How To Keep Boredom At Bay

19 Mar 2010 at 00:00:00 by Tim McDonald

I have a problem. I actually have lots, but right now, the one I'm focusing on is that I'm going on holiday for a week. This isn't the sort of relaxing, sand and surf holiday, or one with loads of activities; I'm going back home to see people. As such, I'll have a lot of free time. I'll be away from my consoles and my computers, and when I'm not drinking heavily I'll probably want to play something. My only real form of interactive electronic entertainment will be a small netbook. What's a gamer to do?

Well, first: lie. A small netbook will not be my only form of entertainment. Chances are good that I'll have access to my DS, but having already worked my way through Ace Attorney Investigations that's probably going to be used solely for Picross. Let's just assume that I'm going to be mostly reliant on the netbook.

Now, the problems with the netbook are twofold. Firstly, a netbook is largely underpowered. Compared to the towering black monolith that is my regular gaming machine, the netbook really is insignificant; it's not like I'm going to be able to stick Metro 2033 or Command & Conquer 4 or any of the other PC releases I've been waiting for on there.

Secondly, even if I could run these PC games, I wouldn't have access to my save games and profiles (well, barring C&C4.) This, I suppose, is the one area in which I'm still waiting for the world to catch up. Ubi's DRM has it right, here: access to your save games from any machine is a fantastic concept, and the aforementioned C&C4 has this too. I don't like the implications of a momentary connection drop forcing me to restart a mission – local saves would be nice too, y'know, as would the ability to play offline and upload my saves and stats later – but the hell with it. It's still better than nothing. I think.

Anyway. The combination of these two things means that I'm stuck with older games, games that I've played before (and thus don't care about finishing, or losing the saves in a week) or, surprise surprise, indie games – the only things that are likely to have been both recent and capable of running on a terrible, terrible computer.

There are two things that will function as my saviour, here, although realistically it's likely to be one. First is the mighty Steam, granting me access to many, many games. Yes, okay, most of these games are unplayable on a netbook, but there must be a few things, surely? Maybe Aquaria will run. Or Saira. Considering Braid didn't when the netbook attempted that over Christmas, though, I may be getting a little hopeful.

The other, more plausible saviour is GOG.com, the best website in the world that isn't this one. GOG posts up loads of old games that you can't buy commercially anymore, DRM free, and by and large they're set to work in Windows. As far as I can tell that's often through a DOSBox wrapper, but hey, whatever works.

And, y'know, there's a reason I post up GOG news items when I spot them. Old games are important to me, and they don't get the due that they deserve when compared to other old medium. It can be harder to go back to them than it is an old form of any other medium, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that there are some games out there which have never been bettered in what they've attempted. To that end, at least some of my time will probably be spent curled up with Gabriel Knight, or the Another World Anniversary Edition.

Which leaves me with a list of stuff to attempt. I'll trawl GOG for things to play, certainly, and everything mentioned in my Steam rant will be attempted. Other than that, I can't wait to give Digital a go, and I'm sure I can squeeze in another playthrough of VVVVVV. Perhaps I'll get around to finishing La-Mulana.

In all honesty, dear readers, throw suggestions at me. If there's something awesome out there that you think I might've missed, tell me. Regale me with tales of what's on Steam that I can't miss, or which GOG game I shouldn't have overlooked all those years ago. Or just tell me about indie games I've missed. Comments are right there, after all, and I'm going to need your help. I'll let you know how it goes next week.

Comment