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Games That Travel Well
hipernoico writes "Wired has a summary of good portable RPG games for the end of this year. 'What better way to travel than in the company of a dragon-slaying knight? ' " I've travelled thousands of miles playing various Game Boy Pokemon titles. Although lately WarioWare Touched and Meteos have taken the place of my usual RPG travel companions. What games will you be playing while dreading arriving at your parents house?
I remember nightmare roadtrips with my parents filled with sibling fighting, incessant "Are we there yets" and parental death threats like they were yesterday. When my husband determined that a family roadtrip was a good idea I had horrid flashbacks but he would not be swayed. I prepared by buying ear plugs; he just stocked up on strategy guides, headphones and batteries. As much as it galls me to admit - he was right. We drove 1500 hundred miles without a peep - it was incredible.
Who knew that you could log hundreds of blissfully silent hours playing various Pokemon titles?
R
Homer: Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!
What games will you be playing while dreading arriving at your parents house?
This is Slashdot, I live at my parent's house!
What better way to travel than in the company of a dragon-slaying knight?
Certainly people @ wired.com don't have sexuality issues
I've installed Nethack on my iBook for my on-the-go RPG playing needs.
I don't know if I have enough time to play a game walking up the stairs from the basement.
Just kidding, I don't live in my parents' basement... I live in the attic.
Hangman...tic tack toe...crossword puzzles...no sound is great for driving:)
Easy and fun
avoid the crazy drivers on the nys thruway and the masspike.
its alot of fun =)
I've found that Advance Wars 1&2 are good travel games. Each level takes about 30 minutes or so, and you don't need any volume. Great for airports, planes, or sitting around after xmas dinner. I don't have a DS, so I can't comment on AW on there, but I imagine it's just as good, if not better.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Adventures: With scummvm - http://www.scummvm.org/ you can run any old lucasarts adventure perfectly:
And modern PocketPC's are starting to have 'doable' processing power too.. Dell Axim X51v has 640x480 screen plus a true 3D accellerator, for example. I bet PSX-1 emulators will start to work soon enough...
As far as I'm concerned, the Game Boy Advance versions of the Super Mario brothers games are the perfect travel games. They don't require a large time commitment and are infinitely replayable.
But when I get bored of those I usually play a Metroid game or a Zelda game.
A massively in-depth RPG would seem to me to be a poor travel game. They require too much time and memory (your memory) to be able to jump in whenever you wanted.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
The lady and I play this fun game on our drives. It basically starts with me saying something insightful or interesting or funny, and then she thinks about what I said and she replies with something contextual to what I said.
Imagine it is like slashdot, but without moderation and only between two or 3 people. I had a feeling it would supplement and even replace gaming and web forums, but I don't think it will catch on.
If you try it some time, remember that is might be trademarked or patented, so be cautious who you do it around.
I missed this game back in my SNES days, but I'd watch my friends play from time to time. I just got it last week and wow this is fun, finally a reason to bust out my GBA since Zelda (and Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube). The story can be a bit hokey from time to time, but I just remind myself to pretend I'm 13 years old again and it works. Now I just need my friends to stop trying to spoil the story while I play it.
No Pacman or Space Invaders?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Obviously, Need for Speed Underground 2 .
No, not on a game console. I mean fighting my way through holiday interstate and city traffic.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The best travel games I've found for the Gameboy Advance are the Advnace Wars series. I've spent entire trans-Pacific flights playing the longer campaigns. If only the airlines would build link cables into the seats for playing random passengers...
A close second lately has been Lumines on the PSP. Trying to get higher scores on the 60 second mode makes time fly (Did I really just play 80 rounds???).
-Chris
I'll be playing Lumines on my son's PSP while driving six hours to Dallas.
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
Golden Sun is an enjoyable GBA RPG, although a bit annoying in places (I still can't complete the final battle)
Fire Emblem and Advance Wars (DS or GBA) are games that make journeys appear to pass in a flash: I've nearly missed stations on the train because I was too involved in the game. They're both turn based and easily suspendable, so interruptions don't matter.
Dofus is a French / English tactical MMORPG, it's build with Flash so it works in any browser (or standalone on Windows/Mac). Dofus is not totally free (as in beer), but there is an area on the map where you can play for free. It's a very funny game. There are jokes everywhere (in the items, quests, weapons, spells etc) If you don't want to pay for a game you better not try this one out. Because you'll get addicted and before you know it, you'll pay the monthly fee!
Let's say a 1.8GHZ/512RAM/64Video....
So far I have found:
Diablo II runs well
NWN runs ok if you turn everything down
I like-a do-the cha-cha.
(Of course, it helps to have the portable hardware to carry it around on...)
R
Stuff that matters: circuitbreakers, vacuum-cleaners coffee makers, calculators generators, matching salt+pepper shakers
i play nethack on ipaq 3900 with opie/familiar linux.
My kids will be armed with digital cameras and a handheld GPS back there. They will be encouraged to track our progress on the GPS as well as find waypoints as well as taking photos of a list of items.
Both of which keeps them somewhat quiet except for real interaction that should be welcomed by any parent. And teaches them valuable skills.
Otherwise I could simply load up on dvd's of cartoon-network recordings and let them waste their brain on the built in DVD player.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No, not Magic: The Dithering or Pokemon, but good old fashioned Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades. You can play literally countless variations, skill levels range from the simple (SNAP!) to needlessly complex (have you ever tried to understand Duplicate Bridge rotations), and you can play with any number from one, to more than a dozen. Add in the rules of Texas Hold'em and some gambling chips, and you can even be a bit edgy by running the risk of being arrested (but only in the Land Of The Free).
On top of that, you'll likely be able to play some kind of game with everyone you meet, from kids to adults, and unlike role playing games, some of these may even be women.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
TZ
Okay, I just read TFA. Um, there are only 3 games in this "summary". Don't you think they could have gone over more games?
/.ers recommend any more games?
Basically the article boils down to this: Final Fantasy IV is good for the GBA. Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time is good for DS. PoPoLoCrois is good for PSP.
Any other
I find the summary quite lacking.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
http://www.fpsece.net/index.html - Plays most of the final fantasies at 40+fps on a 400Mhz Xscale device already.. nice.
...once I get to my parents' anyway. But the 6 hour flight is gonna kill me. I gotta find some way to get WoW on the plane. Please, stewardess, you don't want to make me stop using my cellphone. If I miss the MC raid, I'll cry.
*twitch*
I can feel the withdrawal symptoms manifesting already.
Well, I won't be playing any games DURING the drive, seeing as I'll be driving myself home for the holidays. Besides, I kinda fell out of the console gaming scene years ago.
* Engage old man voice *
Back in MY day, for long road trips, all I needed was my original Game Boy and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. You whipper-snappers these days are all coddled!
Seriously, though, once I'm there, I'll be busting out Neverwinter Nights. The game never ceases to amuse me. I'll be working on the PW module that the PC Gaming Club I set up at my alma mater, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. They still let me develop and maintain the module, so that's what I'll be doing over Christmas.
Anyone who's interested, the server is called "ShadowRealm RHIT" under PW Action on GameSpy. I'll no doubt be on there, and any RPG only gets better when there are more people playing.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
Sudoku on my Treo650 works well for me when I need to pass the time..
-- jaf
What else are road trips for but discovering what you love/hate most about the people you travel with. You can't go wrong with either of the Fire Emblem games. The added bonus is the games save every action as soom as it's decided. Meaning that you can power off whenever necessary and not lose any data. Which works great for those city bus rides to and from work. The downside to this even the consequences of your actions remain. Ever turned off a game in frustration when a main hero dies, ending your quest? With these games. Only the twist this time happens when you turn on the GBA later to see that you've still got a mission in progress. Forgetting that there's a mission in progress. You instinctively resume your mission only to see that hero get cruelly cut down and fade into the game over screen before you even get a chance to act. Despite the amazing time sink that is Fire Emblem, somehow I found myself playing classic Zelda on my 5 hour bus ride last night. I picked it up on a whim months ago, but haven't actually seriously sat down to play it. It seems that I managed to remember where all the important things were in the first quest, and about half of the 2nd. Ah, the fruits of a wasted youth.
Laziness is a virtue, anyone who bothers to tell you otherwise, is clearly lacking it.
As always my saving strategy is to drink heavily, hopefully inconspicously, while waiting for the Good Mother, the Saintly Daughter and the Rigtheous Father to fall asleep and allow me to spark up a phat doobie on the deck and watch the ocean rock the Christmas lights strung on the masts of the sail boats.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
And don't forget to hit Toys R Us tomorrow for some cheap games.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Okay... I got robbed. They took my PS2 (and games) and my GBA sp (and games)
... well it looks crap .. while the PSP looks so nice. Neither seems to have an games that grab my attention (although the DS has all the GBA games I love - Advance wars, Street Fighter II, Golden sun).
I've decided I'm not going to replace the PS2 - Im going to wait for the 3rd gen consoles or switch back to PC games (eg morrowind 4).
But I NEED my portable gaming... but Im in a situation - How do I spend my insurance money?... DS or PSP
Ive always been a Nintendo boy, but the DS
And no I dont give a crap about watching movies on a handheld as I use my laptop (or the nice little TV on the plane) for that.
Help...
I mean common, you don't need anything else to occupy your time than the endless satisfaction of clearing line after line and trying to pass 300 lines when you're working in the top third of the screen and blocks are coming in at breakneck speeds...
I travelled throughout South America last year, from Buenos Aires to Los Angles. Overground. That meant a lot of coach and what better travelling companion than, in my humble opinion, the finest Fighting Fantasy Gamebook of them all: Caverns of the Snow Witch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caverns_of_the_Snow_W itch/ e _Books/
Dice. Paper. Pencil. Playing the game properly: which means making every roll and resisting the temptation to 'go back' to the last location if I made the wrong choice. For an old-school, dice-rolling RPG player like myself I couldn't have asked for a better travelling companion. Even after six characters and I still didn't beat the book. One word: SENTINEL. Seriously, though, I earnestly recommend a return to those old Fighting Fantasy books that Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson wrote in the mid-eighties. Dead treeware, dice, and a shedload of red wine - thee aren't many better ways to pass a 23 hour coach ride.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy_Gam
CHILD: The camera is full.
PARENT: No it's not. Do not lie to me. Lying hurts the Earth.
C: I've just taken my seventeenth picture of a mile marker.
P: Then you can make a collage when we get home about the mindless mind-wasting rat race to nowhere all the stupid people are stuck in.
C: Can't I play a game?
P: Games are the soul sucking demon spawn of the militaro-corporate power structure complex.
C: I'm hungry. Can we stop?
P: What, so you can poison your precious bodily fluids with a rotting flesh burger and tallow tainted death fries?
C: And I have to pee.
P: You already went yesterday. Hold it in. It will build character and make you impervious to the evil mechanations of the Illuminati controlled Cartoon Network.
C: The camera really is full.
P: Lies! I know the capacity of that camera, and I have been counting the number of shots you have taken and calculating to the byte how much space you have left by looking at your subjects and running the JPEG algorithm in my head. Silence!
Well there are a few games that are probably on the good ol' xmas list anyways. Though these are the ones that i have played ober the past few xmas's Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls: An excellent throwback to the elder of the Final Fantasy series. The new dungeons and exceellent redrawing of the characters is just enjoyable. The mix of old and new bosses within the first game are worth it alone....not to mention no more inneffective fighting. ;) Unless you count the battery failing ;) The remakeof FF2 is pretty nice and very close to the orignal. The music on both are quite nice and enjoyable.
Legand of Zelda Four Swords:
Its Zelda with a multiplayer twist...addictingly fun with multiple people though it is the third zelda in the series a very good pickup none the less my girlfriend has been addicted to it like she is to chocolate ;) hard to peel away at least until she got ...
Legand of Zelda: The Minish Cap:
Yeah she got this game and still has yet to finish it. She has to find everything....damn persistance i want to play it sometime too heh.... but there are many many things to find and puzzles to solve. Done in the good ol' top down fashion so you can still feel like your on the super nintendo.
moving along a little bit ....
Final Fantasy IV:
This title just came out recently but if it is anything like the SNES version of FFII it will be a killer of time and money well spent. The updates to the soundtrack and the redawing of a good portion of characters to cleant them up to the re graphing of the dialouge to reflect better story should welcome new fans and help remind some of us getting on in our gaming years what rpg's use to have.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) and Dawn of Sorrow (DS) are two really great games. Neither have totally unlimited replay value, mind you, but they will keep you occupied for a nice loooooooooooooooooong time.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Remember the good ol' days of StarCraft[Slashdot Recommended Link]? I still play it regularly. Nothing 'travels well' as playing protoss and MindControlling a drone and an SCV.
Terrans > Base D and resources
Protoss > Base D cloakment, air support, and Dark Archons (Darchons)
Zerg > Secretary of Offense
Don't knock it.
Maybe I missed something somewhere along the line, but doesn't RPG stand for Role Playing Game? The article discusses video games, yet makes no mention of any role playing games - no Traveller, no D&D, no Twilight 2000, nothing. Help me out here.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Any time I travel down to my parents house I take the DS with me. My mother always asks what new games I have and she always wants to play something. She enjoys Wario Ware, Pac Pix, and her favorite is Trauma Center. My father had me take him to Gamestop to point out Trauma Center. I think he is planning on getting her one along with a DS for Christmas.
:)
I have trouble playing any games in the car but I did take the DS with me on a cruise last week. That was only to play Animal Crossing though. The many drunk nights on the ship caused me to miss a fishing tournament though.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
Seems like a good choice for the parents place... you can do some real gaming after you install/download all the updates on their PC (CRAP - my parents have dial up!)
My doppleganger is posting on /.! You left out the part about our younger sister and how she's blossomed into a blonde haired version of mom. With a rubber truncheon, though, not a rapier.
What's wrong with paper RPG's?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Takes about 25MB - fits on a Zip drive, runs on anything 386+ I suppose. There is no end of things to do. Keeps me from going insane.
I'm gonna read a good book during the trip. In my family, the second day of christmas is a traditional day for board games. Small, German-style ones. The third day of christmas is for a big Anglosaxon-style game, like 1830 or something like that. But perhaps I'll bring Arkham Horror with me this time (although it's not quite big enough). The rest of the week I may go back home and play some more games with friends.
Thoughts? I've got a 2 week training semilar I've got to attend in a few weeks and I want to pick up a portable system. I've never owned a portable in my whole life, so I figured at 25 it's time to get one.
GBA looks like it's winning so far with Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance Wars 2, Fire Emblem, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.
But, the DS also has Castlevania (forget the name) and Advance Wars 2, but I don't see any Final Fantasy on there.
So, keeping in the realm of good travel games (as thisis mainly for this trip I'm going on), what's better, a GBA or a DS?
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I enjoy Advance Wars DS or Meteos, but the only place my portable gamestation is traveling is over to my friends to play said games against him.
I also used to travel all the time with my GBA, I had one of those rom carts and tons of games I had DLed onto it, and Wario was my favorite. i also played alot of SuperMonkeyBall and Mr. Driller.
:) I also play Super Mario Kart DS alot, online, when I am at home on my wireless.
:D
I recently bought a Nintendo DS, and I'm toally addicted to Waroware touched
I just bought a few more titles, in the puzzle/minigame genre and some others, including: Feel the Magic XX/XY (I cant wit for Rub Rabbit to come out in US, too!), Trace Memory, Mr. Driller, and Trauma Center, under the knife.
I am looking forward to a trip tomorrow, back home to be near the family for x-mas and I am totally going to be smokin pot and hangin out with my DS the whole time, espeically on the plane rides etc. and at my moms house when I am bored. I am 30 y/o
My favorite travel game would have to be Ogre Battle "March of the Black Queen". Its a mix of RTS and RPG. I've logged several hundred hours playing the game out various ways. Don't be fooled by the more recent incarnations of this game, they are terrible sequels to the March of the Black Queen.
My next favorite game would be Bandit Kings of Ancient China. Very enjoyable way of conquering China on the way to grandma's.
Both these games require my laptop but I never leave home without it anymore.
Bringing the ol Laptop home Games that run on it: Master of Orion 2, Rome: Total War Games I try to play at 1.5 FPS: World of warcraft. No but seriously, please don't attack my character if you see me this weekend.
If you are traveling with a laptop, Knights of the Old Republic (the original one) isn't too much for the onboard vpus in many popular models.
I found that after successfully hacking my business laptop to hold the program, (there were group securities involved to prevent installation) it would run on the lowest settings well enough to enjoy a few more adventures while away on business....
Hey, it beats the heck outta pay-per-view blockbusters from the hotel room.
Travels very well. They never call it.
thankyouthankyouI'llbehereallweek...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
A bit off-topic, but you can find many women on the internet today, and a lot of them are into gaming. The thing is, a lot of games are simply not designed to appeal to the majority of women, having testosterone-fueled themes like tons of violence and not a lot of social contact. Go into an online game like Puzzle Pirates, where team (crew)-based pillaging and working together is the way to make POE (money), and socio-political contact is the only way to truly advance within one's crew, and you'll see an almost even split of the sexes. It also helps that it's a puzzle game mostly, and has methods of play for both the casual gamer and someone looking for an exciting hours-long affair.
I met my girlfriend in that game, and many, many other people have done the same (I swear, last spring the game could have been renamed to Yohoho! Dating Pirates). It's all in where the game is targetted, and most games, sadly, are still targetted almost exclusively at males.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Totally serious -- no foolies! Though you need the magic of a rewritable third party cart in order to actually have it on your Gameboy (which run over $100 for the good ones). Some of the best coffee cup portable titles that I've ever played have been homebrew titles from the fine folks at gbadev.org. Rogue is easier to play than Hack due to having fewer controls, but they're both pretty swank conversions. For those curious as to how it works, pressing the L button opens up a key list. Takes some doing, but soon you'll be zipping your @ all over the place!
For commercial releases, Silver Star Saga is pretty handy for short bursts (think Zelda with random R-Type battles). The Megaman Battle Network games are excellent for eating up some time as well, though unfortunately the titles are almost identical in gameplay throughout the series... And if you want an RPG with some heavy replayability and adventure game/dating sim qualities, look for Riviera: The Promised Land. It had a very limited run, though, so you may have to settle for a used copy.
And if you don't mind a game that'll cram sugar down your throat, try Hamtaro: Ham Ham Heartbreak. I know, I know... Smarmy and saccharine. However, it's a surprisingly entertaining diversion as you run around trying various combinations of actions on things to progress the story.
Oh yeah, I used to play that game too:
How do you do. Please state your problem.
>> I spend too much time with computers.
Why do you mention computers ?
>> You are one.
Does it please you to believe I am one ?
>> Yes.
You seem to be quite positive.
>> I suppose I am.
How long have you been ?
>> 31 years.
I'm not sure I understand you fully.
>> Join the club.
Please go on.
>> You don't make too much sense yourself.
We were discussing you -- not me.
My kids will be armed with digital cameras and a handheld GPS back there. They will be encouraged to track our progress on the GPS as well as find waypoints as well as taking photos of a list of items.
Both of which keeps them somewhat quiet...
Your tenses are inconsistent, but I'm getting the distinct feeling that your kids are hypothetical, or at least that their potential game playing days are in the future.
I'm a single father of 12-year-old boy/girl twins, having raised them alone since they were born. On long car trips -- we do a 17-plus hour drive from Minnesota to our Colorado cabin every summer -- you find a balance of things to do and think about, or to sometimes zone out over. Not everything has to fit the program. Kids will not fit your program anyway.
Concentrate on providing them with positive stuff to do -- and helping you figure out the map is a great one -- rather than laying into anything they enjoy that doesn't meet your standards for edutainment. The kids'll be much happier, they won't regard learning as a burden because you'll have lured them to it rather than cracking down and forcing it on them, and you're going to be oh so much saner.
With respect to video games in particular, I would suggest that borrowing a gameboy sort of thing for long-distance trips isn't such a bad deal.
In all seriousness, the only parent I know well who actually attempts to constantly make every experience into an educational wonderland actually is a control freak whose child is pretty miserable. Kid has a reading disorder of some sort, and the father is unreal about it. It's sad to be around.
Just my advice based on experience in the past (and present).
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
No mention of Nethack on the Sharp Zaurus yet? Everything you need in an RPG is in there, and has been for three (?) decades at least ;)
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
I use a PSP when flying from SNA to ATL and back. I can browse the web at the terminal, watch a movie, and play music. Oh yeah I can play talkman and practice my japanese and play games like dynasty warriors.
This is very nice for flights. You might not want to get out your laptop just to check the weather, or have to swap full size dvds out. I'm going to be watching Serenity this flight out, since I have the 1GB MS I can watch just movies if I want. I might watch Amelie... yeah not many US UMD movies appeal to me, but I already have the DVDs anyway. =)
Check them out. There's other games at their site too.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
Most every device from phones to PDAs to PCs to consoles can run text adventures; Magnetic Scrolls or Infocom/Zmachine games will keep you budsy for minutes to hours and are quite enjoyable; try beating The Guild of Thieves or The Pawn .. gameplay that waits for you, has nice (static) artwork and amusing plots..
fooz
Us southerners don't have basements.
And attempting to run a computer in an attic isn't wise, even in the winter alot of the time (80s in december is not uncommon).
So where is a stereotypical southerner geek supposed to live?
Why are you dreading arriving at your parents house? Are you an adult, or a child with no control over your life or relationships?
This year my family are coming to my home. If I need some space, I will do what I would do if I were visiting my own parents: go and meet some friends in the pub. The time together will be great though: we will talk, eat, play board games, visit other family and friends, go to the movies, go skiing, go and see Body World II, etc, etc.
Don't forget: time with your family is precious and you can't get back the time you waste today. If your parents are still alive or together, maximise the time with them. Life passes too quickly and they're only getting older. You dread seeing them - how would you feel about your own children having that sentiment?
Another roguelike game that I have found very entertaining, despite the lack of graphics. Sooner or later, you will become that @ sign...
I never tried them on a portable platform, but they are great in term of lightness and usability, not counting the easy to drop and pick back factor. Maybe a bit of lobbying would help porting them on light(er) platforms ? They for sure runs without problem in wine. merry xmas to all !
[Pruneau
Good ole homebrew on the PSP. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the SNES emulator. As good as games get these days, they will never compare to the classics.
"I've travelled thousands of miles playing various Game Boy Pokemon titles" Wow, how old are? Only kids under 10 years old play POKEMON !!
PtG: Ikusa Islands
Worms World Party
High Seize
System Rush
N-Gage's excellent multiplayer system keeps the whole car pretty quiet (or screaming when making a perfect shot in Worms). It's a real shame that Nokia's design crew screwed the device, because the actual concept (combined gaming device and phone) is excellent for a casual gamer.
Socom on my PSP no doubt the best game I ever played and will be going with me everywhere this Holiday season!! But will also be bringing along my video Ipod.
From: RIAA & MPAA To: dada21 We must ask that you please discontinue this 'game' that you play with others, as it is causing rampant problems discussing our copyrighted material. Your discussions of music and movies is directly causing the piracy of millions of dollars worth of copyrighted material and we will be forced to take action if you do not discontinue this blatant disregard for the law. As you can find in Paragraph 2, Subsection 85, Section XVIXIV, this is well within our right under the DMCA. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. - M.U.H.A.H.A. & Associates at Law
Sometimes too quickly! I got to SFO 3 hours early for a flight one time, so I sat down in the gate lounge, pulled out the laptop and started playing Civ III. What seemed like moments later, in the middle of a medieval war with the Romans, I looked up and noticed the gate lounge was empty, and my plane had arrived at the gate, boarded all the passengers, and was just pulling away from the jetway in front of me. I didn't see anyone board, and I didn't hear a single announcement, although I know these things happened. I couldn't believe 3 hours had passed so quickly! Luckily the gate agent was sympathetic and got me on the next flight.
So remember, if you're playing Civ, remember to look up every couple of turns! (Maybe Civ V will introduce a "Real-Life Adviser" to remind you...)
At least, that's what I'm playing on my cheapass used laptop. Both are amazing games that run on cheap hardware (and under cedega if you nice it.) Plus, high replayability for when you inadvertantly finish the game before running out of roadtrip.
I just have to thank the editors for bringing this story now.
I've just bought a Nintendo DS just because of the dreaded trainrides I have to take during the holidays.
This discussion might just save my sanity!
Prosp long and liver.
Why teach them to rely on GPS to know where they are? Why not give them maps and waypoints and have them take pictures of them? They can ask "which direction are we heading?" every once in a while, and unless you're in California, they can read the mile markers for distance.
My brother and I read books in the car when we travelled (and it was a lot). That turned out very well, we're both quite successful. We used to have a large collection of books that we bought at the library's old books sale. I had a thing for science and the future, so a large number of books were 50s books about what the future was going to be like. Lots of pneumatic subways and multi-mode transportation hubs. Although the real revolutions in transportation turned out to be cargo transportation, containerized shipping and air shipping (and containerized air shipping).
Anyway, it may be difficult to believe, but at one time, people managed to keep themselves entertained without any devices that needed batteries or plugged in. If your kids can learn that skill, perhaps their comparatively long attention spans will help them learn and go far.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"What games will you be playing while dreading arriving at your parents house?"
I'll be playing Need For Speed: Mass, avoiding crazy Mass. drivers and staties on the Mass Pike. It's not very fun, but it's got good graphics.
zelda : links awakening and metroid II for the original gameboy were good games for ignoring your family on a long trip. nowadays, Zelda : the minish cap and fire emblem and the wario games, but wario can be too much movement for car trips and failing a 50 minigame long streak cause of a pothole will make you throw your gba through the windshield.
http://www.noctemware.com/q3ce.html - 35-40fps with the Dell Axim x51v 3D accellerator.. :P
Any fun single player RPG's for all of us with powerbooks?
Hahaha I didn't mean THAT mature... You've never heard of day of the tentacle? It's only the best (funniest, at least) point and click adventure ever made, IMHO.
My kids dread arrival at my house? Total buzz kill, dude. However, seeing as how we have tons of GBA games, PC Games, console and even a few crufty old board games (ever play Middle Earth Risk? Rocks.) and seeing as how in my pre-parent days I honed my geek gaming skills on the likes of AD&D, Steve Jackson Games, GURPS, Call of Cthulu, Squad Leader, Soccer, Racquetball, Football (yes! Sports that encourage fitness!!) and more recently America's Army, yadda yadda, blah, blah AND seeing as how the kids have their pick of (wireless) Mac, PC or Linux (Ubuntu) use for their interweb needs AND seeing as how we like good tunes played loudly (well, OK, my wife has crap taste in music... she grew up in China during the cultural revolution so I cut her some slack), tasty snacks available in abundance and not getting up too early (unless one really wants to) AND seeing as how the house is spacious and comfy (i.e. no B.S. pottery barn decorated "Don't touch that!" rooms)... I think the kids actually look forward to being home. ;)
I have visited several local big-box-electronics shops (bestbuy/futureshop), local games retailers (ebgames, etc) and asked for turn-based RPGs for the PC, and found that there are ZERO on the shelves of retailers right now. There are a few turn-based tactics/RPG titles out there for consoles, including a few for the PS2, which I have, but NOTHING for the PC. Apparently a new Heroes of Might and Magic will be out (5.0) soon. There is even a web site up for it now, but it's not out yet. One employee (a fellow turn-based tactics/rpg fan) recommended I go out and get Heroes of Might and Magic IV for the PC, which I did. I was somewhat impressed by it, but i found the user interface really klunky compared with the smooth and well-thought out user-interface of games for the handheld GBA or DS, or PS2/console titles.
So if any game-designer out there thinks it's worth creating a really great turn-based tactics/RPG game out there, won't you please let the world know about it, even if it's a low-budget casual game without big studio bucks put into it. The world needs more FUN games, not more flashy FX-studio games.
Cheers,
Warren
So why go? Seriously. They are your family, but if you don't like being around them, then don't spend your time around them! To my mind, the fact that they are family gives them slightly more leeway about being jerks than the rest of the population, but not a free license. But it sounds like it's a truly unpleasant experience and in that case just tell them that no, you're not coming. Or if you go, make it a short visit. Stay one day or just Christmas eve/morning and get out.
Family is something you are born with, but you can outgrow it. Maintain cordial but distant relations with them at whatever level is comfortable or tolerable to you.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
The DS version is awesome. In 2004, I spent a good amount of time playing through AW and AW2. When I would play AW after AW2, I would miss out on the updated art work and extra CO moves. AW:DS does this much better by making everything truly 3D. It's not that obvious at first (it's a subtle 3D), but going back to the old GBA ones is really noticable.
:)
The have the new dual-strike CO mode + CO swaps, which adds a whole extra level to the gameplay. You can really save yourself from a tight spot. On the flip side, it makes the COM tougher in some situations. Careful strategy still wins the day. The extra units are kinda neat, although the new tank is silly
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
How can have a discussion about the GBA and list games without talking about ZELDA? "The Minish Cap" is a TON of fun and, as with all Zelda games, tends to take quite a while to work your way through. Don't forget that they've been releasing Original Nintendo games to GBA now. I have every old school Zelda available. Got friends? Girlfriend? Wife? Get them a GBA and play Four Swords. The Zelda series is one of the most dynamic and travel friendly games for the GBA available. Highly recommended and good for all ages. That and the GBA is CHEAP compared the DS or PSA... Save money in addition to everything else.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat." - Jaws
Nethack was ported to the Psion Series 5/5MX a while back:h tm
http://www.suttoncourtenay.org.uk/duncan/Nethack.
It runs on a pair of AA batteries for about 40 hours, as long as you don't use the backlight.
Another option might be to put Linux on it, and then build Nethack for Linux, although I never tried it myself: http://linux-7110.sourceforge.net/
The best game for short trips is Worms World Party on the Game Boy Advance. Nice fun battles that each last about 5-10 minutes. It really takes the edge of my daily commute on the city bus!
I just bought Final Fantasy IV Advance for the game boy advance. It's an early christmas present for myself and I'll be enjoying it for a long time. Edward just joined my party. "You Spoony Bard!"
Truth is a matter of perspective. Wear the other guy's shoes before you dismiss him.
Hands down Fire Emblem is one of my favourite *really* portable games.
- You can take your eyes off the screen at any time without problems
- The game itself is good
but most important:
- Can simply be turned off and then resumed at any time
Play mind games like "I don't have to tell you why I'm mad, you should know", or "Does 'It doesn't matter' really means it matters, or doesn't it".
Games like this will prepare you for a relationship with a... GIRL.
good luck.
Live forever, or die trying.
Neutral healer + scum for smoky potions until wish = quick SDSM (or PYEC / Orb of Fate if you have the HP to survive that wish).
:) Particularly if you get +Poly and scum the hell out of the crap the castle generates.
:) One wizard with an early /oW had his full set of gear already (including quest artifacts) and did a lot of b?geno via the MMs he wished for... having the PYEC really helped there, too =) Of course, it's kinda cheap to genocide damn near everything. A game without L h ; P V D Z & a s n [they were annoying] etc. is kinda easy :)
I tend to prefer the SDSM because it does more to keep me alive early on, but a few early wishes tend to be a REALLY helpful way to ascend.
A similar strategy, scumming for an early wish with a neutral wizard's potions (after which you get them down to the castle as soon as they can survive it... being sure to write blessed genocide scrolls on L and perhaps also h) has also been known to be effective
A neutral who manages to get the Eye of A, PYEC and Orb of Fate (Eyes of the Overworld, Magicbane & Greyswandir are also reccomended, although the last two should be gotten via sacrifice, not wishes, generally) in addition to a normal AK (SDSM, boots of speed, helm of brilliance, robe [have ; genocided], gauntlets of dexterity, +5 t-shirt, all burn/rustproof, amulets of life saving & magical breathing, rings of levitation, free action, regeneration, etc. to swap around, full load of wands, magical tools, food, blessed bags of holding, etc.) is basically totally invincible. Although the last level gets annoying if you haven't genocided the crap monsters the priests like to summon. I'd never bother to genocide a and s otherwise... But if you have magic markers to spare, a few well placed b?genocide can make some levels a joke. Valley of the dead with V, Z and & geno'd is laughable
Yes, my beloved Tetris. Though, I'm very picky about what version I play. I don't like ones without art, ones with the "slow drop" mode with holding down the drop key, and I only like the JKL-space controls.
Once you get tired of Spectrum Holobyte's Tetris, here's what you can do if you really like the classic control scheme but are looking for a new twist on the concept (pun intended):
My primary travel game is Dr Mario for GBA. It is a game thaty is easy to pick up and put back down when needed. I also travel with a Zelda game and Fire Emblem.
END COMMUNICATION
I have an hour commute on the bus each way to work. About a month into my job I realized that tunes were not cutting it. So I bought a gameboy color for $10 at EB, and dug up the original Super Mario game, Crystalis, Final Fantasy Legend 2, Doctor Mario, and Tetris. I had most of those lying around, but none of them cost more than $10 anyway. Mario has nostalgia value; Tetris and Doctor Mario are a cheap puzzle fix; Crystalis was one of my favorite NES games, and it was a blast to log a couple hours on it each day; and FFL2 is by far my favorite RPG. It has depth, but you can save it and put it down anywhere.
Recently, this list of games got me through a rather intense 1500 mile roadtrip... with the addition of Pokemon Yellow. I'd suggest just scoring a smattering of classics. Once gameboy micro hits my price point... I am there.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
Don't forget there's a port of Nethack for the PocketPC :-)
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Perfect for Car trips. All you need is a box lid (or something similar) to roll into.
Oh wait, you want games you can still buy? Bother on all the good games going the way of the dodo.
Clones are people two.
Who can scream "NO! PLEASE GOD NO!" the loudest of course.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
It will play on just about any hardware platform known to man. Uses itty bitty power. Will suck you in and spit you back out when Xmas is over, gauranteed.
"Although lately WarioWare Touched and Meteos have taken the place of my usual RPG travel companions. What games will you be playing while dreading arriving at your parents house?"
n ade/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_propelled_gre
So Mr hipernoico, where exactly are you travelling to and from?
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
and forget nethack... just install Planeshift ( from http://www.planeshift.it/ ) and load you're character, which is stored in their database and accessible from anywhere with Internet access. The Planeshift client program is available for Windows, Linux and Mac!! And it's open source, and FREE! It's hard at first, but great fun after a while.
Meh.
Freaking out of towners taking up all our land!
"Freaking out of towners taking up all our land!"
We wouldn't have the opportunity if you didn't sell us the land in the first place.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Final Fantasy I, II and IV on GBA/micro/DS. The best thing is you can save ANY time outside a battle or story screen! I play it on my micro on the train and it is great since you dont have to listen to it :)
If you want a real travel RPG, try Sherpa. It's an actual RPG (traditional, pen-and-paper-type) that's designed to be played while hiking, camping, riding in a car, etc.
/. readers still live with their parents!