In it for the long haul: 3 games that will survive a long journey

The summer holidays may be over, but if you're planning a flight soon, you might want to consider owning one of these games to keep you entertained.

The best games to play during a long flight are low intensity games: ones that won’t drain your laptop's battery and have a slower pace or focus more on storytelling.

For instance, puzzle games or turn-based games would be preferable to first-person shooters when you're stuck in a tiny plane seat. Speaking of which, the ROG Strix GL553VW has a smaller footprint, making it a great, transportable gaming laptop. The GL552VW features the a GTX 960M to provide stunning graphics and also boasts up to 32MB of memory.

STEINS;GATE 

This Japanese visual novel is a classic of the genre and has recently landed on Steam. STEINS;GATE follows a young, self-proclaimed ‘mad scientist’ and his friends as they discover a way to change the past through text messages. It’s a neat variation on the time travel narrative and is full of vibrant characters. Despite the sci-fi tone, it's fundamentally a story about friendship and the lengths someone will go to protect their companions.

As with most visual novels, there's very little gameplay in STEINS;GATE. Most of your time is spent reading dialogue and the characters' thoughts. Often you'll need to make choices that will decide the course of the game, and there are multiple endings and routes through the game to discover, but otherwise there's little player interaction. The perfect relaxing entertainment for a flight.

Hearthstone

If you're fortunate enough to be on a flight with good WiFi, Hearthstone may be the game for you. The competitive card game has broken into the eSports scene and is massively popular because of its fun mechanics and the fact it's based on the beloved Warcraft franchise.

Players build decks of 30 cards with the aim of destroying their opponent's life points. It often feels like trying to solve an elaborate puzzle: you're trying to predict what your opponent might play, while figuring out how to use your cards most efficiently. Being a turn-based card game, you can take your time with the game, although a well-fought match can be very intense.

FTL: Faster Than Light

Fans of science fiction and space exploration may get a kick out of FTL. In the game, you're in charge of a spaceship as you explore the unknown and fight other ships. You get to make several decisions about your ship: what weapons to buy, where to assign crew members, who you will sacrifice to put out a fire. Combat is challenging, forcing the player to decide between attack and defence: do you assign more power to the weapons or to the shields? Will you send a boarding party to take down an enemy ship or boost the engines and try to flee.

You're able to pause the game at any moment, which can be helpful. It's a fiendishly difficult game, so expect to be blown up quite often, but it’s a rogue-like game, which means each time you play will be a different experience as enemies and discoveries are randomised.

 

By Luke Graham