Everyone hated the elevators in Mass Effect. They were simply an attempt by BioWare to create seamless environments, of course — loading times for new areas were masked by having the team stand around in an elevator while the data streamed in, with news casts and incidental dialogue for added color. A nice effort, but one that ultimately became the butt of jokes across the Internet. So, I wasn’t terribly surprised to see the sequel revert to more traditional loading screens, which are actually pretty neat if you pay attention to what they’re actually showing you.
As a result, Mass Effect 2 doesn’t have any elevators. Well, almost. There is one that your party rides, just once; it’s set in a dramatic cutscene in a section that BioWare demoed ages ago. What I didn’t realize at the demo was that if you listen carefully, beneath all the tense dialogue, you can hear the faint strains of the peppy music they piped in to all the elevators in the first game. That, my friends, is continuity.
I think the best loading screen/thing/whatever that I’ve come across yet is in the first Ridge Racer, where you got to play a level of Galaga while the game loaded. It was interactive and there was an incentive to do well. If you knocked out all the bug-ships, you got to use the ridiculously spec’d black race car. Yes, it’s a load screen, but darned it–I didn’t care. Paradoxically, I’d wish there was a few seconds MORE time because I was often oh-so-close to completing the screen…
@Xylon They copyrighted that loading screen game thing too so no one else can do it now. Such a shame.
You know, I know this isn’t the point of this post or anything, but that comic is such a classic example of the Penny Arcade comic making process and why PA kind of sucks: point out something, say a bad word, . Plus cheesy art.
I am just saying.
sorry.
Oops, that should’ve been “point out something, say a bad word, fanfare”
The only elevator that really bothered me was in the Normandy, since it took so long to go such a short distance. The ones in the Citadel at least had some entertainment, and were largely skippable via the transit system anyway. I did find it interesting that said transit system, which used a traditional loading screen, was always way faster than taking an elevator to the same place.
The elevator on the Normandy would’ve at least made sense if someone had at least put a toilet and a few magazines in the damned thing.
Bad words are pretty funny; douche is a good one.