Solipsis said:
There are very few things in life that I enjoy as much as Rome: Total War before bed!
In all seriousness, my youngest brother (the only hardcore multiplayer gamer in a family of fanatics) is currently studying at a maritime academy to join the merchant marine. I know one of the things that makes him sad about his chosen profession is giving up access to online games for long periods of time while he'll be at sea -- like all summer this year. Maybe I'll point him toward this article for a few hints on surviving the droughts!
I'm a sailor and I can tell you it kinda sucks, but if he gets lucky he'll end up on a ship where half the crew are gamers. The Alaskan Explorer, a ship with Alaska Tanker Company had two big screen TVs in each of the lounges, a wireless network throughout the ship, a tv in every room, and 360's on both of the big screens.
Needless to say, it didn't take much work to put 4 guys in each lounge, and then have anyone in their rooms jump on via the wireless. Now, this is a rare case, but those kinda ships are out there (usually they're tankers. Tell him to stay the fuck away from Liberty ships, that company is pretty damn cheap).
I actually suggest a good gaming laptop. With his officer pay, a high end gaming laptop won't even dent his bank account if he saves/spends intelligently. I'm only an unliscenced Oiler and even I just giggled like a school girl when I hit the "order" button. I have a Sager 9262 and a wired 360 gamepad, and I can play most of the big name 360 games on my laptop since the 360's port to pc ratio is kinda retardedly high (almost to the point that it makes me wonder why the hell I got a 360 in the first place). A lot of guys out their bring laptops with them along with external hard drives (piracey ahoy!) and you'd be surprised how many of them are closet gamers. Apart from our 360 multiplayer matches, more than a few games of Counter Strike 1.6 were played on the ship computers (nothing like raging your Chief Engineer after constantly stabbing him in the face).
If he wants to drag out a console with him, he can, but I don't really recommend it. Not until he gets steady work on one ship that he knows it'll get used a lot on, otherwise a solid laptop is the way to go.
Oh and do remind him to bring a cross connect cable with him. Those things are handy at the strangest times. My usual "at work" loadout is: Laptop/Mouse/Cross Connect/External Hard Drive/In-Ear Speakers (I don't like bringing out a headset since it's just too damn big and I've never actually used the mic for anything), and I always just no-cd crack all my games that aren't run via Steam.
