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All-Time Worst Load Time Thread

Crash Bandicoot for PS2 (the first one, part 4 or whatever).

Unbelievably long load times in that game. It makes it unplayable IMO.
 
I was gonna chime in and say the loading times for Sonic 3D Blast for the Saturn wre awful....

...but after watching that video, I don't even think I wanna type anymore.
 
Okay, I'll stop complaining to myself while waiting for Monster Hunter PSP to load now :|.

It's often the hallmark of a buggy/leaky engine if they have to wipe memory and reload the whole thing to do anything at all.
 
Ahahaha! That was great.

I think cassette based games on the Atari computers trump all load times, even C64 ones. I remember going to a friend's house one day and we wanted to play Donkey Kong on his Atari computer. He gets out the cassette, put it in, types in the command to load it, gets up from his chair and says "let's go." "Where we going?" "Let's go outside. It takes about 15 minutes to load."
 
jett said:
Any, ANY, ANY FUCKING GAME loses to your average C64 game.
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Nah, at least it was understandable with the technology we had back then. It didn't feel that long (and neither did those Vic 20 games).

But before I entered this thread I was thinking Shadowman on N64 was horrible, because it was on a cartridge, yet it loaded for at least 20 seconds... But I just checked that Smackdown Vs. Raw video and... OMG?!? How can shit like that exist? I can't stand load times longer than 10 seconds (one of the reasons why Shadownman was so disappointing).
 
Rainbow Six for Dreamcast was really bad, if I remember correctly.

PGR3 doesn't have super-long load times per se, but there seems to be a lot of loading sequences througout the game.
 
That is just unbelievable. Almost impressive really. I was thinking about some Turok game I rented on GC, but this has that beat by a shit load.
 
That video was hilarious (I can't believe I sat and watched all of it), but what the fuck was IGN doing when they reviewed it to make that kind of comment? Because they sure as hell weren't, you know, playing the game.
 
Damn that video was insane. i hope they put a warning in the game manual to make sure you have a fully-charged battery before attempting to load that game.

Diablos said:
Remember Wipeout 1 for the PSX?
Wow, that took forever.
Click to expand...
Hold tight!
 
I'm so blinded by nostagilia I don't even remember C-64 load times being so bad. I guess that is why I never go back and play old games, I don't want to know the truth.
 
The C64 definately had long loading itmes but that was EXPECTED... Smackdown vs Raw 2006 (being a game made in 2005 on a system about a billion times more powerful than a C64) took 6 MINUTES!!! There's no comparison, that is the longest.
 
MK trilogy for PSOne.


Title Screen
loading...
Choose your kombattant!
loading...
Choose your destiny
loading...
VS screen.
loading...
Fight begins
You lose
loading...
Continue screen
loading...
Choose your kombattant!
loading...
Choose your destiny
loading...
VS screen.
And so on and on, you get the idea.

Arghhh!
 
I'd have to say any PS1 game. I never experienced load times before that and they drove me crazy. I remember trying to play Legacy of Kain I believe and it would load EVERY TIME YOU WENT THROUGH A DOOR.

I wasn't a very hyper kid and I don't have ADD, but PS1 loading times really tested my patience when I was about 10 years old. Thank God I only owned N64. I thought that loading was the single worst thing to happen in gaming.
 
I don't turn it off when I want to play Smackdown vs. Raw. As far as wrestling goes, it is a pretty good game, but the load times suck.

To go from main menu to match is probably about 2 minutes, so I just make my bed while its loading or something.
 
Hmm... I can't believe I find myself wanting to speak up on behalf of IGN, THQ, a PSP game, or professional "wrestling", but isn't a good chunk of that video showing off stupid game design, as opposed to loading times? That is, there wasn't any real reason to put 2-3 video/etc. clips in before the first match... but the "time to start" was a bit inflated because of that. How long does the actual match take to load up? If THQ had simply dumped the video clips, or reduced the fluff a bit, how long would that all have taken?

It's still stupid, but I think it's more a general interface and design issue than just a loading one.
 
Shit i think i've never seen big loading time like this in any game ever lol Jeez.
You have to load 5 or 6 menus and screens and it takes 1 minute for each -- wow.
 
The saving in the PS2 version is almost similarly ridiculous. I swear it saves every time you even think about entering or exiting a menu (though obviously nowhere near as long as that video). I think it's really a combination of bad load times and bad design.
 
LOL, you have to wait to load the loading screen. Boy that's just great.

That one takes the cake.


I remember Street Fighter Alpha for the SNES having to load before the start of every match. That one was rather silly for a cart.
 
Tsubaki said:
I was thinking some of the KoFs on PSX but oh my... that PSP vid takes the cake and then the entire feast too.
Click to expand...

I give for FREE my psx KoF game to my friend, just because of the loading.

-That video make me remember the loading of BF1942 with my 256 DDR333. It was looong!! But its unforgivable for THQ. They could reduce the loading time somehow
 
Does anyone remember the unpatched version of SIN?
The loading times varied from 5 till 15 minutes. Had something to do with a memory leak.
 
zedge said:
WRC 1 for Ps2.. omg.. :lol
Click to expand...

That was the first game I thought of too, I took it back for that reason alone, 45-60 seconds for each short stage was bullshit. They came back with 7 second loadtimes for 8 minute stages for WRC2. :D

IGN gave this WWE game a 8.7? WTF? I would have given it a Zero for that bullshit.
 
as other people have pointed out, loading anything from disk or tape back in the day was 10000x worse than how we have it now.. relatively modern day consoles, my votes go to Crash Bandicoot Wrath of Cortex for PS2 and ESPN Extreme Games for the PSX.
 
I think there was a game on the Dreamcast based on the Dragonriders of Pern. I swear, this thing would load up every time you enter a room. Imagine Resident Evil style gameplay but every room would have a loading screen and each would last for a good 15 seconds.

If you have a plasma tv, "loading..." would be burnt into the thing.
 
You know, this probably even beats Midnight Club on the PSP, but in general...the PSP just sucks for this. I know there are exceptions but there are a lot that stink. I'm feeling very down about it's design for games all together.
 
Killer7 annoyed me too.

Stupid static EVERYTIME you entered a new room. And you had to do that.
A lot.

Oh, did I mention it happend a lot?
Yea... a lot.


Great fucking game, but you can't "stylize" load times, no matter how hard you try.
Short, yes, but often... yes. yes.
 
jetjevons said:
Not neccessarily the worst but recently PGR3 and Fable both had load times that were very obtrusive.
Click to expand...

Yeah... these are both great examples.

PGR3's load times really pissed me off because PGR2 had load times that were much lower. They really need to figure out a way to let people with a hard drive utilize it to improve load times on the 360. It's pretty fucking lame as-is.

Fable's load times were such a slap in the face after being led to expect a giant, cohesive world.
 
To the video in the first post:

I think I would break that game so that I could get some type of enjoyment out of it.
 
Anyone remember Body Blows by Team 17 on the Amiga? 4 disk swaps just to a load the menu. In fact it was 4 disk swaps to do just about anything.
 
My vote would be Jade Empire.

Load times are pretty damn painful, and you are forced into a loading screen every five feet. Every building you enter = at least 10-15 seconds of loading.
 
Was it really loading a LOADING screen? Absolutely SHAMEFUL!

I had to IM someone to verify this, even after watching the video I couldn't believe.
 
lol loading the load screen

And for comparison's sake, GTA (which I'm guessing is probably the most labor-intensive of the PSP lineup out now) takes maybe a minute and a half from PSP White Screen to actually moving Tony around. Insane stuff from THQ
 
gstaff said:
first tiger woods on psp
Click to expand...
Awesome. Commando.
commando.jpg
 
DavidDayton said:
Hmm... I can't believe I find myself wanting to speak up on behalf of IGN, THQ, a PSP game, or professional "wrestling", but isn't a good chunk of that video showing off stupid game design, as opposed to loading times? That is, there wasn't any real reason to put 2-3 video/etc. clips in before the first match... but the "time to start" was a bit inflated because of that. How long does the actual match take to load up? If THQ had simply dumped the video clips, or reduced the fluff a bit, how long would that all have taken?

It's still stupid, but I think it's more a general interface and design issue than just a loading one.
Click to expand...

Yeah, seriously. It loaded about 10 times in that video ... the fact that the guy didn't want to watch the cutscenes and crap doesn't mean that it didn't do its job in something of an almost-kind-of-but-not-really timely manner. If you just want to wrestle, there are other menu options, and they load more or less right to the gameplay. Still takes way longer than it should, but not enought that this Nintendo fandick should get credit for ridiculing when he's making up his own rules on how the clock runs.

Agreed, the loads in general are sickening in this game (especially for the loading of the load screens, I've seen that before, but it always kills me), and they should have approached the PSP version with a different tact than the PS2 game (more toggles for skipping or managing, and maybe an in-loading-screen skip menu option.) However, the actual "load times" are not no 6 minutes. It's about 50 seconds for the in-game load from the Match-Up card menu (to the crowd pan), 5-8 seconds for each entrance sequence to load, and then 60 seconds from there to gameplay. All in all, shitty loadtimes (especially for a portable), but it's mostly the presentation and options loading, not gameplay. That's almost like getting on Black's case for its long menu-to-gameplay time because the opening FMV isn't skippable.

If they wanted to show this game's shitty loads fairly, they should have gone into CAW. The loads bump up when it's got to find all those body parts scattered across this fucked-up disc.

human5892 said:
but what the fuck was IGN doing when they reviewed it to make that kind of comment? Because they sure as hell weren't, you know, playing the game.
Click to expand...

Apparently, you weren't, you know, paying attention. That quote is from a THQ interview on the game, and that's THQ's rep saying they're comparable. The review, on the other hand, says, "Unfortunately, there are a couple of random pauses that seem to happen in the middle of matches while the UMD loads (not an issue for the PS2) and the load times can get pretty bad sometimes" and "What impresses me most, though, is that other than the load times, all of the same goodies from the console version were ported to the PSP with few technical sacrifices..." and "Expect really bad load times." On the same token, that interview was from July, so yeah, they sure as hell weren't, you know, playing it, since first playable was in October. They also weren, you know, saying it.

-----

Musashi Wins! said:
You know, this probably even beats Midnight Club on the PSP, but in general...the PSP just sucks for this. I know there are exceptions but there are a lot that stink. I'm feeling very down about it's design for games all together.
Click to expand...

MC3's loadtimes for PSP are the worst for me. It's not that they're just long, it's that the whole city is there and in RAM, yet you have to dump it all to start the next race or redo a multiplayer session and crap like that. 70 seconds, usually for something that could have gone without any loading at all had there been a simple menu option. I also hate how long it takes to get in and out of the customizing app, when that's such a part of this game. It's been frustrating seeing PSP not only crippled by the UMD design flaws, but then further fucked by bad implementation.
 
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