I have managed to travel to my home town of Ireland twice in the last two months, so more then usual. It has been blissfully rainy and wonderfully coated in damp mist living up to all my usual expectations. Sadly my passport ran out so I have to stay put for a bit while it gets posted off to reincarnation land, but I must admit a break from Ryanair will not be a bad thing.
Ryanair get a hard time but they certainly have their place in the world. They are cheap, even with the taxes and mystery costs, they deliver me on time, and they seem to own air worthy planes. Now having said that there are no little extras to make me smile along the way, but I always know just what I’m getting: bog standard and nothing else. Except that time in January when Ryanair surprised me.
Everyone in the world probably knows about this except me, but I generally burn the paper if it is giving Ryanair too much media attention. I never really know what they are up to, because when it all boils down to it they are not up to anything, they are just flaunting their name to remind us all that if you want a bus on wings they have one. So it was news to me that you can now use your mobile phone on a flight.
Totally worth a fiver.
At first I thought this was great, then about five seconds later I realised it actually meant that my rubbish flight would now be too noisy with phones ringing and teenagers chatting to actually get the hour of sleep I so badly needed. So then I was grumpy for a while before realising that this opened up a whole new entertainment avenue for me that I normally crossed off the list for flights — mobile gaming.
Ryanair only let you take a teaspoon of stuff onto the plane so my brick DS generally doesn’t make it. However my phone is always with me. Being a diligent flier I never normally have it out in-case someone quizzes me about ‘in flight mode’ or some such functionality. Now with phones a free for all on the plane I can game away to my heart’s content.
So what really makes a game good for these trips? I always feel Tetris has everything you could possibly want out of a good mobile game: easy to see on the little screen, not so taxing you fall over stuff, and totally engrossing so the flight takes all of three mental minutes. However if I’m going to game on the plane then I’m going to game all through the airport, and on the way to the airport. No more whiling away the hours by buying McDonalds and eating it really slowly before coating myself in every branded perfume known to man, oh no, just gaming now. So where Tetris loses is in the pause department. If I pause then go through the boarding gate, fumble for my passport, smile at the nice people, and find a seat that doesn’t smell, I can’t unpause. Well, I can but I am no longer in the right mindset to pick it up and I lose within a few moments. This is really annoying if you just spent the last half an hour getting a pretty great score.
Up to the clouds and beyond...
So the answer is a game that only lasts a minute or so, like quick races, or mini levels of stuff. Things that if you have to pause and then die it won’t matter because on that bit you were only several seconds in anyway. It also has to be something with re-playability, no story or it will feel like hard work, and totally engrossing. The jury is still out. I was pretty happy on 3D roller-coaster the other day on my Sony Ericsson but once I have beaten all my high scores a few times I think it is going to wear pretty thin.
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March 14th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Well, will wonders never cease. Two blogs in a month from you, Eleanor.
I used to game on my past cellphones. However, I haven’t dropped a single dime for about four years on a cellphone game. I guess with a tight budget and little time to devote towards a mobile game would be the reason. Yet here I am about to drop at least $40 on a game on the DS this weekend along with the strategy guide for the game and you have to wonder where my priorities lie in terms of gaming and money. (If the previous statement doesn’t make any sense, I don’t have a clue either).
Maybe I should give mobile gaming another shot.
Speaking of which, that rollercoaster game is on a cellphone? It looks like it should be on a PC. That does look nice. Is it exclusive on Sony Ericsson cell phones or is it available on any company’s cellphone?
And passports expire?
March 18th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Yes passports expire! Every ten years, it makes sense really, think how different you look every ten years.
I don’t know if it is exclusive, probably not. Hope the DS game was good.