
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.
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.
Unlike most of the other games, Biobot's controls seemed specifically tailored to the in-flight entertainment system handset, making it almost playable.
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.
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.