Finding the Time to Game

10:50 AM on 04.07.2016 (server time)0

Alright so nothing too edgy today but I thought I’d share a couple thoughts on something that comes up a lot when you’re pushing thirty and still have a bit of self-respect.

Meaning, assuming you still have some responsibilities and by that I mean, a job, bills, expenditures, rent and all the things that come with that, food, hydro etc etc. Many gamers, or I guess people in general, will ask me, “How do you possibly play all those video games?”

Well first I’m an gaming addict, that certainly fucking helps but to stay relevant in the gaming industry you simply need to play a lot of shit and as the time goes on, all that recreational time we've had as children is being dominated by responsiblities or maybe just different forms of entertainment like Netflix or drinking (socializing). That said, I’m going to show you a couple tricks I’ve learnt that helps me keep up to date and stay relevant in the gaming universe.

What you’re gonna wanna do, and what I’ve always done, is leverage portable gaming. I know, portable gaming has kinda fallen off in the past couple years but believe it or not, it can be a great way to play many of the minor releases that come out in the industry.

We all know how much better the Nintendo 3DS is compared to the PS Vita, but honestly, I’ve had the best success keeping up with the gaming world with this device for the reasons I’ve mentioned. It’s small, sleek and straight to the point. I manages to get the point across without looking childish.

But most importantly, it has enough power to plow through all a lot of those cross platform games that are still relevant, but not as pronounced.

Let me line up a few great games that may be sitting on the Steam account that you could actually wipe out with ease with the PS Vita.

Hotline Miami, Shovel Knight, FF 10, Limbo, Rayman Origins, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Disgaea 3, Crypt of the NecroDancer, Broken Age, Spelunky, Resogun, Guacamelee!, Super Meat Boy, Rogue Legacy, Child of Light, and many more I’m not thinking of.

All those multiplatform games are ready to go in portable form on the PS Vita. Yeah sure you can probably play almost all of those on a PS3 but where is this time coming from? Not to mention all the great hidden gems that the PS Vita already has!

I honestly think, that when you take all of this into account the purchase of a PS Vita just makes sense. And if you have PS4, it’s a no brainer. Now remember, of course my first love is Nintendo and the Nintendo 3DS smokes the Vita in many regards. I can’t seriously advocate the PS Vita over the Nintendo 3DS when it comes to quality exclusives and ratings, I know. That being said, trust me when I say that the Vita has a particular sensibility to it ecstatically and operates a lot quicker on the draw. And while there may be a better line up on the Nintendo 3DS, when it comes to cross-platform titles, the portable version is exclusively on the PS Vita in many cases. Think about it.

What I like to do is keep the Vita with me in my coat pocket and have the DS by the bedside and have the Xbox ONE, PS4 or Wii U… console gaming, ready to go for the weekend.

(Also on a side note, It's also nice to keep everything as digital as possible. Let’s not be babies and have a bunch of game case cluttering up the home.)

Another thing, try do is stay up to date with quality game on the iPhone.

Yes, iPhone. Yeah, yeah, 'technically, the Android based phone have emulatorss and you can blah blah blah blah blah on them.'

In all seriousness, iPhone is an architecture that doesn’t have many deviations. When a game says it was built for iPhone 5, it’s on the developer to make it work. When a game it built for Android, the performance can sway radically varying on shitty phone, “Sorry bud, your phone Sony Xperia Galaxy Whatever-the-fuck doesn’t have the right ARM processor so the game lags a little bit when it’s not busy force closing itself.”

I won’t get in to it too much but trust me, get an iPhone, the fluidity alone is a major step up. But I know I’m not winning any fans on that around these parts. Too many gamers that bet too heavily on ‘customization’. ANYWAY.

In addition to that, iPhone is the standard bearer for pretty much the whole mobile gaming scene. It’s a great way to catch up on a lot of the old content that has been optimized for mobile play in short burst.

So like I said, if you can take all these portables, Vita in the jacket pocket, iPhone in the jean pocket, DS by the bedside and consoles on the weekend. You can stay connected all times, carry around a shit ton of games and still look like a professional in public. When you’re able to fill all the bus rides, waiting time and lunch times you’d be surprised how much gameplay can happen.

Those are my tips. Kind of a sloppy blog today but I'd be interested to know how people are finding the time to game nowadays because I find it get more and more challenging with age. Tomorrow, I'm going to be writing a blog about few quality games on the iPhone, because there's a couple good games out there and not enough people know about them.