A Good Game for an Absolute Beginner?

[wottabout]

Why are so many people recommending Portal? As others have mentioned, that is a horrible idea. She'll have enough trouble navigating a 3D environment as it is; add portal mechanics to that and you'll have a huge problem. But if you're really set on Portal, you should at least show her Portal: The Flash Version first.

Anyway, I would start with a 2D game. My first suggestion is Canabalt. It's free and only has one button. The main problem is that it's impossible to win. If she got upset over getting stuck in a trench, I don't think she would like crashing repeatedly into walls.
I also recently completed the 2D, free game Cave Story, and I enjoyed it. It gets kind of hard at times, though, and it starts out in a cave with spikes to jump over. On the other hand, if you start her out on Canabalt she'll have some solid 2D jumping skills to get through those problems.

You could also show her a 3D game that has no enemies, goals, or puzzles. Unfortunately, the only examples I can think of offhand are The Path and Dear Esther, and neither is free. Also, both of those are kind of creepy. But if you can find a mod or something that will turn a game that you already have into a happy fairy land, go with that. Build up her confidence with the controls before asking her to do something difficult.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

Fine, Diablo 3. No identification scrolls, no stats and inventory management? how is that hard? you put stuff in your inventory till you have no room. When you run out of room you decide on what to keep and what to sell. Wow that's really complicated.

You're coming at this assuming an absolute beginner to video games in general would pick this up easily.

For you, knowing what "dexterity" might affect can be easy, because you've learnt the basic concepts of an RPG. An absolute beginner will have no idea what stats are relative to what class, what items to keep, etc. For an absolute beginner, even controlling all these menus can be really confusing, and understanding the UI can be frustrating as hell.

You said:

When you run out of room you decide on what to keep and what to sell. Wow that's really complicated.

How would an absolute beginner to video games know what to keep and what to sell? If you'd never truly played a video game before in your life, would you know to keep a mana potion if you were a mage? A complete beginner might not even know what "mana" would mean!

 

[Soveru]

Sid Meier's pirates. Addictive, fun and simple

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

Hello! I am an avid gamer, as well as most of my family, but my mother is the only one who doesn't game. We are trying to get her into gaming to cut down on her smoking, hoping that it will distract her from the urge to smoke a cigerette.

SO, the real question is, how should we get her started? We perferably want to start with a free game with not too much action and not too many confusing controls. I do own Basion and Solar 2, which I was thinking of starting her out on. But I don't know if that would be a good place to start!!

Does anyone have any suggestions?

P.S. She played Ghost Recon 2 on the xbox, which made her hate gaming after she fell in a trench and couldn't figure out how to get out. Those controls were too confusing for her. Also, she is much better with a mouse and keyboard than a controller. So try and stick with PC games.

Bejeweled, Farmville and other various popcap games etc

 

[ThatGuy]

Any PopCap game will do the trick, really.

 

[YeOldeMoose]

A know a lot of people that have just started getting into gaming (around age 20). Bit trip runner is an amazing game for people to get started playing. Its simple, it can run on any computer, and its just a fun game. As an added bonus it connects music with gameplay, which can help to show new gamers how an interactive medium can be used in cool ways.

 

[Joccaren]

Civilization IV.
Its not really too complex if you play on the lower difficulties. Its easy to get into, but hard to master. PC only. Turn based 4X strategy.
Does require thinking, and may take her some time to get into, but set her up against the easiest AI level there is, and if she likes it its hard not to become addicted. That whole "One more turn" phrase exists for a reason.
Wouldn't recommend Civ V as much. Its a resource hog on a system for no real reason, and things like City States and being able to attack with a unit multiple times a turn ends up requiring more tactical and strategic thinking, even though the game doesn't have the overall depth of Civ IV.

 

[Joccaren]

Fine, Diablo 3. No identification scrolls, no stats and inventory management? how is that hard? you put stuff in your inventory till you have no room. When you run out of room you decide on what to keep and what to sell. Wow that's really complicated.

How do you move things around your inventory?
What do each of these stats on the item do?
Why does this item have a question mark on it?
How do I sell things?
What should I sell?
How do I equip things?
What should I equip?
Is this item better than that one?
Why?

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We're talking absolute beginner here. If you've used inventories before, D3's isn't that hard.
If you have no idea what an inventory even is... You're going to be looking for something else to get them into gaming before D3. Having to learn what an inventory is, what stats are [They're in D3 too, you just don't select them], what levelling up means, how you select abilities and everything else is not something you want to do on your first couple of days of gaming.

 

[oddball250]

the orignal spyro trilogy are brilliant for beginners

 

[Costia]

Portal. Definitely.

/thread. Prove me wrong.

I tried to make my mom play it
She couldn't navigate through the rooms at all
The 3D-ness of it confused her. She was used to 2D games.
Navigating in 3D space on a 2D screen isn't intuitive for everyone.
So she couldn't play it.