Tabris said:
I mean really, is it that big of a deal to turn your PSP on (if it's not on sleep mode already), look up and around at your surroundings for 30 seconds before looking back down to play some video games?
It doesn't matter if it's a not big deal for
you. If someone else says it's a big deal for
them, then it is. It doesn't matter if they're in the majority or minority, if someone is complaining about the loading times on the PSP, then it's a problem.
The reason why I don't like the loading times on it is because I'm a very impatient person. If I want to sit down somewhere away from home and play a game, I want to play it
now. Periods of 30 seconds should be reserved for annoying commercials, not annoying load times.
I don't care if you can put up with the load times or not, but the fact of the matter is that all games, console or handheld, are much better off with minimal or no loading times. Play Resident Evil 4 before saying that it's impossible to create a masterpiece without load times.
Dsal said:
If the player has already seen all the company splash screens once, why not flag that on the save file and skip them on next boot? Why not have the game remember and boot up to the last game mode you played, sleep mode or not?
This is impossible. Because of legal reasons, every time the game boots up, the legal and company splash screens
must be displayed, but at least they're skippable. It's one of Sony's development requirements (and they're also requirements on the Xbox and Nintendo systems too). If a game doesn't display them every time you turn on the system, your game doesn't get licensed.
That's one of the smaller hidden beauties of the DS. Two screens means you get the legal stuff over twice as fast. Hell, the title screen and main menu can be displayed at the same time, too, meaning someone can start playing a DS game in the time it takes to load something on the PSP.
What I don't like about the DS is that compared to the PSP, it looks like a piece of shit. It looked sleek and stylish until the PSP was released, and now it looks like a toy. Also, while the speakers are very good, a lot of games don't use all the audio juice they could. Games like Meteos and Puyo Pop Fever are as loud as console games played on a TV, but a game like (Jam With the) Band Bros. is barely audible sometimes. I want my DS games to be LOUD.
I also hate the fact that developers are forcing touch screen control onto their games. Puyo has a touch screen control option, but it's pointless. There's no one who can control the falling blobs better on the touch screen than the D-Pad and buttons, so what's the point? On a related matter, I don't have a problem with developers just using a second screen for information instead of something else. It frees up the gameplay screen of clutter that would normally be there in a similar GBA game. (Just don't charge me $10 more for the privledge.)