As such, your Shack Staff has prepared a rundown of our favorite on-the-go gaming experiences to better prepare our readers for that long-awaited dream vacation to Scranton, New Jersey, or wherever your travels may take you.
As any veteran worldskipper will tell you, solid preparation is your best defense against speaking to your family.
Final Fantasy Tactics
Square Enix
Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PSP
Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics series rewards that miserable part of the brain that whispers "just one more battle, then I'll sleep." With an elaborate and exhaustive class and ability system present in each of its three iterations, there's always more development, customization and fine-tuning to be done to make your crew just a little bit better at laying waste to your enemies.
A revised PSP edition of the PS1 classic, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions brings loads of new content and characters to push the OCD envelope even further. While its lighthearted brethren Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA) and Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (NDS) don't feature quite so much murder and intrigue, they bring an almost overwhelming number of new races, jobs and quests to keep you busy.
Skirmishes tend to play out between 15-20 minutes, making for great pick-up-and-play experiences while on the go. The amount of planning and coordination in preparing your battle party might be better spent getting your finances in order, but screw it—who needs to retire, anyway? -A.L.
Tetris
Alexey Pajitnov
Game Boy
There's something latently mysterious about millions of American children being methodically taught to hum classic Russian folk songs during the height of the Cold War.
Perhaps there is a deeper, darker story behind Alexey Pajitnov's simple game, created while he was working at a Soviet government-funded R&D academy. One imagines the Kremlin descending upon his office with a team of sinister developers, pressing the kindly Pajitnov to redesign his colorful space simulator into a simple block-based lesson in socialism. Align those unique blocks into a single uniform body, or face extermination. Bow to St. Basil, ignorant capitalist pig-child.
Either way, like chess before it, Tetris became a cherished pastime among the proletariat and the bourgeois, the young and the old. Played on the brick-like Game Boy--a hardened device that even a nuclear blast couldn't phase--Tetris immediately clicked. Nintendo's machine felt like it was created to play that game, and vice versa.
While the gaming industry continues its steady push toward narrative equality amongst other forms of entertainment, it is the random, surprising potential of gaming that continues to set the medium apart for me. After all, how exciting was the second time you found out that Haley Joel can see dead people? When has an album changed drastically, other than that time you discovered the deeper meaning in Prince's "I Would Die 4 U"? One gets the feeling that Great American Novels would be far easier to teach if they featured randomized dungeons.
Tetris capitalizes on that essence of unpredictability. It is handheld heroin of the purest quality, presenting an endless stream of unfolding possibilities and real-time strategies. Moments of intense, red-faced prayer never produced a 1x4 block when you needed it, but we happily plowed ahead anyway, satisfied to match shapes on level 1 or level 55.
And thanks to its immense popularity, Pajitnov's game has always been there, whether it be on your TI-84 or Nintendo DS. The latter version is our favorite Tetris du jour, but the original Game Boy version still has a warm place in our block-addled hearts. - N.B.
Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island
Nintendo
Game Boy Advance
Out of the thousand-plus video games in my collection, Nintendo's Game Boy Advance port of Yoshi's Island is the one I have with me at nearly all times.
That may seem an exaggeration, but I assure you it's not. Ever since a cancelled flight left me stranded in an airport for a day with two dead portables and no chargers (they were in my checked luggage), I've always carried a Game Boy Micro and its respective AC adapter in my messenger bag.
And in that Game Boy Micro? Yoshi's Island. Its appealing cartoony aesthetic and egg-tossing platforming antics are enough to keep me entertained acroos short and long-term bursts--proving especially useful when in-flight movies include The Bucket List and 27 Dresses -C.F.
Puzzle QuestEngine Interactive
Nintendo DS Keep reading! I know the moment you saw the word "puzzle" in the title you were about to skip. Don't! Outside of the days of Tetris when that was all the rage on the original Game Boy, I've never actually felt any compulsion to play puzzle games. Yet, in a fit of curiosity along with being stuck in a room with a DS and no other games available, I tried this and loved it. How bizarre.
Simply put, what Puzzle Quest does strangely enough is blend RPG fighting elements with a puzzle game. You actually build skills cast spells and things like that you love while battling your computer opponent. Fireballs? Sure!
Really, if you enjoy games like Diablo or the RPG and puzzle genres, or just something different to fight boredom while stuck in an airplane for a few hours give it a shot. If you gave the game a try on Xbox 360 or PC and hated it, I would still suggest you give it a try—the DS stylus is a stunningly perfect fit. If you still hate the game, chances are I hate you. -S.G.
You've read our favorites, but what are your old standards of vacation gaming? Share with us in the comments.
