Travel Gaming

I'm a few days out from hitting the road (er, air) to travel for a couple weeks, as I do every March, and as I do every March, I'm contemplating my travel gaming setup.

All Spring Training pictures are mine, by the way.

Things To Consider
First, we're flying this year instead of driving, which is rare. We'll probably resume driving again next year, but we wanted a break from the Missouri-Florida drive for a year, and to be able to maximize time at Spring Training and Key West. I've seen way more of Georgia and Georgia drivers than I ever need to see again. It's a beautiful state with nice people, but FUCK, they cannot drive.

Less travel time means less setting up and breaking down of my laptop setup (which is my usual gaming setup anyway), which will be nice.

The laptop is too big to really use in the car, and is definitely too big to use on a plane.

I have a Vita and 3DS, but even when we drive, I don't play them in the car, as I like to do nearly all the driving myself. I have a hard time relaxing if someone else is driving. Yeah, I'm THAT fucking guy.

Vacation Time vs Gaming Time
I'm not one of those people that believes 'you're on vacation, therefore, you can only have vacation fun!' Yes, I'm in Florida, but I also have time away from responsibility and the daily churn, so you're fucking right that I'm carving time out in Key West to game. Besides, Torment just came out!

I also want to stop lugging extra shit around. The Vita is a nifty little machine, and the fact that I can remote to my PS4 with it (though my PC can do this, too) is super-rad. I hate the lack of R2 and L2, though, and the rear touchpad is totally unacceptable as a replacement.

The 3DS ... meh ... I just haven't ever fallen in love with it.

Though Bravely Default looks dope as hell.

And then there's my iOS devices. I've yet to ever really enjoy playing something on a phone, but that doesn't mean I'll quit trying occasionally. I've got a Phoenix Wright game on there (I LOVED those back on the DS), and a handful of Final Fantasy titles, which are also on the Vita, and which I also have on Steam. Man, if I could share saves across all those, that would be super-rad.

Honestly, ideally, I'll set up near the pool in the back of the house in Key West, and rock some more Torment.

Though, Mass Effect Andromeda is hitting early access via Origin Access during my last few days in Key West ...

The Plan
So, this trip is my annual pilgrimage to Cardinals Spring Training, which is the single-most relaxing thing I do every year. Some years, though, the trophy wife makes some noise about wanting to spend less time (or no time) traveling with the team, and instead wants to hang out down in the Keys, at one of my parents' houses.

While in Jupiter, most of my time is occupied by two things: baseball and dining. I love the food down there, and it's the only seafood I'll eat. Florida has utterly wrecked fish for me. I won't eat any in Missouri anymore.

Also, the kids and us are crammed into a hotel room together, and we have a bunch of family there, so I get very little mouse/keyboard time. Maybe this is an ideal time to convince myself that I should try a portable game again?

We're cutting my Spring Training trip a little short this year so that we can spend almost a week in Key West (*sob*), and that's where I plan to get a little more time gaming, though it will be outside. And yeah, I'll do shit with actual humans, too, but goddam, keep your judgment to yourself.

I would really like to finish Torment while I'm on vacation, if possible, but only if I can do it and have an immersive experience. We'll see. I absolutely love the game, but my understanding is that it's not nearly as along as what I've been playing lately, and that it's clocking in at around 30 hours. Like I said, we'll see.

We're back a few days before Mass Effect officially releases, but I've extended my vacation to the day after Mass Effect releases, so that I can have some time to spend with it.

And then, after a pretty crazy March (Torment, Horizon, MEA, Spring Training, Key West), we have a VERY quiet April, until Dawn of War 3 on 4/27, and then a super-fun weekend trip to South Beach in Miami, which also coincides with Prey's release. It's an awesome spring, after an absolute shit winter.

Wrapping Up
I just suck at portable gaming. I have both the 3DS and Vita, and just have a hard time bringing myself to play much on them. I played quite a bit on the GBA and DS, but at some point, I just stopped giving a shit. My gaming laptops have provided an amazing, if bulky, experience.

I'd like to enjoy the portable games a bit more. I've nearly given up on mobile gaming (cell phones). I'm glad that a lot of people find experiences that they don't feel are complete wastes of time, but I am not among them.

Oh, hey, look, it's a Dawn of War trailer!



-Blaine

I'm Wiped Like a Raid Team

So, no big long thing on here today. I'm tired, frustrated, and just wanna game a bit.

However, I did see some real cool shit on the intertron today, that I'd like to share.

First up, the trailer for Shen's Last Gift makes me wanna reinstall X-COM (and then 2, when I finally finish Enemy Within.)

And here's a cool preview from GameSpot of the new DLC.

And, by the way, don't tell anyone, but I've never finished an XCOM game, despite it being an amazing series.

Also, this trailer for Scorn is wonderfully unsettling. I cannot wait to check this game out.

Was that just absolutely unnerving or what? Someone's a Giger fan, apparently. And that's a great thing!

Alright, I'm gonna go game. I'm on the road tomorrow, but I plan to be doing some check-ins from the road here and via YouTube.

Stay frosty!

-Blaine

Travel & Tech

We're traveling this weekend. We're going to visit my in-laws in northern Illinois (east of the middle of nowhere), and they FINALLY have real internet. I've known my wife for 15 years, and in all that time, they've either had dial-up, or they (and I'm not shitting you) bounced a satellite signal off a grain silo.

Now, though, they finally have true broadband, and it's actually even faster than what we have.

So, that's nice.

Before that, I'd actually set my phone up somewhere on a window sill, wherever I could get more than two bars of LTE, or 4G, if I had to settle for that, then wirelessly tether the ROG (my awesome Asus Republic of Gamers laptop) to it, if I had to work or game. Or use a tablet. Or do much of anything.

So, that's actually a huge alleviation. I used to run up monster data usage there, and now, I won't.

If we can just get them to get rid of the well water, pig shit smell, and get air conditioning, we'll be all set.

They're awesome people, though, and I always end up having a good (if a bit austere) time.

One thing I'm constantly turning over in my head is how to get a better in-car PC gaming experience. My ROG is a 17-inch screen, which is, right off the bat, a bit too big for in-car gaming. Plus, there's the question of the mouse, and ... it just doesn't really work. I still have my Vita, 3DS, and iPad, though. It would be nice to get something PC gaming going, though. I've thought about just setting up the ROG in the hatch, tethering it to a phone, then connecting my wife's Surface to the network, then getting the Steam streaming going. That might actually work.

Yeah, I know, I'm crazy, but I love thinking about shit like this.

And it's only a four-and-a-half hour drive, but it's been fun, over the years, tinkering and improving the overall car travel experience.

Besides, I'd much rather drive somewhere than fly, if time allows for it. I get to control a lot more of the experience, and it's got more of the feel of a journey than flying does. Besides, whenever I fly, I feel like I'm surrendering my rights and willingly becoming a prisoner. It's usually not a bad experience, but it's rarely a good one, either. Driving, for me, feels like freedom.

Now that I have two kids, it's actually become an imperative that I improve the in-car experience, too.

One evolution that's been really interesting to be a part of, in this regard, is cellular phones. When she and I first met, I had the Matrix phone (the one that Neo gets from Morpheus via delivery in the first Matrix film; I loved it when I first saw it, then bought one several months later.) I think you could, technically, tether a computer to it. But looking at websites on it was awful, and it really was, basically, just a phone.

Now, I use my phone as a camera, a book reader, a web browser, a music player, and if I wanted to subject myself to it, I could play bad F2P games on it. Ooh, and like every other modern device, it can stream NetFlix.

Anyway, in terms of in-car entertainment, phones have brought that notion waaay forward. Now, we constantly have one of the phones broadcasting a wifi signal, and the wife and kids join it as needed, while I stream my music to the car's head unit, while I drive. Good times.

Anyway, I gotta get back to the grind.

Oh, real quick, and I'm gonna post more on this some other time, but, though I love the film, The Matrix does not hold up well now. I watched it last night. Anyway, gotta run!

-Blaine