It seems that every other video game nowadays has a large, flat freight elevator (with no top or sides - except maybe a barrier fence) that travels down/up a slanted pathway.
I would think these would be highly inefficient IRL, yet game designers seem to feel the need to include one in as many games as possible. Off the top of my head, here’s a list:
-Half Life
-Metal Gear Solid
-Doom3
-Chronicles of Riddick
-Painkiller (I think…)
-Final Fantasy VII
…and I’ve probably seen dozens more, and they’re almost always identical. What’s going on here? Some sort of gaming elevator cult? Producer demands? (“What?! You have an underground base with NO slanted cargo elevator? Egads, this will never sell! Throw one in quick!”)
Actually, I have to wonder, would they really be ineffiecent? It seems like they could lift more because you wouldn’t have to worry about the cables supporting the weight.
Terraenigma has one in it in the Bad guy’s base.
Escape from Castle Wolfenstien has one at the Dam.
Jedi Knight 1 had one in the First Level.
There’s one near the end of Breath of Fire 3.
I keep thinking there’s one in AVP2 or the NOLF games, but I can’t remember where.
Oh, and personally, I think it’s probably because they look cool, and give you the oppurtunity to stage battles that would not be plausible in a normal elevator.
We (effectively) had one of these in real life, on a gold mine I worked on. It was really a v. steep (50°-60°) chainlink railway, but was essentially a flat platform with railings that travelled from one level about 100m up a slanted adit to the next level.
Have you ever seen a really cheesy japanese cartoon, like Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon?
Ever notice when someone makes a really fancy punch or move, it’s just them striking a pose, and the solid-colored(bright yellow or blue) background is moving?
What direction is it moving?
Diagonal.
It’s exciting. It’s appealing. It’s cool-looking. It’s action. Nuts to efficiency. That’s why that elevator ride is always so long.
In Bare Knuckle 3 (Streets of Rage 3), there’s an elevator that goes up, down, sideways, diagonally, you name it. If they had 3 dimensions, I’ll bet it would rotate, too.
Explain that one.
[sub]Of course, no bad guy ever thinks “Oh yeah, they’re coming up the elevator. How about I TURN IT OFF, leave them trapped there and chuck grenades at them?”[/sub]
Timesplitters: Future Perfect has at least two. One very small one near the end of Story Mode, and a large one for the Challenge stage “Cortez Can’t Jump”.
I’m pretty sure one of the stages in Ehrgeiz was one of those elevators.
We have something in real life very similar here in Pittsburgh. The Incline. Other than the cars being enclosed, they aren’t different in concept from what you see in the video games. Johnstown PA has one too.
You know the opening of Donkey Kong when you put a coin in, where the ape takes the girl up to the top of the construction site and jumps around, bending the girders?
I’m guessing Donkey Kong went on a wild rampage through Video Game Land which affected all the elevators.
Metroid Prime has such an elevator in the initial part of the game. I’m not sure why this is, but I distinctly remember the gaming press commenting on how brilliant that particular bit of the demo was at E3. Who can say what appeal these mystery elevators hold?
While there are real-life inclined railways (I’ve been up and down the Johnstown one many times), they’re always in places where you already have the slope for some good reason, like the side of a mountain or the shaft of a mine. If they were practical for factories, warehouses and the like (which is where video games almost always put them), then you’d see them in real factories, which you don’t. I’d guess that it’s just easier to build vertical elevators. Even if it’s carrying a lot of weight, you can just use twice as many cables, or twice as thick, for a lot cheaper than eating a lot of floor space and steel girders constructing a slanted one.
