Gaming away from home

Recently I’ve had to temporarily take leave of my main sources of gaming joy, namely my PC and moderate collection of various last gen/retro consoles, to move somewhere sans gaming equipment. Sadface. Luckily, I’ve been lent a laptop (Thanks again Rhys) for work and there’s a couple of lovely unsecured wireless networks hanging around, so I’ve managed to remain online. Fine for everyday use, but for gaming?

I’ve lost my specs, any games on my hard drive… my Steam list! All I could bring was my external hard drive.. so here’s my guide to gaming without your usual gaming equipment:

Kongregate is your saviour

MoneySeize level select screen

If you have access to the internet, Kongregate and other Flash gaming sites are an invaluable weapon against the neverending, futile struggle between you and the slow decay of your soul via boredom. Check out the top lists in categories of game you’re interested in, and then move to hunting down random games. If you’re the type of gamer who likes to whore themselves out in order to obtain little pictures and increment a number by your name, hit the badges page on Kongregate. You’ll love it.

(Recommendations: Insurgo [Review], Sushi Cat [Episode] and MoneySeize [Review])

ROMs are illegal

You should definitely not go and get some retro emulation software and hunt down some classic game ROMs, because that is illegal and I would never urge you to do something illegal. If I were to do so however (which I wouldn’t), I’d recommend KFusion for retro SEGA emulation, VirtualBoyAdvance for GBA or older emulation and ePSXe for PS1 emulation. Of course, I’m not going to urge you to download these, and therefore cannot recommend them to you for some lovely, nostalgia heavy gaming. Another thing I wouldn’t do is express how easy it is to get hold of ROMs for various systems online, and suggest you use your search engine of choice to do so. Good thing too eh? What with it being illegal of course.

(Recommendations: None, I told you! They’re illegal, don’t do it :3)

Indie or Older titles

GTA I and II are free from Rockstar

If, like me, you have a low-spec laptop or computer at your disposal, you might miss your usual lineup of demanding games and have this compounded by the irritation of attempting to play some games that simply won’t run on the machine. Hope is not lost! Have a looksee for some places offering older titles for digital download, or hunt down some newwer indie games, which often have less demanding specifications than big titles. You may have noticed, but I’ve been hooked to VVVVVV, an indie title from Distractionware with easy to reach required specs, go play it! Similarly, casual games will often have much lower specs, and just as much replayability, especially if you go for a good addictive one.

(Recommendations: VVVVVV [Review], GTA 1 and 2, Peggle)

Borrow, Borrow, Borrow!

Another easy way to get some gaming into your current, gameless, life is to borrow a handheld console from some understanding friends. I’ve gotten my hands on a DS from a relative (Thanks Katie), and it’s saved 40+ hours of my life from being boring. Albeit if you’re being lent a handheld, it’s probably not used much and probably won’t have the newest of games. So what? More games to play! Pokémon Ruby and Beyblade V-Force might not be staples of the DS games market (Especially as they’re GBA games, but you know what I mean) but they’re fun, at least for a while.

(Recommendations: Anything you can get your hands on)

Game through others

Gaming through others covers various ways of coping with the inability to game. You could go and hit some multiplayer with friends, you could read review after review after review, you could watch gameplay videos, or you could do my favourite suggestion, and listen to videogames podcasts. Have we introduced ourselves yet? :3

(Recommendations; Someone better than us)

You’re perfectly able to keep up a nice ritual of gaming without any serious gaming equipment, though you might want to get back to your usual habits as soon as possible. You might miss something new!

<3

PS: I wrote this post after getting confirmation of being accepted into two new beta testing schemes. Neither of which I can partake in ’till I get back to my usual PC, how irritating is that, eh?