LONG flights coming up. Looking for compact controller suggestions and possibly a few games.

Hey everyone, so I have a series of very long flights coming up and I want to play something on the planes. To start off with, I don't have a gaming laptop. I have a Dell Inspiron that has a i5-7200U and a Intel HD 620. I have tested a few games and they run decent, but I want some suggestions. The game I REALLY wanted to be able to play on the plane was Oblivion. I loaded it up 2 days ago and it ran fine at pretty much highest settings at 1080p, but the problem was the control. I won't have room for a mouse, so I want and need a controller. I have the 360 controller but that thing is bulky. It would be great if there was something out there that was a relatively compact design that I could take with me on my carry-on.

Btw, Oblivion I can't get working with a controller. I know it's meant for a KB+M but it'd be fucking awesome if I could get it working. Read plenty of guides online, but none of them seem to make Oblivion work very well. Would a Steam controller work better?

Also, if anyone has some some suggestions for me on some not very demanding games that should work on newer integrated graphics that's be welcome as well.

Cheers.

Download some old Infocom text-based games. You can find them for free with a little internet searching.

Buy a Switch or download some phone games.

Honestly, long flights aren't that big a deal. Just got on the plane after not sleeping at all the night before. Sleep as much as you can. Watch some in flight movies (they generally have a decent selection of new movies these days, so anything you missed in a theater, they might have). Mess about with your phone. Listen to some music. Tap your foot some.

I find generally anything involving a lot of hand eye coordination suffers due to any amount of jitter on the plane. I thought it would be possible to do work, but it's just kinda not. So I find it's just better to take all that out of the equation and just do whatever you have in front of you.

The Switch idea sounds decent if you have money to burn. Generally there isn't enough space for a laptop, even an ultralight/ultrabook laptop, especially since the chair in front of you will invariably be leaning back (meaning it will have to be even closer to you for the screen to get vertical). If you plan to game your choices will generally be a handheld device... unless you're in first class. In which case I guess you can just do whatever you want.

dan1 said:

Buy a Switch or download some phone games.

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I almost bought a Switch, but no Mario game, no Doom, no Skyrim. All the games I want to play aren't out yet, and I don't care about Zelda.

Just yesterday after I posted this just ordered a bunch of games for my Playstation Vita. Might actually finally get some use out of it. So that might actually get me my game fix while flying.

UnknownSouljer said:

Honestly, long flights aren't that big a deal. Just got on the plane after not sleeping at all the night before. Sleep as much as you can. Watch some in flight movies (they generally have a decent selection of new movies these days, so anything you missed in a theater, they might have). Mess about with your phone. Listen to some music. Tap your foot some.

I find generally anything involving a lot of hand eye coordination suffers due to any amount of jitter on the plane. I thought it would be possible to do work, but it's just kinda not. So I find it's just better to take all that out of the equation and just do whatever you have in front of you.

The Switch idea sounds decent if you have money to burn. Generally there isn't enough space for a laptop, even an ultralight/ultrabook laptop, especially since the chair in front of you will invariably be leaning back (meaning it will have to be even closer to you for the screen to get vertical). If you plan to game your choices will generally be a handheld device... unless you're in first class. In which case I guess you can just do whatever you want.

Click to expand...

Well, my laptop is a 2-in-1. I figured I could flip it around, so the screen is facing up at me and the keyboard is facing down onto the pullout tray. That way I don't have to worry about the person in front of me leaning back too much since the keyboard will be towards the chair in front instead of me.

zamardii12 said:

It would be great if there was something out there that was a relatively compact design that I could take with me on my carry-on.

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8bitdo controllers are pretty small. (Used primarily for retropie/emulators.) The ones with the analog sticks have almost the same functionality, button wise, as an Xbox controller. Just missing the extra bumpers and I am not sure if the analogs are buttons or not. Can't speak to the quality of the analog sticks, I imagine the Xbox controller will still feel nicer. But they are very small!

Re: controllers not working, maybe try something like joy2key. It overrides the game's keymapping and just basically simulates keyboard or mouse buttons.

zamardii12 said:

I almost bought a Switch, but no Mario game, no Doom, no Skyrim. All the games I want to play aren't out yet, and I don't care about Zelda.

Just yesterday after I posted this just ordered a bunch of games for my Playstation Vita. Might actually finally get some use out of it. So that might actually get me my game fix while flying.

Click to expand...

Doom is coming. There is Skyrim if you're into that. And of course all the games on Virtual Console. VC alone might be worth the buy if that's something you're into. Just buy a massive SD card and you're good to go.

zamardii12 said:

Well, my laptop is a 2-in-1. I figured I could flip it around, so the screen is facing up at me and the keyboard is facing down onto the pullout tray. That way I don't have to worry about the person in front of me leaning back too much since the keyboard will be towards the chair in front instead of me.

Click to expand...

Not a terrible solution. If you like emulation then you could get a PS3/PS4 controller and play SNES games with ease. Or if your machine has a little bit more power, PS1/N64/GC games.

Alternatively, you could play things that are turn based and/or slow. Civ VI if you like strategy, or any other 4x.

Good luck. I just generally find it hard to stare and concentrate on a screen while 'the world' is moving. Probably for the same reason why people get car sick while trying to read in moving cars. Movies seems to be less of an issue since I don't have to concentrate my eyes as much. Could just be me though. I, like you, will be on a few super long international flights soon. So I feel ya.