Games that might appeal to my wife--your thoughts?

[Snaggly Pete]

My wife is a confirmed vidiot, i.e. she watches a ton of TV. I, however, spend much of my time gaming. I've already made concessions by watching some of her shows with her. Now, I'd like to attempt to pull her into the gaming world. She is very resistant, but she did give me some broad parameters for a game she might like and I'm hoping the folks on these forums can help. So here they are:

1. The game should be non-violent.
2. We should be able to play with each other, not against each other.
3. She mentioned playing (?enjoying) racing games a long, long time ago, but I wouldn't consider this a hard and fast requirement.
4. It should be non-boring (Not sure why she told me this...like I go looking for boring games or something)

And one additional key requirement:
5. It needs to be a PC game. We have two fairly powerful PCs and could play via LAN or we could share one. We don't own any consoles.

Thanks for any ideas provided.

 

[Sib]

Unreal Tournament? lol j/k but i dont know of any PC games which suit thosse criteria, mostly console games come to mind, sorry

 

[jezz8me]

Grim Fandango, Monkey Island and the like. Have fun working together to solve the puzzles.

 

[Shintenma]

1. The game should be non-violent.
2. We should be able to play with each other, not against each other.
3. She mentioned playing (?enjoying) racing games a long, long time ago, but I wouldn't consider this a hard and fast requirement.
4. It should be non-boring (Not sure why she told me this...like I go looking for boring games or something)

Try POP-CAP games for starters. See what kind of game she likes there and evolve her gaming selections from there into something more substantial.

 

[Quistnix]

Try Tales of Pirates [http://top.igg.com/], my girl loves it. It's a free, pretty decent looking mmorpg with awfully "cute" design and graphics. There is quite some fighting (as much as in any mmorpg), but even that is cute and non-violent looking.

Being a mmorpg, levelling and grinding can get tedious and boring, but if you're not powergaming you can have fun just walking around and exploring.


Or like said before, try solving classic adventure games (point&click) together.

 

[schwal]

DiRT is hands down the best racing game I've ever played. Burnoutaradise (not sure if that's out on PC yet, if not it will be eventually)is more arcadey, but also fun.
The Sam and Max series is great, but it isn't multiplayer, so I don't know how that will work. Also single player, Portal is the greatest single player experience minute-by-minute that I have ever had.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

Mario Kart. Simple to learn, non-violent, colourful and great fun to play. If you've got Double Dash you can even team up

 

[Snaggly Pete]

Hmm, a number of good ideas here.

Point and click adventure games might work, perhaps I could even find a game that ties into one of the numerous TV shows she watches. I've also heard good things about Grim Fandango as well as the Sam and Max series.

I'm not familiar with POP-CAP games, Tales of Pirates, or Mario Kart--but all sound like they're worth investigating.

DiRT-- I've heard good things about this too, but is it fun or even playable with just a mouse? ...I really hate to buy the whole driving steering wheel, etc. if she doesn't like it. And I'm not sure how much I'd play it by myself since racing games are not my favorite genre.

Regarding the Sims, my wife actually played the game several years ago and seemed to like it, but it doesn't really offer coop play.

Thanks for all the suggestions...further ideas are still welcome.

 

[schwal]

DiRT-- I've heard good things about this too, but is it fun or even playable with just a mouse? ...I really hate to buy the whole driving steering wheel, etc. if she doesn't like it. And I'm not sure how much I'd play it by myself since racing games are not my favorite genre.

I don't know, but you can get a decent logitech usb gamepad for like 15 bucks, and those work great for racing games.

 

[Aetmos]

It's hard to find a game completely free of violence, so let's instead say 'no blood' or 'abstract violence'.

Civ 4 (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/home.htm) would be my first choice. Its violence is as abstract as chess. It also can be played both cooperatively and competitively. It also has a couple expansions, and the moddability means decent replay value.

My second choice would have to be World of Warcraft, if only because I've seen so many people who aren't gamers still attracted to its various aspects. This may be a bigger investment then you are willing to make though.

A good backup choice is always Popcap Games. A lot of people who like simple games with tremendous replayability, especially non-gamers or casual gamers, are big fans.

 

[Neverhoodian]

If you have a Steam account, you can download Audiosurf for about $10. It's a fun rhythm/puzzle/racing hybrid that allows you to use any CD or mp3 track you own. What's more, it has multiple game modes that range from casual to hardcore in difficulty. Definitely worth a look.

 

[Snaggly Pete]

Civ 4 (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/home.htm) would be my first choice. Its violence is as abstract as chess. It also can be played both cooperatively and competitively. It also has a couple expansions, and the moddability means decent replay value.

Actually, I already own Civ4...if I were to play it cooperatively, would that mean that she's on one of our computers and I'm on the other? If so, does that mean that a game CD must be in the drive of each PC in order to run? (i.e. would I need to buy another copy of the game to play cooperatively?)

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

The problem is, a lot of the fun games don't have a co-op mode. Is over-the-shoulder, taking-turns a possibility? Also, what kind of TV shows does she like to watch? That would probably give a better idea of what games she's likely to enjoy.

 

[MurmurTwins]

Go pick up a cheap PS2 and buy her Katamari Damacy.

I don't know your wife and I could care less about what she likes.

She will love Katamari Damacy.

 

[Sylocat]

I'd recommend some casual games as well. Go on jayisgames [http://jayisgames.com] and look for games with the tag "multiplayer," you should find a few good ones. For me, I enjoy Castlewars.

 

[Chilango2]

Sims Online, or whatever on earth it's called? My wife definitely loved the Sims on the PS2, as buggy and kind of broken as it is.

She also enjoyed Diablo clones, and those are *often* two player, but probably breaks the "no violence" rule. It's also possible to play most RTS's in co-op mode, either by being on the same team, or actually controlling the same "player."

My experience with my wife also leads me to believe that one should stay away from FPS's, not so much the violence, but you don't realize how much effort it takes to learn to control a camera and shoot at the same time until you've seen someone try to do it fresh out of nowhere.

 

[Aetmos]

Civ 4 (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/home.htm) would be my first choice. Its violence is as abstract as chess. It also can be played both cooperatively and competitively. It also has a couple expansions, and the moddability means decent replay value.

Actually, I already own Civ4...if I were to play it cooperatively, would that mean that she's on one of our computers and I'm on the other? If so, does that mean that a game CD must be in the drive of each PC in order to run? (i.e. would I need to buy another copy of the game to play cooperatively?)

Probably. AFAIK, this is how the LAN centers do it. Or at least the ones that respect software licenses.

 

[irrelevantnugget]

I think Viva Pinata has a sort of co-op mode in which you work together? Might be fun to start building a society of colourful animals together. It worked with 2 controllers on the xbox360, I doubt you can use 2 mouses though, so I'm hoping for a LAN option there... look it up!

Other options other than the aforementioned racing games would be, well... party games.

Guitar Hero III (for the PC, pretty hard to find afaik... but then again, almost nobody knows about it. If a store took 5 in stock back in november, odds are that not all 5 copies have been sold yet). You can buy a GH2 xbox360 guitar for the co-op, it's USB anyways (and you get one in the PC version, so it isn't wireless)

Another party game, would be UltraStar. Just google for UltraStar Deluxe, it's a free download, comes with three songs. If you're familiar with SingStar, you'll know how this game is played. More songs can easily be downloaded (ultrastarsongs.com, for example)

And, well... Dance Dance Revolution. You can buy a dancing mat for 25 euro's here in Belgium, 40 euro's for 2. Look up StepMania, it's an open source DDR program, just like UltraStar is. Songs can again be found easily, though it's mainly J-Pop remixes.

Oh, TrackMania Nations is also a free racing game, you probably already know of it, but in case you didn't... now you do ^^

 

[Snaggly Pete]

The problem is, a lot of the fun games don't have a co-op mode. Is over-the-shoulder, taking-turns a possibility? Also, what kind of TV shows does she like to watch? That would probably give a better idea of what games she's likely to enjoy.

I suppose over-the-shoulder and taking turns might work.

As for shows--she watches a bunch of stuff--24, Heroes, Lost, Desperate Housewives, and some show with that guy who does Allstate commercials--to name a few.