So my girlfriend has started taking an interest with my favorite pass time and now I need a good game to initiate her! We've already tried playing the (awful) Battlefield 3 campaign on the easiest setting, both by herself and with me controlling the movement while she did all the shooting. Since she's never held a game controller before in her entire life, you can imagine how it went... Now she's agreed to give it a second try, but unfortunately my collection of games only caters to core-gamers like myself. Help!

What does she like to play? Maybe start off with an arcade title instead?

World of Keflings?

Castle Crashers

Yeah, an arcade title would probably be better, something that you can both play. I think ilomilo is one of the easiest and fun games to understand on the arcade. Simple, has a great learning curve and looks/sounds really nice.

@morbid_coffee: She's never played anything other than some Guitar Hero (which she enjoyed). So I'm kinda just looking for general suggestions. I'd say anything but FPS games or Kinect. Doesn't have to be a co-op game even.

@oldguy: Haven't tried that one! I'll look into it!

FPS is always a terrible place to start, it's second nature to us but moving and looking with no point of reference with an unfamiliar controller is a tall order indeed. Try something in third person without a lot of combat or something 2D that allows her to get used to the controller without having to reconcile what she is doing with her thumbs into moving around in three dimensional space. get Castle Crashers that could be fun. Do you have GTAIV? have her just run around in the world, show her stuff in the city, let her get used to the controller. Who knows she may not take to it, some people have a real hard time with controllers. She may be more at home on a phone, DS or PC.

Arcade games are usually limited in scope compared to retail games and have less to take in for first time players. I'd recommend Castle Crashers, Costume Quest, Fez, ilomilo, Minecraft, Pacman CE DX, Spelunky, or any of the hundreds of board games on the marketplace.

Dark Souls. Jump right into the fucking deep end. Divorce her if she drowns.

This right here.

-pacman CE DX is the way to go!!
-Galaga's always a winner.
-Maybe Viva Pinata.
-Not much of a game, but Heavy Rain is fun and my gf liked it

Any Lego game really.

So many replies! Didn't expect that.... But I'd say Ilomilo is a great suggestion! Not sure about Castle crashers though. I have it and I don't think It's something she would enjoy. I also think Minecraft would be a little too complex to start off with. Judging by how Battlefield 3 went, we'd spend most of the time looking down at the ground and up in the sky.

@ravenlight: Yes! "Here, beat Ornstein & Smough with bare hand and 5 estus or we're done" Would be abit hypocritical though, seeing as I suck at Dark Souls.

@rotten_avocado: Fuck. Viva Pinata. Yes. Yes a hundred times. That.

Viva Pinata is far too stressful for people that aren't into games. It starts out really leisurely, but when things go bad they go reaaaaaaally bad. It requires you to keep track of an insane amount of things and then keeps adding more and more and more. It's like the least kid friendly kid game ever. (It is awesome though.)

I threw my ex right into Halo and she took it pretty well haha

Start with this on Peaceful to show her the ropes of controlling something and, best of all, you can play it two player split screen!

Uh... if you can't start with that then try to find something 2D that uses no more than two buttons. Which sounds like a fine thing to do, but Super Meat Boy and N+ are legendarily hard even among us. But then, that depends on where her challenge lies - is she having problems reacting or is she having issues wrapping her head around a controller?

Anyway, I actually think you should probably start with something old school, or maybe a turn-based traditional kind of JRPG (try to find one without an inane story)

EDIT: Also, I have to continually remind myself that the idea of moving and looking with two separate sticks is actually an insanely difficult task when you first attempt it.

Viva Pinata, Portal, Fable2, Fallout New Vegas, Banjo & Kazooie Nuts & Bolts.

Fable 2 for sure.

To actually add something useful: Minecraft might actually be a good starting place for her to get used to navigating 3D space with a controller. For you and me, this is something we do instinctively even if the game never explicitly tells us how to look and move around. For someone with little history with games, simple movement is a pretty big obstacle.

I had a friend who did the same, stare awkwardly at the ground and sort of shuffle around instead of aim where she wanted to go and walk in a straight line. A week in Minecraft and she was building stuff that dwarfed my own creations. Now we're co-oping Saint's Row: the Third and she's complaining that I'm slow sometimes.

Both! Which is why I had such a hard time thinking of suitable games and made the thread :P

And yeah, I didn't think about that before either. Videogames must be hella good (damn Crysis 3 QL!) for your hand-eye-coordination.

But I think I'll start her off with something that could possibly be a mobile game and see where it goes from there. Preferably something that isn't too hectic and doesn't require precise timing. A JRPG would be a good fit, but I'm afraid that she'll lose interest if I have to spend half an hour explaining stats and status effects first.

Ilomilo seems like a good start and maybe Viva Piñata, but that's mostly because I want to try it...

It'd be great if it turned out like that! Maybe I'll have her try GTA IV aswell and see how she handles running over some pedestrians...

Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise.

This is the only correct answer, and will remain as such forevermore.

Also, when playing games with people who don't but want to, don't explain anything until it is pertinent. Don't start out with a 30 minute info dump that they simply won't remember. Take it like "oh you got poisoned, that means your health will fall over time", not "at some point you'll get poisoned, blinded, confused, berzerked etc...and they do this, this, this and this.