A closer look
Those uncomfortably long elevator rides with your squad weren't for deep character bonding, they were just stalling for the Xbox's agonizingly slow hard drive. BioWare hated the idea of breaking immersion with static 'Loading...' screens, so they trapped Commander Shepard in a painfully slow elevator on the Citadel to mask the level geometry streaming in the background. Players thought they were getting cinematic world-building, but they were literally just watching a hard drive spin.
