Press start to start

[Leopig]

Are welcome screens the most useless thing in all of gaming? What is the point of them to load up and then press a button to go to the actual game menu. I can understand loading to a menu, but why spend hours making a screen just to press a button to load up another screen?

Just been playing Darksiders, and if you want to quit, you have to go to the quit menu, then back to the welcome menu, press start then press quit again. I mean is this really necessary?

[Anthile]

It used to be the point where you were able to plug in additional input devices without restarting the game/console. Not sure if it's necessary anymore with just about everything using USB these days.

[orcane]

Some people say it's still required to detect "controller 1", but either way it's incredibly silly (even sillier to keep it on PC but I guess removing it would be :effort:) - and the best screens are those where you have to hit a specific key instead of just accepting the "any" key or mouse clicks.

[NathanH]

Nothing says "we really can't be arsed" like a Press Start To Begin screen in a PC game.

[Heliocentric]

Just been playing Darksiders, and if you want to quit, you have to go to the quit menu, then back to the welcome menu, press start then press quit again.?
Alt+F4?

The games which have the best start screens have content like the Lionhead logo where moving your mouse effected the box that held the cubes that would make the logo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mZ4_A9KwUo

Or where the menu is the game
1 video limit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPIFKSkuT8

[Jams O'Donnell]

Just been playing Darksiders, and if you want to quit, you have to go to the quit menu, then back to the welcome menu, press start then press quit again. I mean is this really necessary?
A more infamous example:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwOvuY0UbFM

[Leopig]

Omg that is horrific lol

[NathanH]

To be fair, quitting Assassin's Creed is entirely in keeping with the game's philosophy to be as tedious as possible. At least they are consistent throughout.

[Heliocentric]

A more infamous example:

Alt+F4 works on this one.

[airtekh]

I thought I read somewhere that this 'Press start to start' business had something to do with the way Microsoft certifies games for the XBox360.

I remember it said something like 'every game must have a screen before the main menu'.

[DWZippy]

I actually try to Alt+F4 to quit games as a primary. The fact that it leaves processes behind and is occasionally buggy is something I have a lot of hate for. Say what you want about BF3, if you want out of the game you just mash Alt+F4 and you're out.

Try that in MP3 and my pc has an absolute shitfit.

[Unaco]

I actually try to Alt+F4 to quit games as a primary.....Try that in MP3 and my pc has an absolute shitfit.

I'm going to go ahead and say that's probably your fault, for using Alt+F4 to close the window, and not the game's problem. Alt+F4 closes the currently active window, but not necessarily any processes that might be running behind it. Using the proper Quit process will close the game window, and any processes behind it. It's like pre DX10/11 and Alt-Tabbing... games didn't support it... some would be OK, some would work from system to system, others would completely bork with it. You can't really complain though, because the games weren't supposed to support it, same with Alt+F4.

[Cooper]

Alt+F4 should be a fallback option.

At least AC1 was not tied into any kind of external Ubishit DRM / launcher thing and would relatively cleanly close with an Alt+F4. Doesn't make it any less of a really fucking awful UI design.

That being said, Precursors doesn't quit the precursors process when you quit from the main menu but does when you Alt+F4. Gotta love PC gaming...

[Track]

I'm glad that people mentioned AC for its abysmal quit process. The first time I played that I was astounded with how badly designed it was.

[State]

Isn't it a console thing? Back in the SNES era, almost every game had a pre-menu demo that would showcase the game. Many stores used to have one or more consoles hooked into TVs, showing these demos to us salivating kids. I always assumed that this form of advertisement was the main reason for having these pre-menu demos.

[Smashbox]

I'm fairly sure the inclusion of a start screen is required for certification on Xbox, and probably Playstation, too.

[Rauten]

I'm fairly sure the inclusion of a start screen is required for certification on Xbox, and probably Playstation, too.

It is.

About the holymoly retarded way to exit AC1: it's probably because the whole game was designed with 360/PS3 in mind where you exit the game any time by pressing the PS/Dashboard button, and they couldn't be arsed to make an in-animus option to allow those dirty, rotten, pirating PC gamers a quick way to exit the game.

[Smashbox]

Ubisoft is pleased to announce that the quit button on the PC version of Assassin's Creed™ will be released three weeks later than the console versions, for your convenience!

[Anthile]

To be fair, every game after that allowed you to quit directly to desktop from the pause menu.

[Flint]

I kinda like them. Pointless, sure, but I find them to be a nice little welcome to the game. Some games do it really well too, like Wind Waker where it genuinely feels like a part of the experience (the music, the background, etc). Plus it's just a button press in the end. I'd much rather rain hellfire on all the unskippable developer logo and, even worse, NVidia/other tech peripheral etc logos.

[calabi]

Its to ascertain wether you are alive or not.

[orcane]

I'm fairly sure the inclusion of a start screen is required for certification on Xbox, and probably Playstation, too.
That doesn't really explain WHY they require that in 2012.

[Smashbox]

Something about verifying controller input and zeroing analog sticks?

[LTK]

Sometimes it's an aesthetic choice. As you all probably remember, the original Deus Ex required you to press escape to bring up the menu. Though I can't very well equate that to the consoles' Press Start screen because you could access the menu even as the developer/publisher logos were flying past. They don't make them like that anymore, do they?


I kinda like them. Pointless, sure, but I find them to be a nice little welcome to the game. Some games do it really well too, like Wind Waker where it genuinely feels like a part of the experience (the music, the background, etc). Plus it's just a button press in the end. I'd much rather rain hellfire on all the unskippable developer logo and, even worse, NVidia/other tech peripheral etc logos.
Ah, but the great thing about PC games is, in most cases you can dive right into the game's files and delete those cinematics.

[SirKicksalot]

I don't mind them when I start the game. I don't understand the outrage. They're annoying when you exit to the main menu though.

When I load a level I also like to press start to start.

[Leopig]

lol outrage? Kind of taking things a bit out of context there aren't we?

[Ravelle]

Alt+F4 works on this one.

Alt + F4 sometimes corrupts save-files, I speak from experience here. ;p

[LTK]

lol outrage? Kind of taking things a bit out of context there aren't we?
Er, no, this is an exaggeration. Taking things out of context is a different thing entirely.

[Leopig]

Ok, so we can add pedantry to the mix too :p

[orcane]

Speaking of unnecessary prompts, I always love having to select which storage device to load my savegame from even if only the connected harddisk is present and holding savegames (together with the config file). There's no reason why it can't keep a default location and offer the option to load from somewhere else as an option... I think Bayonetta did this, and also several of my Xbox games.

Or those where you have to confirm if you really want to load a savegame, then confirm after the read sequence, then wait for the scene/level to actually load (Final Fantasy XIII, I'm looking at you). Going from game launch to gameplay in XIII-2 goes like: Wait for game to boot, hit start to start (disguised as an intro video), select load/continue option, confirm that you want to load, watch it load briefly, confirm that the game has loaded, wait while the game actually loads now (comes with a narrated "previously in FF13-2" sequence so that's nice) for a while, enter in the "time line" screen, select area to go to, wait some more till the actual level is loaded. Fun.

[Drake Sigar]

Alt+F4?

The games which have the best start screens have content like the Lionhead logo where moving your mouse effected the box that held the cubes that would make the logo

You jam doughnut, I was going to show off my knowledge and mention that one.

[gwathdring]

When I load a level I also like to press start to start.

Me too. Then if the loading takes a while I can go grab some tea and not miss anything.

[djbriandamage]

"Saving game - please do not turn off your PC"

[Batolemaeus]

Alt + F4 sometimes corrupts save-files, I speak from experience here. ;p

If that's the case whoever coded that should be paraded through the streets and made fun of mercilessly for screwing up one of the most basic functions of a program.

No, alt+f4 is not a fallback. It is a default shortcut to very kindly tell a program to quit. What should happen next is that the program should clean up and exit gracefully, maybe prompting the user to safe his data.

There are more rude ways to kill a program, like telling the kernel to give it the boot instead of asking nicely. Programs shouldn't shit their pants if that happens, but it can happen. It's usually a step that is taken when some coder doesn't do his homework and can't even handle shutting his own program down..

[gwathdring]

If that's the case whoever coded that should be paraded through the streets and made fun of mercilessly for screwing up one of the most basic functions of a program.

No, alt+f4 is not a fallback. It is a default shortcut to very kindly tell a program to quit. What should happen next is that the program should clean up and exit gracefully, maybe prompting the user to safe his data.

There are more rude ways to kill a program, like telling the kernel to give it the boot instead of asking nicely. Programs shouldn't shit their pants if that happens, but it can happen. It's usually a step that is taken when some coder doesn't do his homework and can't even handle shutting his own program down..

Most of the game where it's a problem don't exit gracefully at the best of times. Fallout 3, for example, routinely crashes upon exiting; I don't mind overmuch, as I prefer that to crashing while I'm actually playing (happens, but less often), but if pressing the dedicated "exit game" button doesn't work properly I'm hardly surprised an industry standard quit command doesn't either.

[orcane]

"Saving game - please do not turn off your PC"
That always cracks me up.

Even better are the games which make you click through a prompt that mentions "this icon = autosave, please don't turn off your computer at that time" after launching.

[calabi]

Seems a good idea to me. Some people are idiots, my Dad included, and they will turn it off at any time, they dont care.

[Heliocentric]

Alt + F4 sometimes corrupts save-files, I speak from experience here. ;p
Oh yeah, i always tapped escape to let the "I am saving now" symbol shut up.