You know what nobody ever talks about? What dog tonsils feel like. You know what else? The fact you can play games on planes.
Obviously, I'm not talking about games on iPhones or iPads, or your 3DS. Or organising a big game of British Bulldog with the other passengers - but the games available on in-flight entertainment systems.
The first time I ever flew, back in 1984, you got what you were given... which in that instance was a solitary in-flight movie, projected feebly onto a pale fatty's torso. Specifically, the film was 'Blame it on Rio', starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore. Just the sort of film a 13 year-old boy appreciates.
Nowadays, flying is like having Netflix stuffed into the back of the seat in front of you, albeit with a better selection of films and TV shows.
AWARE
As you are no doubt aware, due to my constant reminders, I went away recently. No... that isn't a euphemism for being sectioned, or having being subjected to an intervention from my loved ones, or dying. This was a voluntary going-away. For a "holiday".
Sadly, this meant I was trapped aboard a British Airways aeroplane for several hours, during which I failed to watch an entire film all the way through, read even a single magazine article or book, or play more than five minutes of any of the many 3DS games I brought with me.
What I did do - other than complain about how bored I felt, and stare at the flight path map, watching the seconds click down - was play through the in-flight video games, for your benefit.
Obviously, I'm not talking about games on iPhones or iPads, or your 3DS. Or organising a big game of British Bulldog with the other passengers - but the games available on in-flight entertainment systems.
The first time I ever flew, back in 1984, you got what you were given... which in that instance was a solitary in-flight movie, projected feebly onto a pale fatty's torso. Specifically, the film was 'Blame it on Rio', starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore. Just the sort of film a 13 year-old boy appreciates.
Nowadays, flying is like having Netflix stuffed into the back of the seat in front of you, albeit with a better selection of films and TV shows.
AWARE
As you are no doubt aware, due to my constant reminders, I went away recently. No... that isn't a euphemism for being sectioned, or having being subjected to an intervention from my loved ones, or dying. This was a voluntary going-away. For a "holiday".
Sadly, this meant I was trapped aboard a British Airways aeroplane for several hours, during which I failed to watch an entire film all the way through, read even a single magazine article or book, or play more than five minutes of any of the many 3DS games I brought with me.
What I did do - other than complain about how bored I felt, and stare at the flight path map, watching the seconds click down - was play through the in-flight video games, for your benefit.
EXHAUSTIVE
Don't expect any exhaustive guide to in-flight gaming here. Suffice to say, I don't "go away" regularly, so I don't know how BA's offering compares to offerings from other airlines.
Or, indeed, how my experience in Scum Class compared to the passengers who could afford nicer seats for their bottoms. They probably had 50" widescreen TVs, or Oculus Rift headsets, or an intense, in-person monologue from the popular thespian Kevin Spacey.
Looking it up online, Virgin Atlantic's Premium passengers now get nice, PS Vita-style touchscreen controllers. Which, obviously, makes them the real scum. Ha ha. Psyche! You might have nice seats, but everyone hates you!
Anyway... yeah. Here's some half-hearted, barely conclusive, look at BA's in-flight gaming options.
Don't expect any exhaustive guide to in-flight gaming here. Suffice to say, I don't "go away" regularly, so I don't know how BA's offering compares to offerings from other airlines.
Or, indeed, how my experience in Scum Class compared to the passengers who could afford nicer seats for their bottoms. They probably had 50" widescreen TVs, or Oculus Rift headsets, or an intense, in-person monologue from the popular thespian Kevin Spacey.
Looking it up online, Virgin Atlantic's Premium passengers now get nice, PS Vita-style touchscreen controllers. Which, obviously, makes them the real scum. Ha ha. Psyche! You might have nice seats, but everyone hates you!
Anyway... yeah. Here's some half-hearted, barely conclusive, look at BA's in-flight gaming options.
There's a surprisingly large selection of games on British Airways flights.
Arranged into several categories - arcade, puzzle, etc. - they're exactly the mix of stuff you'd expect; basic platform games, clones of ancient arcade games, trivia quizzes, a dreadful pinball game, and a few licensed classics. I managed to win a pretend £32,000 on a version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Depressing. Also depressing is how dirty this screen is. How many filthy traveller hands have smeared their way across it? Why are they all so greasy?
You can play games against your fellow passengers.
Trivia, Battleship and Tetris are your multiplayer options aboard a BA flight. You can challenge a player whose seat number you know, or enter a multiplayer lounge. Which was empty for the entire duration of the flight. During my frequent jaunts back and forth to the lavatory - merely an excuse to see what the other passengers were doing - I didn't see a single one of them playing the in-flight games. Interestingly, this photograph is partially obscured by the tip of my "thumb" in the upper right corner...
British Airways don't like it when you call yourself "Piss".
Presumably, this could offend the passengers in the higher class cabins, potentially resulting in them demanding I be thrown off the plane - right into God's face.
However, "Bummo" is an acceptable alternative.
At least, it is in the in-flight version of Battleship. Just call me "Rear Admiral Bummo".
Several of the games are made by Electronic Arts.
I know I played this game called Poppit!, but I don't really remember anything about it. I think it might've been a sort of Pang! clone. Or Bust-A-Move, or something like that. Though to be honest... I'm making that up based entirely upon this title screen. Look: it features a cactus man as its mascot, whom I shall henceforth dub "Pricky Prickston".
You can save your games on a USB key.
Why would anybody want to save their game and profile on an in-flight games system? Even if they were a frequent flyer, who would care that much? For the most part, the games are terrible. The only person I could imagine doing this is someone who is unaware that smartphones and other handheld gaming devices exist. Though what someone like that would be doing travelling around with a USB key is anyone's guess.
That said... this Space Invaders/Galaga clone was semi-decent.
And by "semi-decent" I mean "about as decent as a semi".
Biobot was the best game I played.
It was a proper platformer - like a sort of very, very basic Earthworm Jim. Presumably, it reminded me of that because the Biobot character had a kind of gun thing, and you could ride around pigs. Though writing that down, I'm equally reminded of the years I spent working on a Louisiana pork farm.
Unlike most of the other games, Biobot's controls seemed specifically tailored to the in-flight entertainment system handset, making it almost playable.
Unlike most of the other games, Biobot's controls seemed specifically tailored to the in-flight entertainment system handset, making it almost playable.
It even had a story and cut-scenes!
Which, obviously, I skipped. I'm talking here like Biobot is an actual good game. It isn't, of course, but it's the closest thing the British Airways in-flight entertainment system has to a good game.
You know: like being a judge at Crufts, and having to give the Best-Looking Dog prize to a mangy old mutt with two legs and half a face and a prolapsed rectum dragging behind it... because the only other entrants in the category were a urine-soaked crow and the word "dog" that somebody had written on the underside of a flip-flop.
You know: like being a judge at Crufts, and having to give the Best-Looking Dog prize to a mangy old mutt with two legs and half a face and a prolapsed rectum dragging behind it... because the only other entrants in the category were a urine-soaked crow and the word "dog" that somebody had written on the underside of a flip-flop.
The version of Asteroids was virtually unplayable, however.
Absurdly, the graphics were incredibly small and fiddly - just what you want on a tiny screen. The extreme sensitivity of your ship's momentum was like sliding a greased mollusc around a non-stick frying pan. Admittedly, much of its awfulness might've been due to the controller. Uncomfortable to hold, the thumbstick is like playing with a miniature Slinky.
Seriously - look at this thing.
It's like something a mid-90s Atari or Commodore would've designed. Or the handset from an overpriced CD-ROM console, circa 1993. Also, bear in mind that it too has probably been manhandled by all sorts of people, from all over the world. Dirty, dirty foreigners, of the sort that had also been pawing at the touch screen, like a bunch of grunting cro-magnons trying to retrieve a bird from the wrong side of a glass partition.
In-Flight Pac-Man isn't entirely awful, but suffers from being reduced to a tiny screen in the middle of an already tiny screen.
At least it's relatively faithful to the original, albeit - again - hobbled by the controller. Look at the Pac-Men dotted around the screen there. Look how happy they are. It felt like they were mocking me.
In conclusion, the only games that worked were the ones which didn't require reflexes - the trivia games and Battleship, basically. Surely, if you're going to go to the expense of making games for your in-flight entertainment system, you could at least spend a few extra quid on hardware that makes it possible to play them? Otherwise... what's the point? These were games designed for people who don't actually like games, or ever play games, and still think that games are the dreadful, virtually unplayable things that they were in the 80s.
Well done, British Airways, for perpetuating an outdated belief. Why not go the whole hog and get some excessive gore and strobe lights in there? Let's get some in-flight, video game-induced epilepsy going on. That'd liven up the flight almost as much as the woman in the seat adjacent to me on the way home, who spent the entire journey retching noisily into a handkerchief. And who - after I'd fallen asleep in my extra legroom exit aisle seat, during a brief window in her retching - I found lolling around on the floor in front of me, for some reason.
Still retching.
In conclusion, the only games that worked were the ones which didn't require reflexes - the trivia games and Battleship, basically. Surely, if you're going to go to the expense of making games for your in-flight entertainment system, you could at least spend a few extra quid on hardware that makes it possible to play them? Otherwise... what's the point? These were games designed for people who don't actually like games, or ever play games, and still think that games are the dreadful, virtually unplayable things that they were in the 80s.
Well done, British Airways, for perpetuating an outdated belief. Why not go the whole hog and get some excessive gore and strobe lights in there? Let's get some in-flight, video game-induced epilepsy going on. That'd liven up the flight almost as much as the woman in the seat adjacent to me on the way home, who spent the entire journey retching noisily into a handkerchief. And who - after I'd fallen asleep in my extra legroom exit aisle seat, during a brief window in her retching - I found lolling around on the floor in front of me, for some reason.
Still retching.
RSS Feed
