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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!
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:)
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...
Nethack isn't an RPG... whatever gave you that idea? It's a simulation. Just like some people call first-person shooters "murder simulators", Nethack is a suicide simulator.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Sudoku on my Treo650 works well for me when I need to pass the time..
-- jaf
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.
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
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.
Don't knock it.
Definitely go for the DS, then. I own both, and haven't found much use for the PSP outside of its video-playing capabilities - and to properly take advantage of those, you have to shell out extra for UMD videos or large, expensive, proprietary Sony memory cards. Lumines is nice, but it came out many moons ago, and it doesn't see any more than occasional play from me now. My DS, on the other hand, has gotten loads of play of late - most recently due to Mario Kart DS, and also Meteos (an excellent puzzler) and Kirby: Canvas Curse (a truly innovative platformer). No, it's not as shiny and pretty looking as the PSP - but while I have no qualms about throwing my DS in my laptop bag on the way out the door, I'd think twice before treating my PSP the same way. What's more - the PSP doesn't do much of anything that my laptop doesn't, and it sounds like you're in a similar position with your laptop. If you've got your laptop, even the homebrew on the PSP loses its lustre - there's no homebrew out for PSP that hasn't been done better by PC software. Finally, there's the cash you'll save; the few times I've been tempted to buy a PSP game, I've been lured away by the prices of the nearby DS games, which are all $15-20 cheaper. Hell, you can get a DS and a good game (Mario Kart or Nintendogs) for $100 less than the PSP without any games or useful expansions (mem cards, etc.). Looking past the aesthetics, the better buy is pretty clear, IMHO.
--- Bwah?
Well if you're torn between the 2 and are considering a DS anyways, just get that since it plays both DS and GBA games. That's what I have and I love it. Own probably twice as many GBA games as DS(all my gba are RPGs).
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.
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?
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
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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