Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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
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...
Any reason why crosswords only entertain for 78 minutes?
Because that's how long it takes for you to realize you just spent 78 minutes doing a dull, monotonous crossword puzzle.
And that's not 78 minutes for the trip. Its 78 minutes for your whole life.
Yeah, pen and paper games don't really seem like such a good idea to me. It seems like another extension of those lame car songs they sang in all those Chevy Chase National Lampoon movies. I can see what would happen:
"Take that pen out of your sister's eye, or so help me I WILL STOP THIS CAR!"
"The window is not a sketchpad! Don't think that I can't take this belt off while driving."
"No, you can't get high off the ink. I don't care if you drink it. We're not stopping to get you a coke."
"No, the dog doesn't like it when you put a pen there. DON'T PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH AFTER THAT!"
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The average person writes one letter ever 1 second. When you are playing a crossword puzzle, you are constantly visualizing yourself writing letters, even if the words make no sense. The average person will also spend about 5 tries on a word (which has an average length of 5.5 letters) before moving on, where there is a 5 second lag. With an average number of words in the puzzle of 66 and with a 30% first try efficiency (with successes taking an average of 2.5 tries), this accounts for 35.75 minutes. In the second try there is a 30% efficiency again with the remaining 70% which accounts for an additional 25.03 minutes. With the 49% remaining another 17.52 minutes is used. At this point most puzzle players give up, with a total time spent of 78.3 minutes. In reality most players quit about 2.36 tries through their last word (omitting the 5 second lag completely), making the total time spent at 78 minutes. Any questions?
Don't knock it.
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?
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
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.