Why cant all games have co-star?

When you love to game you look to incorporate everyone you can into your hobby. Whether it’s getting your extended family to play Wii Sports or playing FIFA with your house mates. There is a game for everyone and I feel it is my duty to find it.

As I’m sure many of you do I spend an awful lot of time with my girlfriend, so it only makes sense to play games with her from time to time. Now my girlfriend plays more games than your average. Ok she’s not going to step near Bioshock any time soon but she’s completed Zelda on her DS and owns a Megadrive. So Emma is closer than most.

So the obvious thing to do is fire up the Wii. Plenty of games she can play, and play with me. I wish I could say the bruises on my arm were from over-exaggerated tennis strokes but I can’t. She does not take losing well. I’m not here to boast about my ability to beat my girlfriend at Mario Kart, I’d much rather be talking about how even our races are. I’m sure this is a dilemma many people have faced when trying to find a game to play with their more “casual” friends. Competitive games involve you beating them senseless or “going easy on them” neither of which is really a satisfying solution.

Maybe the better route to explore is playing with and not against. It makes perfect sense why frustrate her with my green shell guard technique when we can swing around Pixel Junk Eden together! Unfortunately for me there are no over-excited-wiimote actions in Eden to explain away the bruises on my arm this time. No the frustration is now coming from the fact this game also requires both players to be at a similar skill level. Here in lies the problem of most multiplayer games. In order for them to be fun all players must be of a similar ability.

Which is why it is great to see a game like Mario Galaxy come along. A game that allows for both of our skill levels to work in harmony. While I’m dealing with accurate timing and precision jumps my girlfriend can collect star pieces, point out things and stop bad guys getting me. At first I thought the “co-star” would just be another star pointer on screen like my own, but she has abilities that I do not, which gives her a meaningful and fulfilling purpose. It was refreshing to find an experience where two people with entirely different skills could play together and enjoy.

I have in fact found the shoe to be on the other foot, especially when it comes to Guitar Hero. I am not good at Guitar Hero. However I can compete against people who are, by playing on a different difficulty level.

As the games industry expands into everyone’s lives, games need to find more ways to incorporate everyone and not just by gimping the experience. I hope that Mario’s Co-star and EA’s All play are a sign of things to come. I want to be able to play a game of PES with my girlfriend and my PES fanatic friend with both of them being a meaningful and enjoyable experience. Until that point though I will have to search out the few games I can play with my girlfriend without getting bruised.

PS. My girlfriend is lovely and kind. The only time she gets really angry and aggressive with me is when we game. Maybe there is some truth in games inciting violence after all.