in the RR games, since I think the Xbox 360 one let you play Pacman. Ah well. At least do something besides a now-loading sign...

Until you've had to sit there waiting for your game to load off a cassette tape in your Starpath Supercharger Atari 2600 system, don't talk to me. That thing would take like 10 minutes to load Dragonstomper and Escape from the Mindmaster.