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Two-Player Games for Mixed Skill Level Players?
koreth asks: "What are some good two-player games that a newbie can successfully play with a more seasoned gamer? I want to find a good console or PC game I can play with my girlfriend, who has only recently started gaming. Something cooperative would be great, but head-to-head is fine too. All the games we've tried are made for players of roughly the same skill level -- so either I end up dumbing my gameplay way down (no fun for me) or blowing her out of the water without much effort (no fun for her). Is there any game out there that gives two players tasks of varying difficulty to keep both of them engrossed, at the same time?"
the ancient oriental game of Go has has an excellent handicap system that keeps the game interesting, no matter how wide the skill difference.
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
deathmatch or Coop- I think it's great for this..
if you REALLY KNOW YOUR MAPS, find some custom ones,
if you really need to, restrict yourself to weapons BELOW 5, give here whataver she can locate to use...
my wife really warmed up to it kinda quickly....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
He liked to play 1on1 deathmatch, and our 1on1 rounds would often devolve into a game which essentially amounted to: can I kill myself before he can?
In maps where it was an option, I would insist upon falling off an edge, or some other unusual form of death (just switching to the impact hammer and shooting the ground didn't make for a very enjoyable time...) I would, of course, have to defend myself along the way by shooting back, but that rarely resulted in a kill, since killing him was no longer even my primary objective.
We also had various other odd ways of playing the game. We'd each stand at opposite ends of a long hall with shock rifles and play "baseball". "Pitch" a ball of secondary fire and the other had to hit it.
Granted, these methods of gaming aren't likely to appeal to many, but we sure had a hell of a time with it.
Monkey Island.
One of the best SNES games of all time (so you need an emulator and the ROM) is Kirby's Avalanche. The great thing about this game is the handicap system that really does allow for your girlfriend to feel like she's beating the crap out of you while you're having fun actually playing as hard as you can to keep up. Perfect balance there.
You might also want to try out one of the karaoke games that are available. It might seem weird at first, but they're usually hard enough to make the "game" part fun.
I've always found that head to head games are more fun, with a partner. I suppose it depends on your personalities, though. I think I enjoy the ability to sit down and play a few rounds here and there without the levels to work through or the extended involvement you get with co-op games.
~ Leilah
Bought Soul Calibur for the DC. Got myself pretty good at Kilik - long weapon range, and deadly combos....
Have a friend that enjoys playing as well, but not as much skill to his Kilik fighting as I. So one night we decide to mix up a bunch of Tanqueray (I know the spelling is fucked up) no. 10 and tonic.
By the middle of the night, we were both so messed up.... he was just mashing buttons WITH HIS EYES CLOSED kicking my ass all over the place.
I was trying my hardest, but when drunk and laughing like crazy, it's hard to keep skill in check...
Karnal
The nice thing about sports games is that they all support co-op play. The bad thing about sports games is that she has to like some team sport, and so do you. This could be soccer, hockey, college basketball, or the rarer polo / lacrosse, etc.
Rhythm music games are also a good choice, as A: most of them support independent difficulty levels and B: they're very easy to pick up. Dance Dance Revolution is a good starting point. Karaoke Revolution is a good one too. When Beatmania comes out in the west later this year, if she has any inclination I'd recommend it as well.
Guitar Hero unfortunately doesn't have independent difficulty settings (Sorry!) but it's still worth picking up if I do say so myself.
Another one that can be fun are RTS games. Yes, RTS games. If you're better / geekier than she is, just start her out on a map with a thousand strong horde of hideously beweaponed Orcish disembowlers, and take for yourself one small pikeman on a donkey. Most RTS games allow for this large degree of balancing, so find a theme that both of you can appreciate (or, let's be honest, she can appreciate), and run with it.
You do get some nice dynamics in Shoot-em-ups where you can wind up protecting the lesser player, or they can valliantly die trying to save you. If both of you actually like the masochistic shooter formula then you could do much worse than Ikaruga. Any game that lets player 2 take lives from player 1 is good.
And as other posters pointed out, Guild Wars is a winner, fighting games have a large degree of balancing, MMORPG's are great but keep your characters at a similar level, etc.
The ______ Agenda
I have Mario Party 4, 5, 6 and 7 for the Game Cube, and they're great! It's a board game, and you play a mini game after everyone has rolled. I'd rather be playing a FPS, but Mario Party is still a lot of fun. Another good one for the GC is Mario Kart.
Common sense is not so common.
The handicapping feature won't cover the situation. And it requires a level of motor control and spatial awareness basic gamers don't have at all anyway.
Stay far away.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The original Half-Life port for PlayStation 2 had an excellent co-op mode which my wife and I played through until the end (I don't think that she's ever finished another game - except maybe Quake 1). AFAIK that's the only format that the co-op levels appeared in. It's really cool, both players have to work 2gether, but a good player can help out a less skilled one without detracting from the fun at all.
One thing to note about this is that if either player dies the mission is failed and you have to go back to the start of the level, so co-operation is far more critical than in something like Halo.
The trick is to both of you create a character that you only play together. Then if one of you have a little more time, you just create another one that you are free to level up to 70 with Epic fishing pool and Artisan mad bartending skills.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
I know nintendo's out of fashion, but it's hard to beat good old Diddy Kong Racing. The more experienced player just needs to chose a more difficult to drive racer. This is actually beneficial, as it forces you to learn skills and techniques that would be more useful in advanced stages of the single-player game.
... get drunk!
My guess is that the Mario Kart games are as good for the same reasons.
However, finally, and this is a serious suggestion, and quite fun too...
Well, not drunk, but more than just a little bit lubricated. I normally
give myself a 4-pint handicap when playing my girlfriend at DKR, for
example.
FP.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Ever played it with everything on infinite supply and double damage? It's a terrifying experience. Given half a chance, any opponent will immediately launch the unstoppable Concrete Donkey... so you have to make sure that your worms are spread out and positioned such that nobody can attack them with a Donkey (or similar weapon of mass destruction) without also obliterating members of their own team. And suddenly you have a tense, nervous game of positional play, in which worms attempt to isolate some, and use others as annelid shields, and in which any slip is immediately punished by massive firepower from above.
Alternatively, play Worms with low-power weapons. Play with unlimited Ninja ropes, one jetpack, martial arts, grenades, and the shotgun only. Things get vicious.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.