The Waiting Game

Faced with the terrifying prospect of an 'empty' weekend, which just happened to coincide with the arrival of a cyclone, I suddenly realised that I had time to sit and do nothing, not only that, it was totally justified. Who on earth would want to go out with the rain lashing down and wind blowing a gale? Exactly. Time then to sit I front of the TV and play video games. And to mark this special occasion I decided to treat myself to a new game. Well there was certainly no way I was going to trek out to the shops to buy one, not unless I wanted to dress from head to toe in Gore-Tex and cling my way to the bus stop, stagger onto a bus, and then drag my sorry self to the nearest Warehouse. Nope. But this is modern life and there is absolutely no need to leave the comfort of the sofa. I'd simply download one. Easy-peasy.

So with a cup of tea in hand, still in my pyjamas, I selected the game Gran Turismo 6 and waited. 

"Hhhmmmm 15GB, this might take a little while', I mused to myself adding, "I should've started this earlier".

Not to worry, the day was yet young. I'd just potter about and in an hour or two the game would be ready and waiting. Still beats going outside. So after a very pleasant hour or two doing some filing I went back to the console in anticipation of taking a few laps around the Nürburgring. 

"10% complete! Is that all? Bleedin' hell this is going to take all day". 

Back to the filing, and then for good measure I balanced the home accounts.

"25% complete. Well now we're getting somewhere". 

To make sure that I maintained the maximum possible bandwidth, I went round the house and disconnected all the internet aware devices; computers, tablets, phones, radios and.......scales. I know. Don't ask. We were up to 50%. Yes getting there. I could almost smell the burning rubber and petrol. I've got to say at this point that I'm not a petrol head, in fact I couldn't be less bothered about motor racing if I tried and I'm one of the rare few it would seem who thinks Jeremy Clarkson is a total tool. But there is something about racing games. Maybe it's the simplicity; drive as fast as you can around a predetermined course, or the challenge of just you against the clock. Or maybe it's because they pander towards my pacifist leanings. Actually I suspect it's because I like the scenery but whatever the reason I've always liked them since the day I played Pitstop on the CBM64. Make no mistake, GT6 was going to be a stonker. Let's see where we are.....

"95% complete. Only three hours and nearly there....."

Why is it that the last 5% takes longer than the other 95? What is it with those bars that fill up as the download progresses. Are they elastic, exponential or just wrong. It seem to spend my entire adult life watching the bleeding things. Ironic I suppose. If I had a little bar over my head you could see it slowly fill up whilst I watched little bars fill up on the screen. And the more technically advanced, or reliant, we get the more and more we have to watch little bars fill up. I'm just waiting for the day when the humble toaster has a screen with a little bar that fills as the bread toasts, you just know it's going to happen......

"On my god, it's stuck on 99%!"

And then I started to get impatient. OK even more impatient.

"Has it crashed?". The sudden fear of dread filled my being. Maybe the console has frozen. Should I intervene? Maybe if I waggle the joypad? Nope. Press a button? No that was far too risky. What happens if it accidentally cancels the download? Would I have to start again?  "Just take some deep breaths Graeme and go and do something else to take your mind off it". So I did.

When I came back into the room, and hour or so later, it had finally finished downloading. "Thank god for that. Well it was a particularly large file..." I started to reason, buoyed by the fact that I was about to settle down for a good few hours of mindless racing. Just a quick install and then we'd be off. Just one more button press.....

"Installing", popped up, followed by "320 minutes remaining"

What? I frantically did some calculations in my head. 320 minutes is like over five hours. Five hours to install the game? What was it going to do - inspect every bit and byte? Surely it was some mistake. Ah yes! It'll soon realise the error and update the estimated time - I know computers seem clever but they can only count to 1. But the figure wasn't coming down other than by a second at a time. Five hours? That would be mostly the rest of the day. This was awful. It reminded my of computing way back when I would sit there and carefully type in code, one line at a time, from the back of a magazine only to find a syntax error somewhere in line1043. Then 2013 followed by 2087. Frustrated, I would enlist the help of my mother to carefully read each line whilst I checked my syntax. For errors. I was beginning to think that it might've been quicker to type this code in rather than wait. But I had no choice, I'd started so I was damned sure going to finish.

The installing took up the rest of the day and ate up the rest of my precious gaming time. "Ah well," I thought as I turned off the machine later that night, "at least I can have a go first thing in the morning," and turned in content at the thought.

Like an excited kid on Christmas Day, I leapt out of bed.... well as energetically as a forty-something can before his first coffee of the day, and headed up stairs to boot up the console. It was there! The shiny new GT6 logo! "I'll start the game and go and put the kettle on!" I thought, "I should get a few laps in before Sarah wakes up." The game burst into life....

"Installing update....5GB. Time remaining 4 hours"

Nnnnnnooooooooo! Modern gaming is rubbish. I willed the time to reduce more quickly but it was having none of it. This was worse than waiting for a game to load off cassette in the 1980s. At least then you had the loading screen to look forward to. Here there was just a black screen with a slowly moving line for entertainment. Is this progress? I think not. I huffed my way down to the kettle and stomped around whilst waiting for it to boil. Like my blood.

At this point I would like to apologise to the rest of New Zealand for clogging up the Internet all weekend. For those who couldn't chat with loved ones from around the world, order any online goods, book flights or simply catch up on world affairs I'm really sorry. The pipe was full of GT6 data. Was it worth it? I don't know but I'll let you know when it finishes, probably around Christmas.