Non-gaming girlfriend games

I've been together with my girlfriend almost 5 years now and in that time have had some great videogame experiences with her. Shes not completely unfamiliar with gaming, she played Pokemon when she was a kid, she had a N64 and played some Mario games, but the only games she actively plays on her own are the Sims every once in a while.

So as shes unfamiliar with most control schemes (1st-Person Shooters, right thumbstick camera control and so on) its pretty tough to find games she and I can enjoy together, so for those looking for just that, I decided to share my experiences. And yes, there is a similiar thread, but in that thread gaming-girlfriends were the topic.

Resident Evil 5: Yes, I know, seems unlikely, BUT theres a control scheme which lets her aim with the left thumbstick. So control is not a problem. It helps a lot if youve finished the game a couple of times, and have unlocked unlimited ammo for a machinegun which she can use. Finished it with my girlfriend this way. Great fun!

Guitar Hero/DjHero: Pretty safe bet.

Mortal Kombat/fighting games: Fighting games, especially those button-masher-friendly can be a lot of fun. I'm not very good at them, so I didnt have that much of an advantage.

Rayman Origins: It gets pretty tough later on, but the first couple of worlds are great for coop-play.

Virtua Tennis Series: Simple controls make this very non-gamer friendly.

Every Lego-game ever: Great Coop. Recognisable Characters. Basically the perfect girlfriend-games.

Forza/Gran Turismo: If youve got some kind of racing wheel and tweak the difficulty accordingly, theres a lot of fun to be had for both of you taking turns.

Little Big Planet 1/2: Great Coop, Simple controls, great fun all the way through.

Shadow of the Colossus: I played, and she watched and helped me figuring out how to get the Colossi down.

Heavy Rain: Great! She played it, I gave hints when she got stuck. Got the 2nd best ending this way.

God of War 3: Weve just started playing, but she liked the sheer scale of the action, which rivals most actionflicks. Set the difficulty to easy and she might have a blast.

Fifa: If she likes the sport thats pretty safe too. Theres a controlscheme which only untilizes 2 buttons, let her have go.

Silent Hill 2/3: I played, she guided me through the games with a gamefaq.

Ive had a lot of fun playing those games with my girlfriend, and I got her more interested in games this way. We event went to gamescom together (I live in cologne).

I hope this list helps some of you guy struggling to get your girlfriend into gaming.

Do you have any suggestions what might also work?

Batman.

Also, I have no girlfriend

:(

Dude yeah, Batman. My girlfriend loves Batman so I got her playing Arkham Asylum and she loved it.

My girlfriend has always been into the Diablo series.

We've been playing the beta this weekend. We are both getting Diablo III on the 15th. You should get Diablo III with your girlfriend and play it with her. It's a video game.

The best I've gotten from my girlfriend with core gaming (i.e. not Facebook or phone games) is Mario Party 2... and I hate that game.

She tried Touch My Katamari (lulz; also, she bought me that game) but that didn't stick (sorry).

Smash Bros. Only button-mashing friendly fighting game I could think if if you could say that its a FG.

The only game my girlfriend really enjoyed playing was Limbo....I think she wanted to prove that she is smarter than me by solving the puzzles faster than I did :D

My gf saw me playing AssCreed 2, and she immediately fell for it. She has played all of the AssCreed games now, except for the first. But come on, who likes that anyway?

Edit: She also likes watching me play RPG's like Xenoblade Chronicles and FFIV, but i need to explain a lot of the story and mechanics to her :p

Final Fight all day, every day.

Assassin's Creed all the way.

@Castermhief117 said:

Assassin's Creed all the way.

uh uh uh uh uh

@VisariLoyalist said:

@Castermhief117 said:

Assassin's Creed all the way.

uh uh uh uh uh

All the ladies are wooed by Ezio's dashing, European good looks

My boyfriend used to not be a gamer before we started dating. To get him into gaming I gave him my old xbox 360 when I upgraded to an S. I started him off with Red Dead Redemption and Alen Wake and he was very happy with those choices. He didn't want to get into the RPG genera because it was "for nerds" but I gave him mass effect and he liked that series. Then when skyrim came out he said that it looked dumb and he "needs a gun for the game to be fun, skryim needs guns". Then he actually borrowed the game for a bit and wouldn't give it back. :P

The Movies - Sims style game with a point.

Viva Pinata - had to ration out gameplay on this one with my ex - an hour, than we swapped. So addictive.

The Longest Journey / Dreamfall are both pretty easy to play, have an amazing story and strong female lead characters that should hook her in. Dreamfall is more direct control, TLJ is point and click so go Dreamfall if point and click is a problem.

I can see how any of the new Telltale games would be a hit. Tales of Monkey Island and Back to the Future were particularly good. The Walking Dead game they are making looks like Heavy Rain with zombies, so you could let her play and occasionally yell "Shoot That Guy" for her.

Persona 4 could work if she can handle the dungeon crawl bit.

La Noire would be a good choice if she is into crime scenes and interrogating murderers and so forth.

L.A. Noire is actually an excellent idea, I'll give that one a shot!

Gal Gun.

Assassin's Creed. Bitches love Assassin's Creed. I don't know why, but a lot of girls I know that otherwise don't have any interest in games, really like Assassin's Creed. Play on their brothers or boyfriends Xbox, whatever, those games are super popular for a reason.

Portal 2? It's first-person, but it doesn't require Quake-like reflexes.

Also, Amnesia? Because playing that game alone is painful.

I just recently got done playing Resident Evil 5 through all the difficulties back to back over a few weeks in co-op with my girlfriend, good times.

Half Life 2. That game can be amazing to watch someone else play.

My Beyonce's best experiences with games have been the ones in which she uses her mind as much, if not more, than the controller. Her favorite games thus far have been adventure games like Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton and puzzle games like Picross 3D. In those games, she has been able to take the controller and we puzzle out the solution together. It makes the experience much more equitable.

As mentioned above, I think L.A. Noire could work well in the same way an adventure game does. Don't let her get discouraged by the scoring stuff. It's ancillary to moving forward in the game.

I think games that have a clear premise & simple (or at least not completely unintuitive) controls are really what you need to get a lady friend into a game. Braid, Bioshock, Metal Slug or obvious stuff like Wii Sports or Guitar Hero, even just dumb action games like The Incredible Hulk or X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Rayman Origins.

Also, Limbo is a good suggestion. Mostly because controls are simple and the premise requires very little explanation.

EDIT: Didn't noticed you already counted Rayman Origins

Burnout Paradise. As an arcade driving game is fairly easy to control, and the free-roaming can provide hours of entertainment without the pressure of "completing tasks"

@jewunit said:

My Beyonce's best experiences with games have been the ones in which she uses her mind as much, if not more, than the controller. Her favorite games thus far have been adventure games like Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton and puzzle games like Picross 3D. In those games, she has been able to take the controller and we puzzle out the solution together. It makes the experience much more equitable.

As mentioned above, I think L.A. Noire could work well in the same way an adventure game does. Don't let her get discouraged by the scoring stuff. It's ancillary to moving forward in the game.

That's how it's been with my girlfriend. Adventure games can be great together because you don't need the controller in your hand to contribute to solving the puzzle. Most recently we've been having a lot of fun with Botanicula. We played L.A. Noire together and she really liked it.

Double Fine's games have been good as well. She played Psychonauts on her own and we played Costume Quest and Stacking together.

Peggle! Plain & simple.

You know what I want to see? A 'non-gaming boyfriend games' thread.

@JasonR86 said:

You know what I want to see? A 'non-gaming boyfriend games' thread.

Including 600 replies of, "Dump him and date me because I like games. Are you of Japanese descent?"

Curse of Monkey Island is a great gateway game if you can get your hands on it.

Rock band / guitar hero games, are good too, so is Child of Eden / Rez.

Costume Quest, Stacking and Iron Brigade are also great.

My girlfriend has watched me play Uncharted 1-3, Portal 2, Heavy Rain,Rock Band, and Enslaved. My girlfriend also loved You Don't Know Jack. So you could try those out if you haven't and yes...

@MechaKirby said:

Assassin's Creed. Bitches love Assassin's Creed. I don't know why, but a lot of girls I know that otherwise don't have any interest in games, really like Assassin's Creed.

Pretty good list of more casual hardcore games. Would include Portal 2 in that list.

Mario Party, KoToR, and Indigo Prophecy were all games that my ex-wife got into. The couple of girls I've seen since then just looked at me funny if I even talked about games.

Lots of girls like bowling on Wii Sports.