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?
I hate side quests. If you can't be bothered to write a decent enough story to fill a game, then just hire a writer that can. Enough of these filler quests that really turn an interesting game into a grind.
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.
"I was one of those. I meddled with dark powers. I summoned demons. I ate the entire little cheese, including the rind."
~Kvothe, The Wise Man's Fear
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.
Stealth Mode!
Nothing says "we really can't be arsed" like a Press Start To Begin screen in a PC game.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Alt+F4?Originally Posted by Leopig
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
Or where the menu is the game
1 video limit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPIFKSkuT8
I'm failing to writing a blog, specifically about playing games the wrong way
http://playingitwrong.wordpress.com/
A more infamous example:
Omg that is horrific lol
I hate side quests. If you can't be bothered to write a decent enough story to fill a game, then just hire a writer that can. Enough of these filler quests that really turn an interesting game into a grind.
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.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Alt+F4 works on this one.
I'm failing to writing a blog, specifically about playing games the wrong way
http://playingitwrong.wordpress.com/
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'.
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.
I spew words about Videogames, SEO and general geekery at Jaketucker.com
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.
ARPS unofficial motto - And then we leave. No heroic stands.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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!
To be fair, every game after that allowed you to quit directly to desktop from the pause menu.
"I was one of those. I meddled with dark powers. I summoned demons. I ate the entire little cheese, including the rind."
~Kvothe, The Wise Man's Fear
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.
Last edited by Flint; 26-06-2012 at 04:13 PM.
Give me steam and how you feel to make it real.
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