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Two-Player Games for Mixed Skill Level Players?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the an-semi-level-playing-field dept.

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?"

5 of 506 comments (clear)

  1. I can only suggest a board game... by ynohoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the ancient oriental game of Go has has an excellent handicap system that keeps the game interesting, no matter how wide the skill difference.

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  2. doom II? by way2trivial · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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....

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    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  3. Re:Any FPS with death match by Jamori · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I've had to deal with a similar situation with a friend, except slightly modified where we were both 'hardcore' gamers. There was a time when our skill was rougly equal, with me winning more often than not. Then something kicked in and he got amazingly good. (as an aside, I don't "just suck". Other than he, I'm still arguably the best UT99 or UT2k4 player I know, and I go to an engineering school and live with 7 other guys, all of whom play the game)

    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.

  4. Re:Coop all the way by cgenman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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    The ______ Agenda
  5. Half-life by idries · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.