Civilization on iPad

I have been a fan of Sid Meier since I started playing videogames. The first of his games which I enjoyed was Pirates! back in 1988/89. The next one I picked up was Railroad Tycoon before Civilization came into the picture.

Over the years, there had been many iteration of the classic game. In 2015, the sixth installment of Civilization came to the market and it was a surprise that a year later a working iPad version of the game was available. And I wasn't talking about a watered down version of the game a la Civilization Revolution. It was a full on version and since it was hard on the processing power, it took some time to get used to the slower phase of the portable game.

But on the whole, I was impressed. I was able to play the standard-sized world game at a steady pace in my iPad Pro and had not missed any of the features available on my Mac. Even the sound and atmosphere were comparable. I only wished that I had more time to kill playing that game.

Highly recommended. Yes, it drained the battery somewhat and it was not available on the iPhone - maybe due to the resources needed. A great effort and hopefully it would open the door to more desktop-level game onto the iPad.

Night In

After spending the last few nights outdoors, we decided to chill out and stayed at the apartment, had the dinner in and had a Wii U challenge. Obviously the boys didn't let me win, but I didn't do too badly on the Mario Kart game.

I ended up having to wait for them to finish as they kept on winning points. I preferred the more physical games such as the Wii Sport Tennis game or something similar. Gets the sweat out .... But on second thought, is give that a miss. My arms and knees were still sore from the trampoline yesterday evening.

Irfan using the wheelWhile Idlan using the monitorCan Daddy play Wii U Sports next?School would open again for them next Tuesday, so it seemed that they wanted to spend as much time at the apartment as they can. Would be a challenge getting them out of their rooms this weekend ....

Early Birthday Present

As mentioned, Irfan's birthday would be round the corner. He would be turning 8 next month.

After his exams last November, I asked him what he wanted for the holidays. He told me that he wanted to buy a game on his Xbox. He wanted to buy Minecraft.

Off I went searching high and low for it, but to no avail. I went everywhere, my usual dealer and a few more. No luck.

I had to put an order in in the end.

So, this afternoon, I received and SMS from the vendor at Plaza Damas. The game was finally in. Didn't waste much time. I went to collect the order and since this afternoon, both Idlan and Irfan had been in front on the TV in their room playing with not. Luckily, they had a two players mode and we had a cpuple.of controllers.

I really couldn't figure out what the craze was, but all their classmates were playing it. They would talking about it until the Chinese New Year I was sure.

Game Time

With the boys locked in their consoles the whole day, I decided to join then after dinner last night. We played a volleyball game in the Xbox with me partnering Idlan. For the game, the Kinect unit would read our gestures, meaning the movements were just like when you were actually playing the game.

I was OK on the first game. But by the time I finished the third, I was already sweating and dizzy! Not a bad way to exercise really. But best bot do it straight after dinner. There was a risk of finding the dinner on the floor before long.

Would definitely be giving it another go later this afternoon.

Free Saturday Afternoon

Spending the weekend at the apartment, we decided to go for an afternoon tea on Saturday after I got home from work. The original plan was for the boys and Anita to spend some time with their schoolmates at the National Science Center, but it was cut short since their friend had to return home early due to his grandfather calling in. So, Anita and the boys left early for me to pick them up.

Since the afternoon was free, we went to Plaza Damas, the usual place for the boys to get their video games and Anita to get her DVDs from the usual dodgy vendor.

This time around, it wasn't just the boys bought games, I did for myself as well. The latest instalment of Diablo was just released on the PS3. Still fresh from the press, I picked one up. Since I was covering for my colleagues who were away on conferences in Thailand, we didn't plan to go out of town and rather just relax at the apartment. Some free time for me to do some gaming then ...... Why not? The boys were occupied on their iPads and PSP. Daddy wanna play!