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10 Gateway Games
The title of 1up.com's feature is Top-Ten Girlfriend Friendly games, but the titles they suggest are generally intended to get a non-gamer interested in the gaming passtime. From the article: "...it is possible to bring non-gaming significant others over to the dark side, through a number of games designed to grab those who couldn't care less how many frags you got in Counter-Strike last week."
IMHO if it weren't for sentimental reasons games like Centipide and Ms Pac-Man wouldn't be on that list. Personally I'm not too fond of Tetris (Dr Mario) either, but Centipede?
That game almost killed the mobile phone gaming market. Too boring to even play on the toilet!
No Pikiman or Pikiman 2? My girlfriend who HATES games with a passion(or maybe just hates me playing rather then spending time with her) loved both of these games so much I actually had to give them to her little sister to get them out of the house and away from her.
Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
I thought a non-competitive, abstract game like Marble Madness would be a nice introduction for my wife. So I fired up the NES and let her try. She got through several levels, eventually, and suppertime was nearing. So I went to the store to get some food, and when I returned she was angrily swearing at the screen and shaking her dainty fist at the NES itself. She glared at me, tossed the controller down, and said "Never ask me to play a videogame again."
Oh well. At least she lets me go fishing in Animal Crossing with our son.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
My wife likes playing games like the ones on orisinal
What she doesn't like is me playing endless hours of FPS on my own. So to spend time together we play team deathmatch games.
Good enough for me.
Sample this!
Karaoke Revolution
:).
Not that I'm partial or anything
P.S. I agree with the sentiment that the article, while trying to be inclusive, comes off a bit like a bunch of sexist men who are trying to be inclusive. Most of the female gamers I know are Everquest players, Counterstrike addicts, Katamari Damacy lovers, die-hard Ninja Gaiden fans, Sims players, Castlevania afficianadoes... Basically players with tastes as varied as any others, who like good games and maybe not so into the grossly overt sexualization thing. While there are some things you can do to make a female audience walk away, the only thing you can do to really attract them is to make a great game.
The ______ Agenda
It was curious that there were no COOPERATIVE games on there. My wife really enjoys playing the cooperative action/RPG games with me. Baldur's Gate:Dark Alliance and the like have eaten MANY hours of our time.
While that genre of games is pretty saturated, it provides a good scenario where I can help her learn the game and pick up the slack with killing the enemies until she gets the hang of it.
Rather than just giving her the controller, try plugging in controller 2.
http://www.tomandemily.com
And SSX3. My girlfriend (never a gamer at 27 years old) was hooked. Then Soul Caliber 2 (dont challenge her if shes playing as ivy). Shes not as hardcore as me, but she does obsess over whatever game she is currently playing. Right now its the buffy sequel. She calls me up, "how do i get past this one part". No hi or nothing. Ive created a monster.
she didnt know hardcore gaming till gt4 came out though... heh heh.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
The gamer-girlfriend equivalent of a crackwhore...
(Posted anonymously? You bet!)
The space below is reserved for all vain /.ers who actually have girlfriends even though they spend their days frantically searching the site for the opportunity to show off:
... mine likes Mariokart double dash: She *knows* the blue sparks.
While the article is sexist, you can just think of it as, "games for non-gamers", but still, no Monkey Ball? I'm not really a huge video game fan, I like toying with them a bit, but I quickly lose interest. However, when I have a couple of friends over, there is nothing quite like some monkey ball and "pre-gaming" before we go out. It has no learning curve, fun as hell, and it can be put down wherever without having to worry about your "progress".
Monstar L
Gamers don't have girlfriends... You should know this by now!
with gratuitous panty shots
...OK, so they were only 20% correct, but my wife simply LOVES Bejeweled (and now, Bejeweled2) and Centipede. I simply could never peel her away from a Centipede console back in the 80's, and whenever we pass one today, she has to play it. She also enjoyed the whole Zork series.
But her REAL passion is word games like "Text Twist" and "Bookworm" from Astraware for the Palm.
OT: As for me, my downfall is the old Roadblasters console game. It is so addictive, and I can frequently get the High score.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
The Eye Toy for the Playstation 2 has been what I have seen grab the interest of more non-gamers than anything else. I have seen many people that wouldn't touch a game controller waving their hands and moving around having a blast with the Eye Toy mini games.
My wife only plays one on the article list - Bejeweled. Her favorites are the Hoyles series, mostly the Card and Board games.
Replace "girlfriend" with "grandma" and they might have something.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
My wife is not really into video games. (Except Tetris with a passion, and webboggle.) But she loves to watch me play RE4. So much so that we only play it together. She makes popcorn and watches it like a movie, I blast away shambling villagefolk.
It's actually one of the more watchable games that I've come across. It's a pretty decent horror movie. Actually given the length its more like a horror series in one package.
Previously she watched me play through Grim Fandango (after I knew all the puzzles of course, otherwise it'd be boring as hell while I do the throw the inventory at the puzzle and wander around trying to figure things out). That game is hands down the best game/movie I've seen.
A good portion of the Wing Commander games are good too, but the space battles get repetitive for the view unless they are a player as well.
She also likes watching parts of Splinter Cell, but the sneaking around is less fun to watch.
It's slightly at a tangent to the discussion here, but I remember an incident last year regarding women and gaming which really made me laugh at the time.
I moved away from where the parents live about 6 years ago, after my student days came to a close and I got a job at the other end of the country. I'd never been much of a gamer before then. I mean, I guess I've been playing games on and off since I was about 10, but computers and games were never my "main" hobby, until a couple of years ago. Therefore, gaming was never actually something I'd particularly talked to my parents about. Sure, I'd done the usual tech-support-over-the-phone-and-at-holidays thing that most slashdotters seem to get roped into, but that was usually just with stuff like printing documents in Word.
Then one evening last year, around September or so, I get a phone call from my mother. She wants to pick my brains over a puzzle. This isn't particularly unusual; she's called me before when stuck on a crossword or something. Anyway, she describes this puzzle to me; it's basically a number-puzzle, based around finding a combination on a keypad from a series of clues. As I listen to the description, I get this weird sense of deja vu. I cut her off half-way through the description and say "The answer's 8631" (or whatever the answer really was; I can't remember now). There's a pause and she says "oh, you're right. How did you know that?" "You're playing a computer game, aren't you?", I say. "More specifically, you're playing Silent Hill 3." Cue an embarrassed pause and a very quiet "erm... yes". (For those who know the game, it was the "hard" difficulty puzzle to find the combination on the hospital door).
To be honest, this was a real shock to me. I guess I'd always shared a lot of the preconceptions demonstrated in this article; that if women played games, it was likely to be "simple" games, like Tetris, played for relatively short periods. Big-budget, high-profile survival horror games would not have been my pick for a "Gateway" game. To be honest, I find the idea of "Gateway" games a bit naff and artificial anyway. Either people like playing games or they don't.
Anyway, it turned out that my mother had already played Silent Hill 2, after being loaned it by a friend and fellow horror-movie buff at work. To tell you the truth, knowing her general level of IT literacy, I was pretty amazed she'd even managed to install and run a PC game. It did, however, get me thinking. Perhaps people outside the normal "gamer" demographic (which I probably just about fall into), are more likely to play a game if it's connected to other interests. My mother is a huge horror movie buff, so the Silent Hill games would have an obvious appeal that something "simple" like Tetris probably wouldn't. Moreover, the extremely realistic graphical style of the games helps to break down the barrier between games and movies. I'm pretty sure the original Silent Hill wouldn't have had the same effect; to somebody who isn't aware of or interested in the context for that generation of games, all that matters is that it doesn't "look" real.
Over-react much?
Hands down, Final Fantasy. It's what got me into games. You don't need reflexes, there's menus. They ease you into playing pretty well. And the stories are great. FFX and X-2 would probably be best for a fledgling female gamer - pretty, and there's a love story.
Before the calls of sexism come, I don't care who the girl is, all girls like romance. Even when they say they don't. They only say that to see if you'll be romantic anyways. (Yes, girls are sneaky.)
You know what I need a list of? Co-operative games.
My wife and I are both very competative, and I find that anything in which we are pitted head to head is bound to end with one of us getting upset.
What I need is a list of games we can play together toward a common goal. And as long as I'm making requests, let's have only console games, PS2 and GC specifically.
Currently our solution is to play MMORPGs, but I'm dying to actually get some damn use out of my GC.
-Male gamers create an enviornment hostile to female gamers, both actively and passively. Examples: telling women that they wont like Doom 3 but they will certainly like DDR (AHEM!); Asking a women who's gaming if she actually likes games (of course she does you dope, she's playing one now!)
-Game creators and especially marketers create disincentives for women to play through sexist or oversexualized portrayals of females. Examples: Hijacking Lara Croft's image from female Indy to Drips-With-Sex-Balloon-Boobs; Bloodrayne; too many to list.
-Women in positions of influence tell young women not to game because it is "not a girl thing to do." I still see (younger and older) mothers tell their daughters not to game (in whatever form) and to play with Barbie. And at the risk of getting shot, I tell them off every time.
To be honest I'm getting sick of the way women are treated and portrayed by the gaming community. From a social standpoint, I want to see games exoand into a major culture-spanning entertainment, and that can't happen without the other half of the species; from a business standpoint, the game industry is ignoring signifigant potential sales on the games they make by being sexist; and from an equality standpoint, what we as gamers and game industry professionals are doing to women is morally objectionable.
Drew Nolosco
Chief Game Designer
Riot Media, Inc.
My girlfriend lovesSuper Monkey Ball Deluxe! We had a party a few weeks back and most of the women gravitated to the basement to play that game on xbox. Fine by the guys, the fridge with the beer was upstairs.
If you don't have the game, rent it, buy it, download it, whatever it. It's a blast.
Trolling is a art,
Firstly, it is, of course, hilariously sexist garbage.
Secondly, you don't want to introduce your s.o. to Animal Crossing if you ever want to get near your Gamecube again.
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This one worked quite nicely for my girlfriend...
almost not in my favor in that it is now all she does...
be careful the dark side...
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
I'm ok now. Calming down. Everything is ok. They're not out to get me. I'll be fine. I'll be ok. Don't worry. Breathe. Relax. It's ok. Don't Worry. Breathe. Breathe.
Yes, flamebait. I'm baiting people to go "no! its not sexist! all women really really do like the same top ten games!"
As a woman, I think The Legend of Zelda games should have been on this list. I've played almost every Zelda Game. It's one of the only games I've finished.
Also why isn't Mario Bros on that list or Tetris my mom's severely addicted to both. I've had to buy her a Gamboy Advance just to play them or she was going to take mine. I will be buying Dr. Mario for her for Mothers day. It's fun to hear how frustrated she gets at puzzle games.
I'm surprised Mario Kart wasn't on that list. It was always the best game I had in my collection to break the ice with. When I was living in the dorms in college I found that the N64 version was quite popular. They were always knocking on my door asking if they could come in to play Mario Kart (which I of course obliged). Their favorite track would always be Moo Moo Farm.
One thing you to which you have to give women credit is that they are not easily swayed by video images and the "kill! kill! kill!" mentality. Most, but not all, women tend to like a game that gives them their money's worth. That means a lot of depth with a simple concept, usually.
Although I disagree with Centipede and Suikoden, I think I can sum up with a brief history of games that accidentally or on purpose were of general interest to women:
1) Pong. It's just not fun anymore, though.
2) Breakout, Super Breakout, Arkanoid, and all those other block busting games (many currently released). Very little actual violence.
3) Pac Man/Ms Pac Man. The first one was a hit with women because it was the first game with a personality and a lot of soft colors. The second one was just an all around better game and it had Pac Man in drag!
4) Dig Dug/Mr. Do! I'm not sure why. I saw more women playing Mr. Do! than Dig Dug back in the day. Dig Dug should replace Centipede on the list IMHO.
5) Galaga and Moon Cresta. Colorful and varied was the key here, I think.
6) The Legend of Zelda. Only the first one had the simplicity and depth ratio right.
7) The Adventures of Lolo. The graphics were particularly hard on the eyes, but the trilogy of Lolo was some of the hardest ever. The key to this puzzle game was in failure--it gave you a clue as to what went wrong.
8) Puzzle games. Bust-a-move/Puzzle Bobble, Tetris, and even Lolo counts. The appeal is a simple concept/difficult play combination and the "pick up game" quality.
9) Solitaire. After all, PC solitaire is the most popular PC game. I suggest Solitaire Antics Ultimate and Hardwood Solitaire (PC and Xbox Arcade).
10) Pitfall/Jungle Hunt/Safari Hunt. Something about vine-swinging. I don't know why, except they're all about survival in a jungle.
11) Megatouch/touchscreen games. These are popular with the ladies.
12) Multi-game arcade cabinets. Probably the smartest move if you have to sate your Soul Calibur urge while on a date.
I should end my list by saying it is not scientific in the slightest. My qualifications to these observations is playing Pong when it was first released.
I'm a girl gamer, and one of the biggest draws for me is having a female avatar. I'll play GTA and Zelda and other games that have only male avatars, and enjoy them, but there's something special knowing that your character is also a woman and she's kicking some ass. That's why I love the Buffy games and No One Lives Forever...
Also, not one adventure game listed on that page? From King's Quest to Loom to Myst, those were the first games that drew me. Since they're all story-oriented and tend to have no violence, surely those would be a hit with most non-gamer women.
ALL WOMEN ARE THE SAME.
Well, they are.
When one is making an effort to attract another demographic, in this case women, one tends to be a little "sexist". You cannot make 50,000,000 products that are appealing to 50,000,000 women. You must make one product that would be appealing to some expected percentage based on some generalization that "most women, because of 'X', will enjoy this game".
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that no, not ALL women are the same, but a very large majority of them are. Women in general have not given sufficient feedback to be fully included in a number of areas (esp. gaming). It is a known fact that chicas tend to avoid the hard sciences and mathematics. Is it because big, bad men wont let them in? Or are there broader reasons (for instance, lack of interest in subjects that aren't perceived as "emotionally relevant")?
As such, these trends do not indicate a "defect" in females, but another feature of innate behavior or perhaps an artifact that results from the differences between men and women as they are being raised as children. There are big differences between men and women and it is obvious, that so far, most game companies have done little to encourage women to play. Now that they are, you claim they are sexist fucks for finally making an attempt to be inclusive and you bemoan the site's statistics because they don't include your tastes as favorites in the list. That's the problem with polling, the odd man (or woman) out is always the odd man out. If you have more escoteric tastes that do not follow the trends of your peers, it will appear that you are being left out. But this is not the case.
Nintendo has the right idea in this sense, as they always espouse games that the average person can enjoy the second they pick up the controller. I suppose Animal Crossing (a game that is essentially a purer, simplified version of the Sims) is what they had in mind. I got a friend of mine who hates video games hooked on it. And I was able to do it by stressing how we can co-inhabit the same world and, essentially, play together, furthering our inventory of bugs, fish, and furniture. It was a blast and clearly shows that cooperative play, even when it isn't at the same time, can be a great tool to get non-gamers to play.
So in conclusion, what we need is a cooperative, multiplayer version of Grand Theft Auto. Get to work Rockstar!
My wife's the same way. One big (HUGE) key for her is that she be able to pick up the controller and go. Hack and slashers are fine, but if (as in Return of the King, which you can play coop) you start getting into combos like Square-Triangle-L2-Triangle, you lost her at Triangle.
She LOVES the Diablo series, at least on the PC, and has a decided weakness for the Civ family of games (even relatively crappy ones like Pharoh). She doesn't play from the strategy, "kill your enemies" standpoint, but she really enjoys building the civilization. I think she's actually completed one game in untold hours of play, and never plays at any level above "super-wuss."
It's also important that you can have sessions that last a couple of hours. She gets lost in those 80 hour RPGs. Cutscenes are not your friend.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
From my experience it is possible to get girls into videogames however for that to happen the game needs to have extremely simplified controls consisting of no more then 4 buttons and having basically no story or learning curve. Fusion Frenzy happens to be a popular title among my girl friends mainly cause you usually only have to press a or b. Marble Madness and Tetris were always favorites of my sister and those games require you every so often to press a single button. People seem to think getting girls interested in videogames is a good idea but if you do and they beat you in something...you'll never hear the end of it.
Simple Games have a great value. They are easy to learn, simple to play and are extremely effective at being a diversion.
I have effectively dropped all gaming in my home on the simple fact that all the games are the same:
- You are some Joe Dude or Super Guy.
- You must Kill, Kill, Kill
- You must solve stupid riddles of some form or another. Which button to press, What's the code, where's the remote? That kind of crap.
- You win by Killing
they are also all very dark, literally. The screen displays are only good for playing in closets, dungeons, or night time. And most of the villians are either half decayed humanoids or genetically mutated gerbils with attitudes.The gaming industry is in trouble. They're stuck on one recipe for gaming and before long, everyone will grow tired of it. Then we'll probably have a rebirth of Donkey Kong, Joust, Railroad Tycoon.
IMHO, Doom is still the best game ever. Simple, effective, entertaining.
One night she was coming over to hang out, and I was playing WoW(World of Warcraft), trying to finish up a quest. She sat beside me and watched the game while I finished. Afterwards, I showed her a few things in the game, then got her started creating a character(NE Female Warrior). She proceeded to play for a good bit after that, me showing her the ins and outs of the game. Eventually I went to bed(damn work sleep schedule) and had to fight to get her to come to bed for a bit(she finally did an hour later). I woke up that morning, and she was still playing. :)
Not terribly long after, I bought her an account, and now we play together online, definately got her addicted
Now to just be able to get some "ME" time with her in the near future....
If you want to play a game with your significant other, how about a game that's based on two player teamwork? (Actually, that might apply to Dance Dance Revolution; I've never played it).
In particular, if your girlfriend likes puzzle games, cooperation and extremely cute cats (mine certainly does), it's worth giving Uo Poko a try on MAME. Um, assuming you live in Japan and own the arcade game. Otherwise you'll be prosecuted to the full extent of the jam.
I know what you mean! My girlfriend plays at least 4-5 hours a day (we're in college so it's easy to have that much free time.) It's almost frustrating when I want to tell her something, and she's too busy killing some monster, or "No, we can't leave for dinner yet, I'm in the middle of a mission" (and then she promptly forgets I ever wanted to go to dinner, and I sit and wait for her to finish the mission for like an hour.)
It felt good to rant.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
it should be here since the original link starts with #5.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Kirby's Air Ride
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Donkey Konga
Mario Party
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
I saw an interesting side of this when working at EB.
As far as EB sales, I can't deny that the Sims and Animal Crossing did very well with women. But many of the the women that actually walked into our store (and it was admittedly rare for one to walk in save Christmas and Valentine's Day) tended to like - surprise - fighting games. Not sure why they liked fighting games, but it definitely goes at odds with the traditional viewpoint that games that sell to women are non-violent and don't advertise big bouncy breasts.
Among PC owners, adventures games did very well. I remember having several female customers that we would see every few months who would come in and lament the decline of the genre, poke around the shelves, pick up a few of those subpar European adventure games, put them down and then sadly leave. Longest Journey would whet their appetite once, but it raised the bar for them and there was little more to offer.
Then there were the few women who were excited about games only because their man's enthusiasm was so infectious. Those were the most fun, because it was always weird to have one of those few come in and excitedly put preorder money down on Def Jam Vendetta or something like that.
It was surprising to me how many males came in wanting, so desperately, to find a game that their girlfriend would play. I wonder about this; why we work so hard to get the women who (kind of) love us to love our games. I've lost count of the number of times I've called my wife into the living room to try to get her to play. Maybe it's a form of validation?
It seems there are some pretty fundamental misunderstandings going on, looking at the comments so far in this thread. The answer to the question "what sort of games do girls like" is quite simply "good games".
Honestly, all this talk about "simple" games, "real" games and so on is just patronising and untrue. Two of the most commonly cited "popular with females games" are complex and menu driven (The Sims and Final Fantasy X). By and large, with variations for individual taste and genre preferences, female gaming preferences are basically along the same lines as male. A good game in any genre will be recognised as such by players of either gender. Final Fantasy X, Resident Evil 4, Half-Life 2, Halo 2 and The Sims are good games; their appeal is fairly universal, although there are always a few fanboys (and it's almost always boys), who define themselves as "real gamers" and consider it somehow obscene to profess a liking for those games.
Indeed, if there's one big difference between male and female gaming habits, this is where it lies. By and large (and yes, I'm going to stereotype here, even though I don't like doing so), girls are brought up in an environment in which it's less acceptable for them to play games. They're less likely to have spent their childhoods talking about them with friends and they'll generally come to them later in life. For this reason, I've generally found women games less likely to be involved in, or impressed by, the willy-waving that characterises so much of the "male" gaming discussion. There's a trend among male gamers, particularly noticable here on slashdot, to attempt to accumulate Kudos by professing deliberately archaic tastes ("What, you like Final Fantasy X? Disgusting. They've not made a good installment since 2, when everything was in text and you controlled the game by throwing rocks at the screen!") or claiming to be a "real gamer" ("I only play Nintendo games because only Nintendo make REAL GAMES for REAL GAMERS").
By and large, if you exclude the small but unfortunately noisy demographic that think like this, male and female gaming tastes are the same. The same considerations of gameplay, graphics, sound and story all come into force, with the specific balance varying between individuals
If they'd done a list of only current games, I think Nintendo would have come out on top in terms of consoles. Probobly the best system to get any new gamer, male or female, would be a GBA. In my opinion, it has a better game library than the Game Cube or any other console.
A lot of guys make fun of Nintendo for being "kiddy", but they aren't really childish. It's just that they lack the uber-macho posturing stuff you see in a lot of other consoles/games. Some guys are put off by that, but obviously girls are not. In fact, most of the people saying "Nint3nd0 iz k1dd3" are probobly pimply teenagers, not men.
IMHO, while girls can like blowing away people in GTA as much as any guy, they're not as swayed by the macho feel of those games so much as by the gameplay.
Its already hard enough to get video game time with all the "Great" Lifetime TV movies on, the last thing I need to do is fight over who gets to use the console tonight.
Great tetris-like puzzle game on PSP. My girlfriend is hooked and has higher score than me.
It's the only game you can take into the bedroom!
For those not in the know, the PS2 version of Rez was released in Japan with a special device that vibrated. A bit like a rumble pack, except that this one does not connect to the pad, but rather you place it on your... er... body/lap/in your pants. Basically, it's a vibrator controlled by the game. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "two player".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Warcraft 3 isn't old (relative to your examples) and has a VERY different flavor to your laundry list.
I should note that playing in a dark backlit room offers a great deal of advantage - so I can't argue against your "dark" criticism.
It is also common to win against a non-computer opponent without killing them off. I've had numerous wins when the opponent quits as they realize that they are outmatched (economically and/or geographically isolated). As for me, I'm generally too stubborn to quit like that.
The multiple races (with their own storylines) combined with the hero concept set this game above other games in this genre. Rather innovative, in contrast to your bleak view of the industry. We're no where near 1983 territory.
It's not just girlfriends who don't give a flying fuck about CS, there's also anyone else who has a working brain, and therefore got sick and tired of CS years ago.
CS fanboys, mod me troll if you must, I just had to say it.
Back in the day when Earth and Beyond first came out, I was one of the people who bought it and gave it a whirl. It was fun for a time. More importantly one time a girl (a friend) was over at my place who sat down and watched it. I don't know what it was about the game, the simplicity of control, the accessible content, etc... but she almost literally shoved me out of my seat and started her own character to play. Next thing I knew she was coming over to play the game.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Can we have you people get a life, stop obsessing over the darn thing, and quit posting about every time there is some article involving women/girlfriends/etc and games?
Here a few more observations I've seen about games that have a good draw on Real Women(tm) I know:
Heroes of Might and Magic 3- Something about this series has a strong draw on my women friends. Could be the sparkly graphics and sound... maybe they also like the flow of gathering up resources and even making armies? I know several of my women friends who don't play that many games but played the Heroes 3 games like ("male") power gamers.
Caeser III, Pharaoh, Zeus Something about these citybuilder games have good appeal with my women friends.
Dungeon Keeper 2 My friend Kate craves to manage dungeons. She loves managing her minions and helping them to kick ass. The only reason she's losing interest in this game now is she's played it all the way through maybe six times now.
Tropico 2 Pirate's Cove Another citybuilder, except with pirates. A lot of the pirate captains are women in game.
A few observations- a common thread in all these games is they are all fundamentally more constructive than destructive, more creative than competitive. You spend the time building up interesting networks, not battering down fictional monster enemies. Same holds true with the Sims, DDR, even Katamari.. Could it be the start of a pattern?
is it just me or is that list dominated by games that have no ending except for when you finally fail?
My sister loves the sims only because its just like "playing with my barbies as a kid"
a game that simulates you are shopping, so it lets U browse fake ebay, tiffany, LV, gucci and yahoo sites for clothes and jewellry, and you can view the items and than proceed to buy them. Its all fake of course, but its the act of "Shopping" that my gf craves.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that no, not ALL women are the same, but a very large majority of them are. Women in general have not given sufficient feedback to be fully included in a number of areas (esp. gaming). It is a known fact that chicas tend to avoid the hard sciences and mathematics. Is it because big, bad men wont let them in? Or are there broader reasons (for instance, lack of interest in subjects that aren't perceived as "emotionally relevant")?
I think that you are right, and wrong in a sense. Certainly, looking at the set of people today it seems apparant that there is a difference between men and women.
Well certainly there are physical differences
I think that mentally, the differences are, in part at least, caused by the defining shit that gets shoved down your throat everywhere you go since the day you're born. combined with what seems to be a tendency in the average human (or at least average american, I have not had much personal experiance outside of america) to not be able to get past that same defining shit.You know what I'm talking about - all of the advertisements, all the "be a real man, macho and masculine! be a real woman, painted and manipulative! be a real man, just care about getting your dick wet! be a real woman, just care about the size of the wallet!"....granted that was a bit hyperbolic, but that image of men like this, and that; women like that, and the other thing, that image is pushed like fucking crazy.
It's pushed partly for the reason that it's currently true - but it's also part of the reason that it is true. And really, it's pushed because it makes a profit. All the imaging, all commercials and advertisements, all people highly regarded in the public eye, all the "citizens role models" all propogate this idea that "stuff equals likability. expensive stuff is sexy, the more expensive, the more money you spend, the more sweet hot sex you are going to get from girls. the more you spend, the more the hot stud you have a crush on is going to notice you"
Almost everyone I meet pays more attention to someone looks than their mind. What a bunch of fucking bullshit.
To make things worse, the federal government gets a cut out of every dollar spent, and has the power to do whatever the fuck it wants to as long as it can keep the mass majority of people either placcid, ignorant, or both. The consumerist lifestyle works perfectly for them. When you think about it, the entire country is run on profit, and profit alone. The people in the country provide the services and the spending that provide the government with what has to be at least a large chunk of it's income.
What do you think a government that relies at least partly on it's citizens funding it? Make it impossible for them to live comfortably and legally without doing so. And all that bullshit about how we owe the government something for providing the roads and the schools and the whatnot is just that. Organazation, transportation, education, and technology are things that are independent of the government. They may have provided the means for the current set of them, but that does mean that they would not exist without them.
What's that? Yes I do have a tendency to ramble and change subjects. But seriously, I think that the government, media corporations, and consumerist lifestyle are really very closely connected and part of a very very complex problem that has more to do with people's mindset than anything else.
I want my libertarian socialism, dammit. I doubt I'll see it though.
kaens.blogspot.com
I want my libertarian socialism, dammit. I doubt I'll see it though.
How do those two go together? One of them is a theory about how things whould be better of if the government (and everyone else) where less invovled, the other is a system that by necessity forces government into your life.
Mine is very happy with Bust-A-Move. She's spent hours playing that and it was easy to teach her.
SimCity 4, which obviously takes a long time to learn, has been great for us to play together. It's a very addictive game, too.
And Final Fantasy, as someone else here pointed out, has a lot to appeal to the female gamer. It's easy to learn, doesn't require all the fast reflexes and constant attention, and has a fantastic plot line with romance weaved in.
-David
Well, that was my story, anyway. Almost 4 years ago, I put MAME on my girlfriend's computer with a few classics (notably Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Burger Time). Eventually I noticed over time that the play counter on her MAME installation was reaching into the hundreds, and that her high score tables were astronomical! We're talking 160,000 in BT, 85,000 in DK, 150,000 in MB to give some examples.
After a while, she realized it was like crack and it was preventing her from getting any work done. She figured that dragging the MAME icon off the desktop into the trash and emptying the trash would remove the program. Luckily this was Windows, so the program still lived as she only deleted the shortcut. I preserved the high score files and told her that it was all still there, but I had hidden it from her (power of the H attribute and a rename). She's happy, and it is some kind of occasional treat I can give to her by leaving it running when I leave - she just needs the strength to close it.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Animal Crossing is a great game. When we got it my wife and I fought over time to play it, because it runs real-time if you didn't get home from work or we went out we would miss something.
It's best that we don't play it anymore. It was really consuming our lives.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
But you need to have GBA's as well.
Zelda: Four Swords (Hands down, one of the best --if not the best-- co-operative games I have ever played.)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (very good co-op game, but can cause some stress if you're combat styles aren't complimentary during boss battles.)
Pac-Man Vs. (while it's not co-operative, it is hours of fun for just about any skill level of gamer. It comes packed in with Pac-Man World 2.)
My GF loves to play games that we can play together, in particular, the RPGs where you can fight goblins and such cooperatively. Baldur's Gate for example, we blew through both BG's in a week's time. when a new one comes out she gets instantly obsessed and we HAVE to play every hour we are home together. I just got Everquest: Champions of Norrath from Gamefly on Friday and we played all weekend. I am a big RPG fan and *I* am sick of them by the time we are done. She wants to start over and play again. I have to walk away or I would be stuck in a vicious cycle of playing BG over and over.
Libertarian Socialism I assume is what I call Social Liberal : Strong economic controls, weak personal controls.
No Pikiman or Pikiman 2?
Spell-check has detected errors leading to ambiguity. Did you mean:
Given that I can't find an IT job in this town no matter how hard I try, I'm not spending $290 for one game. If I collect fifty "we went with another candidate" letters and a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, am I eligible to file for Social Security disability benefits?
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Not anything like the Libertarian party. The term libertarian socialism has been around longer than the party. It's really a synonym for anarchism. Not chaos, anarchism.
kaens.blogspot.com
Hey, thanks! I learned something new today.
I spend my free time learning anyhow, it can be one of the most enjoyable experiences, as long as you're learning about something you care about.
But yeah, again I have a tendency to ramble.
kaens.blogspot.com