5 Games to Introduce Somebody to Gaming

[BiggyShackleton]

Games like Uncharted or Assassin's Creed are always good intro games. Nice graphics, easy to pick up and play, good for the story.

The Sims is another great starter game, no worries about objectives or time limits (at first anyway).

 

[damselgaming]

My ideas would be based on what I started with, and I was about 3 so no excusses!

Maybe a platformer, that co-op spyro game springs to mind. Then progress depending on what they like don't like. I figure it's an organic process. When I started playing I just picked up anything I thought I would enjoy. I literally stumbled upon ffIX and Metal Gear at the age of about ten.

 

[Torrasque]

Mario 64
Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Diablo 2
Portal
Street Fighter 2

Adventure, strategy, RPG, shooter/puzzle, fighting. That just about sums everything up. I chose these specifically because they were challenging when I first played them, and they are still fun to play today. They also all have a very nice difficulty curve.
I'd throw a driving game or flight sim game if I had a 6th choice, but I kept it to 5 since you asked nicely.

 

[999realthings]

Portal (Pretty much 101 of Introductory gaming)

Batman - Arkham Ayslum, it take something non-gaming related and makes it awesome. Even if the person is not interested in games, s/he might have seen the movie and is interested in that. Also pretty simple and fun

God of War I or II - If they don't mind gore, GoW is the perfect game with it's pacing and combat mechanics. However, maybe I recommend 1 more for it's story.

Katamari Damacy - A pretty fun with it's level split into short but fun portion and very aesthetically pleasing.

Dark Souls, jks

Psychonauts - While it's pretty hard near the end, the game is very unique and with it's wonderful humour and brilliant level design, it likely pull people who interested in gaming isn't as enthusiastic.

 

[efAston]

Quake
Thief
Icewind Dale II
Donkey Kong Country
Dawn of War

Remember the games you played when you got into gaming? They were hard. Really hard, some of them, but you kept attacking them because there were sweet fleshy rewards inside. If you have a basis in gaming of solid, linear gameplay, you know what all this business is about, and can see where all these off-shoots of sub-genres have been coming from. So yeah, I absolutely think that 15yo games are a good introduction. Also makes equipment less of an issue (why spend hundreds of dollars on equipment that you know nothing about, for a hobby you know nothing about?).

 

[Valok]

Hmmmm, lets see...

Firstoval, Portal - and maybe Portal 2 later, but this time played in coop.

After that I would recommend Bastion, lovely game with action a great story and some RPG elements.

Mass Effect 1/2. Aside from the epic story and RPG elements it seems a good place to start improving the aiming when you are under pressure - it's not that hard and there's also the cover system plus the friendly NPC's to help.

Those are the ones that come to my mind right now.

 

[CommanderL]

jake and daxter 2
assassins creed
mass effect
lego starwars the game that got me into gaming
and age of empires 2

 

[Felstaff]

Here's how I managed it, in exactly five games.

Total. Flippin'. Conversion.

The first move: she was sassy, with a good singing voice, so... Sing Star: Motown, in a party setting, worked like a charm. This led to more Wii-based entertainment, in the form of Rock Band. During lulls, where voices needed resting, etc., a quick switch to Cave Story, in order to (re*)acquaint her with classing D-pad/2-button controls in an engaging and fun manner. Step up the level to multiplayer New Super Mario Bros., and after realising she spent over nine hours gaming, I realised I had seen the face of a new-born addict after their first hit. It was like a Disneyfied version of Trainspotting.

The final game, to introduce her to a more current, three-dimensional world for her to get used to: Okami.

Anyway, if there is one genre that will pique the interest of... pretty much anyone, it has to be puzzle-solvers. Mystery solving is the great leveller of humanity, as you don't need to be good at games to become immersed in puzzle-solvers; you just have to apply your noggin. Which anyone with a noggin can do. So, for that, I would say
[ul]Professor Layton & the thingiest thingumy
The 7th Guest/11th Hour
Black Mirror series
City of Secrets
The Last Express[/ul]


*As no matter how little experience one has had with vidjagames, everyone in the developed world has played Super Mario Bros. at some point in their lives.

 

[Ninjat_126]

1. Portal.
2. Gran Turismo or a similar racing game.
3. Tekken or a similar fighting game.
4. Ratchet & Clank
5. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Tekken is one of the easiest fighting games to pick up and play. Each face button does a punch or kick, and everything chains fluidly together making it easy to just bash buttons and get a feel for the game.

Ratchet & Clank is an epic action-platformer with great OTT guns and stuff.

PoPtSoT has great combat, great story, great characters, great controls, an innovative central mechanic, and some challenging puzzles.

I have played an enjoyed every single one of these games, with the possible exception of Gran Turismo because I'm just not a racing game fan.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Persona 3:FES

Pokemon (latest one out)

Baldur's Gate 2

Blazblue Continuum Shift

Bayonetta


Deep meaningful stories, complex immersive worlds and battle systems, over the top show in epic, things that will make you love the gaming world instantly.

 

[bader0]

portal
ratchet and clank, any of them although if you can play co-op thats gonna be awesome
jak 3
they would definitely be the first 3 then i would go into something slightly more hardcore.
prince of persia, the first or second one, or the new cell shaded one i guess.
assasins creed, the second one is much better but you need to play the first one for story reasons.

 

[bader0]

1. Portal.
2. Gran Turismo or a similar racing game.
3. Tekken or a similar fighting game.
4. Ratchet & Clank
5. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Tekken is one of the easiest fighting games to pick up and play. Each face button does a punch or kick, and everything chains fluidly together making it easy to just bash buttons and get a feel for the game.

Ratchet & Clank is an epic action-platformer with great OTT guns and stuff.

PoPtSoT has great combat, great story, great characters, great controls, an innovative central mechanic, and some challenging puzzles.

I have played an enjoyed every single one of these games, with the possible exception of Gran Turismo because I'm just not a racing game fan.

are you me?

 

[Da Chi]

Honestly, i would think of controls as a must for introducing a new player to any game. Obvious choice would be Mario Kart for the wii. The steering wheel will give players an obvious transition into the controls. push one button to go, steer to turn, another button uses power ups. simple and easy.
Mario Galaxy would be another good example. using a single joystick to navigate around, and a single button to jump are basically all you use for the majority of the game. The game is good at slowly teaching you new ways to interact with a game. Players completely foreign to moving around a 3d environment can learn a lot from this game.
A personal favorite of mine is Bomberman (Any one will do, but top down 2d are the easiest to pick up). One button does everything, rounds are fast and exciting, and its a good way to teach people about powerups and ways they can directly affect gameplay (Destructing scenery, collecting powerups, blocking roads etc).
While the game might be too much of a challenge for beginner players i would recommend Bastion. Linear, story driven gameplay, wonderful visuals and customization that is neither overwhelming or non-existant; its just right. I played this on pc and the controls are... less than stellar, but i have a feeling that the console version might be easier.
And finally, the sims. The game can basically play itself, but more and more user interaction makes the game much deeper. The user will progress from a stationary observer into a micro-managing master through the course of the game because the game is basically centered around trial and error. And dieing isn't really a problem in the sims because learning more and more new things as the game progresses will make it easier to get ahead and not die. A very effective game.

So there are my choices. I think anyone getting into games can pick up those games and have a BLAST!

 

[Legendsmith]

-Far Cry 2 (amazing variety of choice in a game that you don't need a PhD to play)

Farcry 2 has a good engine with good mechanics, with the exception of the all the enemy NPCs having thermal vision.

Where's the amazing variety of choice though? Before you're even half way through the game you've played every single mission format. I stopped playing when I was part way through the second area simply because I realised the plot was simply repeating itself.
Far Cry 2 seems good at first and it is, but it gets old and repetitive very fast. It is not good as an introduction to single player shooters.

For a game that is, I'd recommend Just Cause 2. It's big, silly with enough variety in weapons and vehicles to keep things interesting.

 

[Shymer]

My list would include:

Peggle
Blur (or another racing game with power ups)
Civilisation (Pick a verion - I pick CivII)
Plants versus Zombies
Puzzle Quest

I think any FPS title is immediately intimidating - even (or particularly) Portal. A Mario Cart-stype driving game is accessible to most adults who drive. Peggle offers great feedback and replayability for minimal input complexity. Civ is complex and I might consider something like Lego: Star Wars instead.

 

[Just_A_Glitch]

Here's what I'm thinking.

Super Mario Bros: Get them in with a classic. Its simple and fun.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time: The classic beat 'em up that can introduce them to a more action packed game, and show the joys of playing with friends.

Banjo Kazooie: One of my favorite games. It shows the action/adventure and collectible side of video games well.

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition specifically, to show that video games do take a more serious tone. This could be substituted with a number of games admittedly, RE4 is just my favorite game, so it makes the list.

Wii Sports: Simplistic entertainment abounds!

Those are the first five that came to my head. If I cared to, I'd probably have five more lists in ten minutes.