I'm sure there's a thread and I just couldn't find it by searching but. My fiance is tired of watching me play games and I'd like to have her join in every once in a while. She's fairly new to games (ha outside of Sims) so with that, does anyone have any good couples games they play or would suggest? We might be able to move up to harder games in the future but right now, I figure better start easy...
In before sexy games, But Viva Pinata 2 has co-op, and it is a great game. Slow, yet fun if your just building up your garden. The later goals can get kinda boring though.
@ClarkKent360: Noted! I've heard good things about that and Batman is one of my favorite passions. Noted! Thanks!
@BRNK: Argh! I forgot to include. I only have 360 in the living room. PS 2 in a box in the spare bedroom closet (But I'm thinking of seeing if I can't get her to try the Sly Cooper Series on her own.) but it's a hefty amount of digging to get to.
I wish we could play Little Big Planet. I figured that would be a great starter one for us.
Any Mario Bros one would be good or Super Smash brothers style if I had a Wii/GC.
I have Portal 2 on 360 and I thought about that but I think that might be one of our more "Advanced Lessons".
My wife played through The Walking Dead recently. We played a ton of Puzzle Agent on the iPad in bed. That was lots of fun. She tried Little Big Planet, but growing up loved games like Bonks Adventure, she didn't like the 'airy jumps' as she called it. She got into Viva Piñata a far bit. The biggest surprise by far was her obsession with Civilization: Revolution, she played the crap out of it. For us, anything in first person or camera controls is a deal breaker, and probably always will be.
@xXxLYNCHxXx: I was thinking a good co-op platformer would be a good starter for her but I just can't think of any. I mean I would love to have her start with something easy but catchy. Not too challenging so she just gets mad and quits but. Fun. Might look into the Viva Pinata Series because I played the first for a while until I had to give it back to my friend.
You could always wait for the co-op focused sequel to Stroker
I'm kidding. What sorts of games are you looking for? Rayman Origins is a good co-op platformer, I saw that mentioned, and Borderlands is fairly easy if you join with a leveled character.
@believer258: Ha. Striker. I clicked on that and did the "D:" face.
Uh maybe it would be good to try Rayman Origins. Don't think Borderlands would be her style. She likes Sci-Fi shows but I have a feeling that might be out of her league. She likes Sci-Fi shows like Lost, Fringe, Dr. Who (2005). I just feel like Borderlands might be too far past the "What is it? What's gonna happen?" realm she likes, and more so into the "scary, creepy, weird".
I think the games she might be interested in would be a good family platformer like Little Big Planet (no 360.... :( .....) or possibly Rayman Origins, I was thinking something like those probably. Maybe Banjo Kazooie, Spyro, or some quirky little fun XBLA game(Castle Crashers?) I dunno. I haven't had a chance to look on XBLA much yet. But, I figure some quirky little thing on there might be the ticket to get us rolling.
@believer258: Ha. Striker. I clicked on that and did the "D:" face.
Uh maybe it would be good to try Rayman Origins. Don't think Borderlands would be her style. She likes Sci-Fi shows but I have a feeling that might be out of her league. She likes Sci-Fi shows like Lost, Fringe, Dr. Who (2005). I just feel like Borderlands might be too far past the "What is it? What's gonna happen?" realm she likes, and more so into the "scary, creepy, weird".
I think the games she might be interested in would be a good family platformer like Little Big Planet (no 360.... :( .....) or possibly Rayman Origins, I was thinking something like those probably. Maybe Banjo Kazooie, Spyro, or some quirky little fun XBLA game(Castle Crashers?) I dunno. I haven't had a chance to look on XBLA much yet. But, I figure some quirky little thing on there might be the ticket to get us rolling.
PS3? I haven't so much as looked it up on Metacritic but Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One?
I've found a good many indie games, at least at the start, are good for new players, mainly because of their good ideas. Or games which are easy to pick up and have interesting mechanics. I'm talking about Limbo, Braid, Portal (which is kinda indie), VVVVVV, those sort. Catherine could make for interesting conversations. Tetris or Lumines are good, and super cheap on a PC.
Also, the secret is to let her do it, and try real hard not to be a nerd and explain everything straight away. It's tough, but it's the best way.
Or you could be real heartless and say "Hey honey, why don't we try out Amnesia?" That'll get you in the good books. Remember, dark room with headphones.
gears of war. my girlfriend is hardcore into some gears. we once spent an entire weekend going through the entire trilogy, at her urging i might add. also minecraft. couch co op is a blast. ill also throw in a capcom fighting game. marvel vs capcom 3 or somthing. doesnt take alot of skill. just button mash.
Minecraft, she might get addicted though. Also, my girlfriend loves Batman so she really liked Arkham Asylum . Other than that, just play anything with coop, she'll probably have fun just cause you are playing together.
My girlfriend did not play games AT ALL prior to me...but then she randomly decided she wanted to pick up CoD, so we play co op on that all the time....she loves it. She's no monster but she's gettin to be positive every game. Not that I'd suggest this, I just thought I'd share my success story.
I'd suggest Mario Bros Wii! That game is simple to pick up and SUCH fun...everyone loves some good mario sidescrollin
Left 4 Dead. Trust me. It is quite awesome and girls love it! Heck the all girl teams always seem to beat every team out there. You can co-op online and splitscreen. Fun on lower difficulty and hard as hell in the later difficulties.
Earth Defense Force is a split screen game. Don't expect a AAA game from it. Just expect a B-movie in video game form with some of the best splitscreen co-op EVER.
Also know that it is hard as hell on anything other than normal. Just telling ya! COLLECT ALL ARMOR PIECES!!! That will save your butts later on with the wallhack spiders.
I think that depends on what kind of a couple we are? ;) Might just be RIGHT up our alley! :D I'll look into it.
I appreciate all of the ideas. I'll definitely look into them all. One thing I might do to get her to ease into the games is install Sims for her on her laptop so that she can play that and then want to play other ones with me.
And I was thinking. She had/has Plants Vs. Zombies on her iPhone and played that for a while. I have it on XBLA so I was thinking that might be a good start for a transition game! EH?! Or. Just make her play a game that's fun single player on her own. Make her sit and play while I'm at work so that she does it on her own. And, of course, by make her... I mean ask politely. :\
lara croft and the guardian of light rayman origins
Games you can kinda take turns/play together:
Puzzle Agent prince of persia uncharted series broken sword series
kinda depends though, my girlfriend prefers puzzle games or gentle platformers. I usually do most of the gunplay in uncharted/tomb raider games and she does the puzzles/climbing. Humorous point and click adventure games with good puzzles always hit the spot as well.
@JoeBigfoot: Hmm. Rayman sounds like a common suggestion. That will probably be high on the list. The only problem I have with puzzlers is I don't want her to get frustrated early and quit. I think I might save those (just like FPS's) until later. Once she's more familiar with the process, then have her get into a few of those. Meh. We'll see.
@mitchell486: A note of caution with rayman, it gets hard. The 2nd half of that game gets pretty tough even for an experienced gamer. lara croft and the guardian of light is good cause you have to work together (the male character throws a spear lara can use as a platform and lara has a grappling hook the guy can use as a tightrope and you use these two mechanics to solve some simple puzzles) plus you can cover all the combat. It would be my 1st suggestion (its also pretty cheap)
@JoeBigfoot: A serious thank you is pointed in your direction Joe. Err. Bigfoot. Er. Sasquatch? I'm gonna call ya Squatch. But thank you. I wanted simple yet addicting to get her into them. Get her hooked and I think Lara Croft sounds like the ticket for now as far as "game games" are concerned instead of kiddie XBLA games. Not that all XBLA games are kiddie games. Just that's probably what it would take if I started with that route.
@Fattony12000: Ok I don't think everyone is understanding what kind of a gamer she is. She doesn't play video games. Light starts guys. Build up to awesomeness but. Here's the requirement list:
1. Easy-Medium difficulty. (I don't want her to hate games because I try to get her to join in but she just gets frustrated and quits.)
2. 360 ONLY. (Sorry I'm broke.)
3. Either childish or "suspense sci-fi" (she isn't into scary or gruesome)
4. Addicting. (maybe one that she wants to try on her own when I'm not there so that it grows into a passion instead of a "oh he wants me to play so I do every once in a while with him to shut him up" kinda deal)
5. FPS's probably won't be good starters since they take some real coordination to master and excel at.
Trine 2, I played the first one with my girlfriend, only the second seems out on 360, and she really liked it, previously the only thing that she could get into was Little Big Planet.
@Chaoot: Noted! It's getting added to the list! There have been some damn good responses on here. Hence why I went to a gamer forum? Ha. As the age old saying goes. If ye were to scratch my back. Thanks. Ah maybe that's not it. Uh. Scratch my back so we can scratch yours? What's mine is yours and vice versa? Help me out here guys. It's something like that and I owe you...
@drowsap: I've gotten my girl into this and she's enjoying it now that she's gotten a better handle on the controls.
We've also played a lot of You Don't Know Jack, which she loves. It's a pretty fun way to play a game competitively without it actually being a big deal. Also, in my experience girls looooove Rock Band/Guitar Hero.
Humorous point and click adventure games with good puzzles always hit the spot as well.
Point and click games are an excellent choice for someone who doesn't play a lot of games. The person doesn't need to work much about controls. Your focus is on successful problem-solving, which is what you truly want out of a game. Beyond Puzzle Agent and Broken Sword, you might want to look into the Sam & Max and Monkey Island games. Also, it is not necessarily a point-and-click game, but Stacking is a relatively slow game that focuses on puzzles as well.
We play a lot of games together - New Super Mario Bros Wii, Pixel Junk Shooter, Scott Pilgrim, an awful lot of Picross 3D and Professor Layton. To be honest, anything that I buy gets played by both of us but co-op games work well, as do single player games which aren't too reaction focussed so we can swap the controller between us.
Borderlands. My wife isn't a gamer but we played the poop out of this game. The world is fleshed out (no plot) and it's easy enough for someone to pick up and have a good time with and then slowly get better and better at.
Plus its Borderlands. Everyone needs to play that game.
I figured I will go ahead and enlighten everyone who offered assistance. We bought Rayman:Origins to play together. Turns out. She enjoys it quite a bit because and I quote "It's like mario" in the fact you just jump and hop on things and such. She's not that good at it though and sadly gets frustrated quickly? I learned VERY fast that I have to tone it down a LOT when playing otherwise she doesn't like that I'm doing better. It no longer is a "we're playing the game together" as it's more of a "you're better than me and it pisses me off royally because I don't play games constantly". So. I've learned from that and I'm sure it will only get better with time. Soon we will probably buy LEGO Harry Potter 1-4 because she loves HP and I think it wouldn't be terrible. At least she'll get the story even if it's not that much fun as far as gameplay. Maybe it will be a little more fair as well.
PS - Any other suggestions that are a little more "equal"? Less relying on skill and hand/eye coordination since clearly mine is more "fine-tuned" than hers at the moment.
PPS - Thank you all for the advice. It was very helpful in the decision to start with Rayman instead of something else.
@Marcsman Is R&C more of a level playing field than most? That's what I'm looking for. And as far as Rock Band. We don't have that, I just got read of GH3 and 2 guitars because we never played it. Plus she'd get frustrated that I was better. That game has a BIG gap for skills which we are trying to avoid.
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