Slashdot Mirror
Games For Both Of Us?
Truist writes "My wife and I have started playing games together (side by side at the computer) recently, and we're having a hard time finding games that we both like. Specifically, I tend to like FPS games (Quake) and she tends to like puzzle games (Myst), but we're both happy to meet in the middle. She doesn't seem to like Worms, but Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a huge success for both of us. What are your suggestions for good games that we can play together, and that we'll both enjoy?"
my ex-g/f liked to play GTA3.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
http://www.subspacehq.com/
Free download, free play, tons of fun. Got my GF hooked.
Always, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. It's a two person cooperaive dungeon crawl. Enough D&D and character leveling to be interesting for a long time gamer and simple enough for a newbie.
My girlfriend hates most gaming, especially D&D, but she begs me to play Dark Alliance with her.
Sorry, XBox and PS2 only. Also, it's pretty short. About 6-8 hours will get you through the game, even on a first run through. (And Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is on the way!)
You and your wife might enjoy a game of Rez on PS2.
In fact, if you have the right peripheral, she might enjoy it more than you...
: )
You can't take the sky from me...
If you're really attached to first-person shooters, though, try something slower paced with a bit more strategy--System Shock 2, the Thief games, Deux Ex, and so forth. You might find something you both like.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Sam and Max, the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle (Lucasarts adventures in general) have worked for my wife and I.
If you can find it, I think you'd both like Marathon. Really more of a puzzle than a FPS--it's not nearly as competitive as, say, Unreal--it has a nice blend of "How do I open that door" with twitch fragging. I would often clear a level, and then go back to figure out all the puzzles. Really, one of the best games of it's class, although now the graphics are dated. It gave a Mac-gamer hope in a dark day...but I'm not going to believe Halo is actually shipping for the Mac until I install it.
(Marathon also was available for the PC, but not nearly as widely known as it was on the Mac. And, good luck finding it, especially for the PC--but I'll warrant any Mac user from 98 still has a copy lying around somewhere.)
--
$tar -xvf
Halo. My wife didn't even want me to get Halo, but when she watched her nephews playing it she got hooked. We played it in cooperative mode and had a blast. Way too many 2am bedtimes because of Halo! :-) I suspect that over Christmas we'll give it another go at a higher level.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Not sure if a non-combat game would be your cup of tea, but our game has what I believe is the highest proportion of female players of all MMORPGs. 27% if you're counting based on paid accounts, and 40% if you're counting by hours played. (Yes, women tend to play more hours than men.) Anecdotally, I find that people almost always play a character of their gender. I've talked to dozens of guys who have said "This is the first computer game my wife/girlfriend will play with me."
We have Windows and Linux clients, and it's free for 24 hours. (We don't even ask for a credit card upfront.) If you check it out, do a "/chat pharaoh" in game and let me know.
My wife and I got into playing Gauntlet together over 10 years ago. To this day, we still get out once a year or so to blow a pocketfull of quarters playing Gauntlet Legends at whatever local arcade has it at the moment. It's got a good mix of strategy, action, and teamwork that we both enjoy. I think I've seen it available on consoles - if you can find it, you might want to give it a try.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
My girlfriend and I have had a few games of Civ3 against each other. You could try out one of that series (including Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, of course).
What are your suggestions for good games that we can play together, and and that we'll both enjoy?
Why don't you two have a race to see who can discover the 41st Mersenne Prime first?
GMD
watch this
My wife and I play a few games together:
- Diablo II (Mac)
- Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (Xbox)
- Dynasty Warriors 3/4 (PS2)
- Time Crisis 2/3, Vampire Nights (PS2)
- House Of The Dead 2 (DC)
- Super Puzzle Fighter II (GBA)
She's sort of an exception to the norm, though. She also enjoys Animal Crossing quite a bit, and doesn't mind watching me play through Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GC), or Knights Of The Old Republic (Xbox).
m.
"Sebastian you're in a mess. They called you King of all the Hipsters, is it true or are you still the Queen?" -- B
I've found Tetris to be a head-to-head favorite with smart ladies everywhere.
For the girlfriends who aren't as interested in the competitive aspect of multiplayer gaming, the new Mario Kart: Double Dash lets you cooperate, set in a theme that's not pushed towards a particular gender.
Side note: Tried the four-Game Cube link-up. Incredible.
Promote civility: mod down any post starting with 'ummm'.
With that, my recommendations are (besides ChuChu Rocket): Final Fantasy Tactics, Gran Turismo 3, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and any of the Doom games.
With this game you can have oodles of fun raising your virtual daughter to be a princess (as no doubt your real darling daughter would eventually become), and along the way, you get great tips on how to improve her mood with cake, fish and S&M gear!
Games that my wife and I have spent a lot of time playing together:
Diablo II
SimCity
The Sims
various Zeldas
Animal Crossing
Mario Kart: Double Dash
I'm not sure what it is about Diablo II -- it's certainly not a traditional female-friendly game -- but for some reason my wife really loved it and burned serious hours playing it. Now that I think about it, my girlfriend is even less of a gamer than my wife, but for some reason she too is a huge Diablo II fan. It might have to do with the collecting & accessorizing aspect of the game.
The co-op mode in Mario Kart: DD is GREAT for spousal involvement. My wife rides on the back of the cart, helping me dodge things and using items, so she feels very involved and will happily sit and play for hours. But because I'm doing the driving, and therefore most of the success/failure rests on me, she doesn't feel extremely pressured. With my wife, at least, her main turn-off when it comes to video games is pressure: if she gets flustered while playing a game, she won't touch it again. Every single game my wife has ever gotten into has been low pressure, and generally also low-conflict.
I would say that in general Nintendo makes the best gender-neutral games. Buy a GameCube if you don't already have one.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Rule #1 when playing with your partner is always play co-op. Otherwise you discover that, just like the movie War Games said, nobody really wins.
Age of Empires and Age of Kings went down very well in my house (playing co-op vs the computer). So did Diablo 1 and 2. My girl hates shooters too, but for inexplicable reasons she has become deeply obsessed by Battlefield 1942. I just have to remember to always play on the same side.
I should buy some cement.
My gf and I play Pokemon Puzzle League against each other all the time.
Man, 11 years old and you've already got a girlfriend? I smell BS.
Ron Paul 2012
You can also play on the alien side, where there is no commander. Different alien subspecies have different roles. I like playing the 'gorge' and 'lerk' subspecies that have support roles like healing and building new alien structures. Other players enjoy the front-line combat alien subspecies.
-m
Heroes of Might and Magic. Not just Might and Magic, but Heroes of Might and Magic. Awesome game. My wife and I started playing it when it was at number II and now it's at IV and we still play it. It's basically an animated map that you go around and collect resources, build up your castle, when you fight it moves to a full featured fight screen. Awesome game, I highly recommend it. It's really fun to go coop style on maps that support it as we don't care to fight eachother. Download.com has the demo.
Depending on our mood my wife and I played either cooperatively or competitively. Currently we play some Frogger game on GC. We take turns each trying to advance farther in the game. Other games that we liked in the past that we took turns to advance were the Abe Oddworld and Rayman games on PS.
The Zelda games did not work well because they took too much time in large chunks to get anywhere, the same with the Final Fantasy games.
We went through a long phase of playing competitively against one another. Some examples here that we liked were Puyo Puyo, Chu Chu Rocket, and Mario Kart. There was also some wierd circles color matching game for PS that I cannot remember the name of. I am ashamed to admit that we even played pong for the PS addictively in two player mode. That was a terrible game but there was just something about yelling, "Take that you stupid rod!"
Now the only thing we play competitively is Mario Party 3, but that is a whole lot more fun when my brother and his girl friend come over.
Since you are married, you should already know what games you like to play together. If you have no video games you both enjoy, it may be the medium. Try some real world games. When we were really competive we liked Risk and Scrabble (in both English and Polish). Now we like doing cross word puzzles together and we have an electronic trivial pursuit that we try to beat our high score in. Outside we liked tennis and swimming. Now we like roller blading and bike rides. The kids like the bike rides too.
StepMania is a GPL'd rhythm game for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Combine it with two PS1 dance pads, a 2xPS1 to USB controller adapter, and some Tournamixes, and have hours of fun.
Adventures of Cookies & Cream (PS2) **
Amplitude (PS2)
Animal Crossing (GCN)
Crash Team Racing (PS1)
Dance Dance Revolution (PS2) **
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN) **
Mario Kart: Double Dash (GCN) **
Mario Party 1-5 (1-3 N64, 4-5 GCN)
Parappa the Rapper (PS1)
Pokemon Puzzle League (N64)
Pokemon Snap (N64)
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (all) **
Soul Calibur 2 (all)
Starsky & Hutch (PS2) **
Super Monkey Ball (GCN)
Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN) **
**One concept that always works for the codependant gamer is co-op play over competition play, as many posters have pointed out. That way it's not a huge humilating blowout if one player is better than the other. My wife really liked playing Tingle in Wind Waker because she could help me out if I got lost or needed a hint.
Another trick is to try out games that don't come off as overwhelming, like FPS and RTS games often do. Like Parappa, Double Dash, or Animal Crossing.
I submitted a similar question several months ago. You might want to check it out. It was more geared towards the PS2 and consoles, but there were a lot of good suggestions all over the board.
On that note, by the way, consider a console. I never saw the point in them, as I've been playing computer games for twenty years. But then I got married, and (as you're discovering) the computer games are not nearly as social as the consoles. Consoles are geared towards multiple players, whereas there are very, very few games out there that utilize multiple players on a computer.
On a highlight, there's always something like ePSXe and other console emulators. Get one set up and go rent some PS1 games! They're cheap to buy, now too, and almost any modern computer emulates the PS1 with cycles to spare. Get a couple of joysticks, (or buy PS1 pads and the converters -- they're out there but I have not tried them).
There are also plenty of good old arcade games, so as another poster mentioned, MAME is a great idea. You can, of course, find ROMS online if you are so inclined. Golden Axe, Gauntlet, Double Dragon, Xenophobe. These may not be the best examples, but they're out there.
So in short, I'm clueless for computer games per se. But for PS2/Xbox, my favorite is Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. It's simultaneous two player, cooperative, not split screen, contains plenty of shopping for new items (my wife loves that part -- seriously), and although it's not phenomenally long, it has pretty good replayability. The sequel comes out in the next couple months, too.
However, the games that we truely play together or even competitively, are of a different vein.
We recommend:
Jardinians - "Like Breakout, But With More Gnome Bouncing", Fun to play competitively, and you can make your own levels to challenge each other. (Just make sure you can beat your own level)
Text Twist - Kind of a word jumble game. There's a free trial, give it a chance, it's a addictive. Fun to play cooperatively.
Super Collapse 2 This is an interesting puzzle game which is best played solo.
Spider Solitare - This one was free courtesy of Microsoft. Sure it's solitare, but you can play cooperatively too.
Monopoly Party - This old stand-by never dies. We stick to classic, not the weird "party mode". The CPU's are kind of stupid, but it's still a good time, especially with more people. The best part is, nobody has to be the bank, so games go sooo much faster.
Old NES ROMS - We have a hacked xbox that has a ROM emulator loaded on it and we love to play Super Mario 2 and some of the classics. And now we're talking about building a MAME/XNES Cabinet.
...now if only I could break her into Linux.