Reccomended fun, middle of the road games!

[elvor0]

Xbox 360/XBLA games only just as a first point;

So I'm looking to help find a friend of mine that's "recently" gotten into gaming, (I say recent, she's played stuff over the years, but never had it as a hobby as y'know a general "gamer" would) to get some more games to stop her Xbox 360 from gathering too much dust.

I've been looking through second hand sites but mainly it's all hardcore or generic shooter #9999 or crummy shovelware.

She's really likes stuff like Fable 3, Alice Madness returns, Tomb Raider Underworld, LA Noire and has over the years finished GTA London an insane amount of times, so she has a reasonably varied taste in games, but I'm finding it difficult to find stuff that'll appeal to her or stuff that I think that she would actually be /enjoy/ playing. (I tried to get her to play Kingdoms of Alamur, but even though she said she enjoyed it, it was a bit of an overload for her.) Bastion I thought would be good, but she didn't really "get" it. A problem also arises when she's well... not very good at games, (I don't mean that in a horrible way, but just take into account I'm further than her on Alice in 3 hours on the hardest setting than she is on easy playing quite consistently in 2 moths)

Where've all the fun, quirky games gone this generation? Stuff that's good to play without being a sensory overload, without just being the console equivalent of some crummy facebook game.

I'm thinking of getting her to try Portal, but she has yet to get to grips with First Person Perspective, so I thought that'd be a nice one to ease her in with, given the learning curve in it. Plus the Lego Games I know to be really good, and everyone loves Lego.

So yeah anything really, Xbox retail or arcade you name it. Heck, I'm sure I'll find some stuff I like as well in there. Go nuts.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Spelunky.

Okay, it's rather difficult, but it's pretty fun regardless and it doesn't take an agonisingly long time to get started again once you die.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

The Walking Dead Game
Minecraft
Pokemon


Dunno err.. Crash Bandicoot?

 

[Shymer]

There's the old faithful trinity of Plants vs Zombies, Zuma and Peggle. Perhaps not as good on console compared to PC. Going back in time, Kameo: Elements of power is still a terrific game and often overlooked. Beyond Good & Evil HD worth looking up. Costume Quest? It's difficult when the selection criteria is as broad as "probably not first-person" and "not too much sensory input at any time".

Thumbs up for Lego games. Harry Potter 1-4 or Star Wars complete saga are good.

How about picking up a magazine and seeing what she's into - or trying out the demo games that they put on the disc?

 

[elvor0]

There's the old faithful trinity of Plants vs Zombies, Zuma and Peggle. Perhaps not as good on console compared to PC. Going back in time, Kameo: Elements of power is still a terrific game and often overlooked. Beyond Good & Evil HD worth looking up. Costume Quest? It's difficult when the selection criteria is as broad as "probably not first-person" and "not too much sensory input at any time".

Thumbs up for Lego games. Harry Potter 1-4 or Star Wars complete saga are good.

How about picking up a magazine and seeing what she's into - or trying out the demo games that they put on the disc?

Yeah I was thinking Beyond Good & Evil, obviously a fantastic game, I do suppose my critera are pretty vague, I was very nackered when I wrote the OP. I was more sort of saying, "yeah go for a free for all, whatever pops into your head!" Hidden gems come from anywhere. Food for thought if you will, so I've least got a list of stuff I can cruise through, plus I'm sure I'll find some stuff I like too.

Also, do they still do demo discs? I thought they stopped doing em after the digital delivery age came along. Unfortunetly Xbox live is fucking horrendous for putting up demos, a new demo only seems to come along once every two months, and then only for major major games.

I mean she likes her whimsical games, as well as serious stuff like Tomb Raider, but something like a hack and slash is still a bit too much for her. She's not a tech head at all, so browsing for games is awkward and daunting to her still.

The thing is, there's loads of games I know she'd love if she had the patience to sit down and actually play them properly, but she gets frustrated /really/ easily if she can't get the controls straight away, it's still tantamount to magic to her sometimes She's still at that stage where she's monumentality bad at games. Even though she's played through fable 3 almost 6 times, she still panics and hasn't quite quite got that... "calmness" that regular gamers would have when playing something, it doesn't come naturally to her yet, so she doesn't adjust to new games very well.

 

[SillyBear]

Go with Minecraft.

 

[hazabaza1]

Scott Pilgrim?
Second boss is a ***** to fight but it's a fun beat 'em up with cool looking graphics and an 'RPG-lite' side to it.

 

[Hylke Langhout]

Psychonauts. It's on the XBLA. My girlfriend is in much the same boat as your friend and Psychonauts is her favorite game ever. And why wouldn't it be?

 

[TrevHead]

Quirky and interesting games / middle of the road games? She might like these:-

360
Child of Eden
El Shaddia
Games by Double Fine
Prince of Persia: Sands before Time
Alan Wake
Deadly Premonition (it plays like a bad GTA/Resi Evil but its very funny)
Buy Beyond Good and Evil, Outlander and Dust in the upcoming boxed release
Sudas games like Shadows of the Damned
Enslaved
Jet Set Radio Future (will work on 360s)
Sonic Generations

She might also like DarkStalkers its very middle of the road, has an open world aspect but not too open.

She also might like Nin2Jump, Rez HD, Lumunes and Might and Magic: class of heroes on XBLA

Havn't played so I can't recommend them per-se
Red Dead Redemption
Castlevania lords of shadow

EDIT she didn't like Bastion? Was it the slow sub par combat? If so put her onto the 2 Ys Steam games.
(infact there are quite a few quirky games on steam, like recettear and Jamestown)

If finding games for her is hard maybe she is someone who likes their games to have a good "game feel" to them If so try these when she is better at playing games.

Space Marine, Ys, Binary Domain and other games by SEGA and Platinium Games.
Binary Domain is easy to beat in Normal Difficulty so would make a good intro into the TPS genre

 

[Andy Shandy]

Ooooh, I get to recommend Viva Pinata twice in one day =D Yeah, Viva Pinata. Not particularly difficult on the face of things but has plenty of depth to keep you going for hours if you enjoy it. And it's very colourful.

 

[Dango]

I'd definitely go with Castle Crashers. It's still the best 360 game I've ever played, and it's got a great, wicked sense of humor.

 

[Arfonious]

Just want too say that the title is a bit missleading

OT: Portal is a very good choice

 

[Mikeyfell]

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is just about as fun and middle of the road as you're going to get on the 360.

I recently had a lot of fun with Max Payne 3 but I don't know if that's exactly "Middle of the road"

Orcs Must Die on the XBLA (Or just wait for Orcs Must Die 2 at the end of the month)

Beyond Good and Evil,
Dead Rising (any of them, they're all fantastic)

And Portal is the perfect game to learn first person controls on (In my opinion) So that's a pretty good choice.

 

[krazykidd]

You are overthinking this . Firstly let her choose what games interest her . If she herself finds it interesting that she'll probably like it . Also the whole " she hasn't grasped the FP perspective is bullshit , she has to start somewhere . Just have her buy/play games she wants /things she'll like , and worst case she doesn't , everyone go through this .

 

[elvor0]

You are overthinking this . Firstly let her choose what games interest her . If she herself finds it interesting that she'll probably like it . Also the whole " she hasn't grasped the FP perspective is bullshit , she has to start somewhere . Just have her buy/play games she wants /things she'll like , and worst case she doesn't , everyone go through this .

Oh I didn't mean it in a "hurr hurr she's crap" way, just she's said that she can't get the hang of using the two sticks to navigate. Essentially just wanted to give her a hand getting some decent games without her worrying she's wasted her money. All the games she's really gotten into have been stuff either me or her girlfriend have played with her, she's still at that stage where playing a new game on her own is a bit daunting if someone isn't there to show her how to play I mean compared to the PS1, which was the last console she owned, where she only played GTA London and Bust a move, this gaming generation is very much "dive in at the deep end" for a new person to get into, imagine someone that's never gamed in their life before now really.

But ta for the suggestions everyone else. There's a lot games I'd completely forgotten about or overlooked.

 

[Lokoloshe]

Hmm a quirky, original game on the 360... i've got nothing.


....is journey on the 360? tell her to get a ps3 and go all sackboy on her own ass

Yeah little big planet would be perfect. Shame it's a 360.

Someone mentioned the walking dead games and I agree as my girlfriend has managed to complete the 1st two without getting frustrated and she sounds to be similarly skilled to you friend and prone to quitting when she feels overwhelmed. The good thing about that game is that there's more story than gameplay and the actual gameplay is never particularly punishing thanks to a generous checkpoint system.

I'd also recoment something you can play co op so you can help her progress while giving her a chance to still be doing it herself. Something like Hard corps. Uprising, the new contra game. It's a quick reflex type game but the controls are simple and you can play together in such a way that you can do most of the work but she'll still feel like she's contributing to the progression. It's a downloadable game 15 bucks on PSN so i figure it would be equivalent on XBLA.

 

[Rakun Man]

Havn't played so I can't recommend them per-se
Red Dead Redemption

I have! So I can say that it's a great choice, although it might seem rather difficult.

OT: As for my recommendation, I say Skyrim. Now I know that may seem odd, but I know a lot of 'casual' gamers who love Skryim.

Spoiler: Also, Extra Credits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXQuannq308
I forgot how to embed again! woohoo!

 

[ultrachicken]

If she likes Fable 3, why not Fable 2? It's only slightly more complex, but if she's already familiar with the series then she should be fine.