Games without fail states

Nappuccino

So a friend of mine just got done playing Heavy Rain and is looking for something similar. She doesn't like games where she has to retry sections to continue on since they make her a bit frustrated.

Any game where, even if she fails, she can keep playing would be great.

I seem to remember Idle Thumbs talking about one that takes place on a train- that you can "finish" the game even if you just sit there.

She has a Mac (without dual boot) and a ps3. Any suggestions are welcome, I think.

edit: I may be able to get her to dual boot her Mac as she has been looking into it... so I guess PC suggestions are welcome too

JebusUD

Minecraft for mac?

Nappuccino

I think she is more interested in story... and the obtuse nature of the mechanics might not go over well... but I'll suggest it to her at least.

see317

The Lego games maybe?

Nappuccino

That's really not a bad suggestion! I don't know if i'd be able to convince her to give them a try (she might find them too childish... ) but I hadn't even thought of those. Thanks!

Susan Delgado

I think The Path is on Mac and I really enjoyed that game, I never felt like I had to go back and do something over, I just kept playing along.

Not sure if it's on Mac, but Dear Esther was incredible...that is 100% story, however. I don't know if you're familiar, but you're basically walking around an island getting bits and pieces of a story until you reach the end. Very atmospheric, IMHO.

Also, if she likes puzzle games at all, Stacking was fun and you had to meet the main objectives of each level, but it's not like you died and had to go back or if you got the pieces wrong you had to start from scratch.

AaronKI

Could the train game have been The Last Express? It runs in real time (times six) and wikipedia says there are about 34 different endings.

Edit: I'll second Stacking. Even if you're not actively completing puzzles, you could spend quite a while just playing around with all of the different character abilities. There's no pressure at all in it, except for maybe the last segment.

CycloneRanger

Is she averse to repeating the same sections again (e.g. dying and having to clear an area twice), or to getting "stuck" and not being able to progress easily?

If it's the former, you might look into the Myst series. It's really hard to lose in those games; in the first one I don't even think it's possible (although there are ways to achieve a "bad" ending). However, if she's averse to getting "stuck", then definitely stay the hell away from that series.

Nappuccino

AaronKI wrote: »

Could the train game have been The Last Express? It runs in real time (times six) and wikipedia says there are about 34 different endings.

Edit: I'll second Stacking. Even if you're not actively completing puzzles, you could spend quite a while just playing around with all of the different character abilities. There's no pressure at all in it, except for maybe the last segment.

YES! that is the game i was trying to think of! I know she liked the basic sound of it so I'll make sure to give her the right name of the game incase she actually wants it.

And stacking is probably a good choice too- I have a feeling she'd enjoy the quirkiness of it... I didn't realize that there wasn't a fail-state in it though. I guess the game is pretty forgiving?

@CycloneRanger: I think it is just the being stuck and failing to progress part that is the issue... though I'm not sure. I do know that she got frustrated with Journey... so that may be telling to those of you who've played it?

Essee

Speaking of The Last Express, I feel obligated to mention this because I was just reading a bunch of stuff on Jordan Mechner's site (he's the creator of the game, as well as the original Prince of Persia and PoP: Sands of Time)... The Last Express is actually getting an iOS port sometime soon. You didn't mention her having an iPhone/iPad, though, so either she doesn't have it (most likely) or you didn't think of it as a gaming platform... but I figured since I had read about it recently, I should mention it, even if it might not help you.

I'm also looking for similar stuff (for the PC, in my case) to recommend to an older lady I met recently whose last book club meeting was talking about games having good stories, so unfortunately I don't really have much to recommend at the moment! Oh, although... if you want games that don't have fail states and are (relatively) tough to get stuck in for either of her platforms, go check out Telltale Games' stuff. You can't ever lose because Telltale treats their games like Lucasarts used to (no deaths), and none of their puzzles seem insanely obtuse (to be perfectly honest, having played through some older point-and-clicks that did have really weird puzzle solutions, the puzzles aren't as hard as they usually were back in the day). She can get stuck, sure, but I've only gotten stuck once or twice thus far, and it didn't take me very long to figure them out the day after I got stuck on them as far as I recall. The games are also usually hilarious, which helps to take some of the sting out of things if you DO get stuck. Telltale also usually has a free episode available to suck people in, so she can try the games first and decide whether she wants the full game. (Disclaimer: I haven't played the Jurassic Park/Back to the Future games, or the new one that's right on their front page, so I don't actually know if you can lose or get horribly stuck in those.)

I guess Braid also kind of counts since you can always rewind? But that might not be her cup of tea, I don't know. I'm probably not recommending it to the lady I was talking about since she's never played anything at all before and would probably find it too intimidating.

Nappuccino

She probably would like TellTale's walking dead series (She's a fan of the tv show)... but I'll wait until a few more episodes get out there before I suggest that one.

I don't think she has an Ipod touch/ Iphone... Pretty sure it is some variation of the black berry.

Dhalphir

Its pretty difficult to fail at Mass Effect if you put it on the easiest difficulty setting. and Mass Effect 3 has a setting where all enemies die to one bullet - called "story mode"

LockedOnTarget

Walking Dead is excellent.

Blake T

LA Noir.

Nappuccino

Oh yeah, LA Noir would be fantastic, i think.

MushroomStick

How about any of the old Lucasarts scumm games?

RUNN1NGMAN

How about Journey? Not really the same as Heavy Rain, but there's no "game over" moment, no way to die, and although it's pretty short it's also very repayable.

Librarian

Journey and Flower both definitely.

Librarian

And since it seems she wants to play games for the story and cinematic experience I suggest both Arkham Asylum and the Uncharted games. Played on easy they shouldn't be too frustrating.

Lord_Snot

Okay, I should probably play The Last Express if it has that many endings.

I'm looking for a new story game to play anyway. And I have it downloaded.

Tav

Masq is probably right up her alley. It's an adventure game about you working for a fashion company and has dozens of endings. It's in PC Gamer's Top 100 games (Or at least it was a few years back) and their review says "The level of meaningful freedom here puts Deus Ex to shame…". If that isn't a glowing enough recommendation, I'm not sure what is.

edit: That link seems to have an awful little thing where it tries to get you to refer people. Nevermind that, here's a link directly to their download page.

Luiane

Old point and click adventure games like Monkey Island might be something for her, especially since the earliest Monkey Island games have been updated to have some fancier graphics. Of course, you can get darned stuck in them but you can never fail.

Lord Palington

Technically you can die in Monkey Island, because Guybrush Threepwood can only hold his breath for ten minutes.

Luiane

I knew someone would pick up on that; yes you can technically die there, but it's not really likely that you will do that since that puzzle is fairly short.

Didgeridoo

Fl0w and the new Prince of Persia, maybe? The new PoP has that lady that saves you if you're about to die, so there's never really any 'failure,' per se.

And despite what everyone says about it, I think it's really fun!

Laemkral

Nappuccino wrote: »

Oh yeah, LA Noir would be fantastic, i think.

I second the vote on LA Noire. I actually has a "skip this" section for shoot outs and car chases and what have you without affecting the storyline.

spool32

Laemkral wrote: »

Nappuccino wrote: »

Oh yeah, LA Noir would be fantastic, i think.

I second the vote on LA Noire. I actually has a "skip this" section for shoot outs and car chases and what have you without affecting the storyline.

Thirded, this is exactly what she wants.

grouch993

Telltale games has the Sam&Max graphical adventures. Believe most of those have no lasting failure.

staplerofpaper

Another possibility is games where through cheats/mods the possibility for failure is taken away. Any challenge that she might want would suffer, but the stories of many games would be open to be fully experienced. Just a thought.

Caedwyr

The Baldur's Gate series of games can have the difficulty set at varying levels and you can always enable cheats which lets you CTRL+Y to instantly kill whatever the pointer is over. The games are also available on both PC and Mac, and most of the best mods are Mac/PC friendly. Actually, a number of RPGs, especially JRPGs might fit what she is looking for, depending on if those types of games are her cup of tea.

Preacher

spool32 wrote: »

Laemkral wrote: »

Nappuccino wrote: »

Oh yeah, LA Noir would be fantastic, i think.

I second the vote on LA Noire. I actually has a "skip this" section for shoot outs and car chases and what have you without affecting the storyline.

Thirded, this is exactly what she wants.

I thought she wanted to play a game with a good story, thats not LA Noire.

JRosey

Preacher wrote: »

spool32 wrote: »

Laemkral wrote: »

Nappuccino wrote: »

Oh yeah, LA Noir would be fantastic, i think.

I second the vote on LA Noire. I actually has a "skip this" section for shoot outs and car chases and what have you without affecting the storyline.

Thirded, this is exactly what she wants.

I thought she wanted to play a game with a good story, thats not LA Noire.

:? LA Noire has a stronger story than 98% of video games I've played.

Nappuccino

She's already interested in LA Noire, and she'll probably just rent it so even if she dislikes the story, I'm sure she'll be glad she gave it a shot.

Baulder's Gate is an interesting suggestion... I'm not sure how she'll feel about RPGs, but if she asks about games after she gets through the current batch (which, it seems will include Indigo Prophecy i warned her about the batshit insane aspects so... she may just put it down after she gets there. You all know where], LA Noire, Portal and HL2- I'm guessing we'll get around to The Last Express if we can track down a copy.) I'll bring RPG's up.

I have a feeling she'll lack the patience for leveling up.

Nocren

The Myst series? Though you might want to skip Riven... Though the story is given to you, you have to explore and read it for yourself.

Quid

I might sound weird but the first game that pulled my wife in to our console was Fallout 3. She didn't really care about the game play at all. She just put it on easy and proceeded to explore and advance the story. She did the same with New Vegas and Mass Effect.

Jam Warrior

Baldur's Gate is a terible suggestion from someone trying to stretch the brief to fit their favourite game.

But yeah, adventure games seems the way forward. These guys should have you covered:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/

Just rank old reviews by score and go crazy.

SammyF

The meta story for LA Noire isn't bad, it's just poorly told via between-mission flashbacks and cut scenes, many of which you can only unlock by discovering and reading newspapers hidden around various in-game locales. The sandbox presentation of the gameplay sets you up for an expectation of open-endedness and control over what happens in the game, but the cut-scene only presentation of the meta story (up until the very last case) thwarts this expectation of freedom. To an extent, the mechanics of the action-side of the game can thwart it, too.

It's still a remarkably good translation of a police procedural into a video game, though, and the individual cases are all pretty good (edit: the arson desk can seem like a goddamned chore at times). Maybe just advise her to skip everything that happens from the developer's mansion onwards unless she suddenly finds that she really, really needs a sense of closure.

TheCanMan

I've never played it, but what about Planescape: Torment (although I think it's Windows only). That supposedly has one of the greatest narratives ever, and from my understanding it relies much more heavily on conversation than combat, right?