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Helping the Girlfriend Explore Video Games
Sentient6
Mad Grad StudentRegistered User regular
Mad Grad StudentRegistered User regular
So, my girlfriend has recently expressed some interest in picking up video games. She hasn't had much previous experience with them besides an NES which her mother got rid of when she was little, and a little time playing Gunz: The Duel in high school.
Given her interest, I'm trying to figure out how what to start her off with. In addition I'm not sure to what extent I should encourage her as opposed to letting her decide on her own how much she's into these things. I don't want her to feel obligated to like game just because I spend a stupid amount of my time playing them.
Sorry if the above is not extremely clear (and for ending a sentence with a preposition); this is my first time posting in the H/A forum. Let me know if any particular clarification would be useful and thanks for any and all advice.
Given her interest, I'm trying to figure out how what to start her off with. In addition I'm not sure to what extent I should encourage her as opposed to letting her decide on her own how much she's into these things. I don't want her to feel obligated to like game just because I spend a stupid amount of my time playing them.
Sorry if the above is not extremely clear (and for ending a sentence with a preposition); this is my first time posting in the H/A forum. Let me know if any particular clarification would be useful and thanks for any and all advice.
Sentient6 on
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360-Viva Pinata
PS3-Little Big Planet
Wii-Super Mario Brothers Wii
Speaking from personal experience, my iphone has been commandeered numerous times for both Peggle & Plants vs Zombies, and I have a friend who is currently wishing he hadn't bought the PvZ/Peggle 360 disk version as he hasn't had much access for Halo recently
For the 360, castle crashers. If you think she'll be into brain teasing puzzles, Limbo is great, but she maybe wont appreciate how it plays with some game tropes.
My girlfriend was not at all interested in gaming until I gave her my big blue DS back when the lite came out and I upgraded to that.
A few animal crossings, style savvys, and princess debuts later and she's hooked.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
For the gamecube. Keep Link left handed.
Also, don't be afraid to explore outside of the casual genre. There are some good, not so intense titles that might pique interest. Mass Effect comes to mind.
-Current W.I.P.
See if there is a game with a similar story.
What are her hobbies?
See if there are any games related to them.
Don't go with the generic "try x game because it is easy" route.
It is almost insulting.
Also, Castlevania. Castlevania Castlevania Castlevania. Sympthony of the Night and Aria/Dawn of Sorrow are a couple of my favorites.
...
Okay Yellow. But I had a Pikachu and he loooooved me and made little hearts and cute eyes at me...
I wonder where that game got off to. I'm sure it's downstairs somewhere...
See if you can find something like that.
Get the first one though, Trouble in Paradise is fucking unforgiving.
That game turned my last girlfriend from "How do I use a controller?" into "MUST. HAVE. ALL. ACHIEVEMENTS!" over night. I'm not even kidding. She got me every single achievement there is in the game.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Watching my husband play Fable and Kotor were what got me interested. If she hasn't, sit down and go through trailers/demo/the first bit of games you already have and let her choose what interests her. Don't forget the 360 arcade as it has some really fun games and a lot of them have demos.
My personal recommendations are any Lego game, KOTOR, Fable, Kingdom for Kieflings (arcade game) and Civilization Revolution, but your girlfriend may have wildly different tastes than I do.
To respond to some comments and questions in no particular order:
She has played Castle Crashers on occasion with me and enjoyed it quite a bit.
She has been over while I was gaming before, although I try to minimize that to avoid being rude/boring her.
She has expressed some interest in Minecraft after seeing me waste day upon day on it.
I understand that some people object a little bit to provide only newbie games and I can agree with that. My only concern in that respect is that she has a tendency to panic if a game is too demanding of quick reaction, e.g. she tried to play Alan Wake and wound up running in circles endlessly. So, I don't want to start her off with anything difficult in that respect. However, there's no reason to exclude games which are more in difficult in other ways.
Maybe I'll lend(hopefully) her my DS, since I rarely seem to play it.
Anyway there's a lot to take in here. Thanks everyone, you've given me quite a bit of good feedback to work with.
For Xbox, I'd say Mass Effect. No, seriously. She will very likely appreciate the fact that she can make a custom female character (I certainly did). And the original Mass Effect is juuuuuuust enough removed from being a "true" shooter that it will serve as a pretty good introduction to the genre. Again, I can vouch for that, as ME was my first shooter.
You also said that she prefers when games let her take them at her own pace. Outside of battle, ME allows leisurely exploration. It'll be a bit of a learning curve for the combat, though.
Ask her what she's into, if she enjoyed NES games then by all means track down an old NES or get her some ROMs and a controller for her PC. She may also take well to some of the old turn based RPG games since they don't require as much action, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7 come to mind. (Its the only one I played I have no clue if the others are like that).
Really though? If she's afraid of demanding action games play them with her and give her some pointers, help her out.
However my recommendation is going to echo someone else, try the Lego games. They're tons of fun and very easy to get into without being insanely childish. They're also a good combination of action and puzzle without being overly hard.
I got my wife hooked on video games with Fable II. At the time, I thought the main draw of the game would be its bright and vibrant artistic style as well as the different ways in which you can interact with the game world that don't involve hitting someone in the face with a cutlass.
But what actually probably helped more was the fact that I could plug in a second controller and play it with her.
Which I realized when I finally got her to try Gears of War (which is neither bright nor vibrant and is in actuality quite gruesome) and we both realized that she actually enjoyed it -- but only when playing cooperatively.
*Addictive personalities or people without self control might want to keep away.
I loved KOTOR for this reason. I could pause the game, take my time to choose my next few moves, unpause the game and watch how they go and the pause the game again to make my next selections. No dying because I forgot which button did which attack. I don't play like that anymore, but it made me much more comfortable to have that option when I was first starting out.
Co-op gaming is a fantastic way to draw someone in. Here are some options:
Shooters:
Gears of War 1 & 2
Borderlands
Halo 3, ODST, or Reach
Dead Rising 2, if she likes zombies
Earth Defense Force 2017, if she likes B-movies, or fun.
Hack&Slash / Brawlers:
Samurai Warriors 2 or any of the good titles in the Dynasty Warriors series
I hear the Scott Pilgrim game on XBLA is good, if somewhat buggy.
Other:
Heavy Weapon on XBLA is a fantastic horizontal SHMUP sort of thing, supports up to 4 players locally.
Splosion Man co-op is amazingly fun. It's also difficult, but it requires precision much more than it requires fast reflexes.
Guitar Hero / Rock Band
Deathspank is sort of co-op, although the second player's character is only a helper rather than a full player. But Deathspank is pretty awesome anyway.
But with no local co-op.
Particularly if she likes spy stories, this could be a good split-screen bet.
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On a sidenote, my wife wants me to tell you that she loves Red Dead Redemption almost exclusively because of the ponies.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (SNES, XBLA) - You said she really enjoyed Castle Crashers? This is my favorite side-scrolling beat-em-up of all time.
Beautiful Katamari (360) - I have never met anyone who didn't get a kick out of katamari. Really simple controls (sure, tank movement can take a second to get used to, but there's no other buttons to worry about), whacky and hilarious, still fun even when you "lose".
Ninja Gaiden Bla…ahahahahaha, sorry, I can't reccommend it with a straight face.
Castle Crashers
Peggle
Plants vs Zombies
Interpol (its a seek & find game)
Puzzle Quest (I played the quest, she helped find 4 of a kinds and skulls during fights)
She also loves Angry Birds on iphone.
That lead to Heros of Might and Magic 3. And from there on Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantsy 7, Kotor, and ofcourse the Lego games. Hell it was the Lego Star Wars games that really got my daughter into gaming. She loved to run R2D2 of ledges and make him scream. I think I may be raising a psyco.
I myself and not great at FPS, I keep giving them a try and I have a problem with the first person part and finding my way aorund maps.
If you've got the cash for it, I absolutely recommend this and the Professor Layton games
edit: oops didn't notice it was suggested earlier. I second Fable II. Also, I'd stay away from Mass Effect 1 because that game really has a lot of interface clunkiness and frustrating parts (the goddamn Mako) that'd probably make a new player run out of patience.
She's beaten Sunshine I think over ten times now.
Tetris
Cooking Mama
Animal Crossing
Monster Hunter Tri (having my gf use a gunner in arena was surprisingly fun for her)
Mario Kart
You can basically just throw a dart at the list of games for the DS and you'll pretty much find something.
Its hard to get someone into games thats already grown up. The basics that we learned as kids are too basic now.