Games for couples

Since writing about Mario and gaming with my girlfriend it got me thinking. Is there a market in couples?

The Nintendo adverts really stick out to me as showing their target market. Most of these consist of friends and family gaming together. The old couple playing brain age together in bed or a family playing Mario and Sonic at the Olympics are good examples of this.

And while some of these games have been loosely marketed to couples there is no game I can think of that has actually been designed with that in mind. Females are gaming more than ever, practically every girl I know likes the odd game of Wii Sports or owns a DS. But while this casual market is open to all genders the “hardcore” market still remains male dominated. Now I know there are couples out there playing Gears of War co-op but they are largely in the minority.

Mario Galaxy is the first game I have really been able to find that has a really fulfilling couples’ experience. Can this magic be transferred elsewhere? What about allowing my girlfriend to control Clank? She could join in the shooting and running about but could jump onto Ratchets back to avoid difficult platforming. The Lego games are also a great place to go for a casual co op experience. While these are enjoyable experiences though, they don’t really fulfil my “hardcore” needs.

I think trying to come up with a couple’s game could require more than simply tacking an optional simplified game for player 2. Perhaps there is a whole genre that could be made from this? How about a 2 player RPG, one male and one female character. Each character can interact differently with the environment. There are plenty of different things you could do with this, here are a couple I thought of:

The male and female characters each have their own unique abilities that must be used together to succeed. So while the male can fight, only the female can heal (I hope that isn’t too stereotypical)

In battle the right hand side of the screen is a sudoku or picross puzzle that must be solved by the female character. While the male fights on the left hand side of the screen. Successful blows by him add hints to the right side and correct puzzle entries result in damage to the enemy.

I would even suggest a way for the two players to play apart, a mobile/web app half of the game. Every sudoku puzzle my girlfriend completes away from me on her phone levels up her character and gives her prizes for when we come back to play together. My character can raid dungeons on a web app to level up and also find treasures. The twist is that the treasures are useless to whoever earns them, the female games earn weapons and armour while the male character earns new puzzles and modes for the female. Or perhaps her own game is more akin to Animal Crossing while mine is Oblivion but when we play together we get a merged experience.

I’m sure there are plenty of smarter designers and developers out there that could come up with better ideas than me. Some of you may even baulk at the idea of your other half interrupting your gaming time. But maybe, just maybe, there is an untapped market in this.

PS. I don’t like the terms Hardcore and Casual but they are the quickest way to get my message across.

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.

If my friends were different could I enjoy Final Fantasy again?

I’m 21 and since recently graduating I’m now unemployed. This means I spend most of my time job hunting, but once that is done for the day I have hours of free time to game. It’s the first time I have really had this much time off since I was at school. Yet I’m not gaming like I’m 12 anymore.

In my early child hood I would spend hours on the Amiga playing every platformer or top down shooter I could get my hands on. Looking back these games seem incredibly un inspired and almost identical. Is there really much of a difference between Alfred the chicken, Zool and Cool spot? It didn’t matter to me at the time, I loved every moment of it! I just wanted to play anything I could find.

As gaming and I grew up I moved onto other games. I played a lot of Goldeneye with my mates and played GTA all night to keep ahead of the playground. I could happily complete a 70 hour RPG, even playing it again from the beginning after it was done. Every game was still fun.

What I’m leading up to is that I recently purchased Okami. I could see it had everything I loved in a game, or at least what I thought I loved, it was fun, challenging and long! I was never interested in a game unless it had at least 20 hours of play. I started playing it and I got a little way in and I just stopped. I just couldn’t get back into it and I went off and started playing Bully (yes I know, late to the party on both accounts). Then I picked up Final Fantasy 12 (Working through a pile of shame in this down time of the year) and again I stopped pretty soon. I don’t want to play a game that is that long anymore, where you spend the first 10 hours in what is essentially tutorial mode. I think the only reason I tolerated this before was because I was doing it with friends; sometimes sat together playing through FF or rushing to school in the morning to talk about what we had done. I don’t have that anymore.

I thought my gaming tastes were changing because I was “growing up” but the more I think about it, the more I realise my gaming is completely defined by my social group. The people around me are largely in the “casual” crowd of gaming, they follow the mass media and advertisements to decide what to play. So it is highly unlikely any of them will be picking up No More Heroes anytime soon.

This means I look for games I can play with my girlfriend, like Mario Galaxy or Zak and Wiki. I am not really a Metal Gear fan yet I purchased MGS4 simply because I knew one person who was playing it. Despite being a PES fan I play FIFA so I can play with my housemates. I only play games that I can share the experience with the people around me, be it with multiplayer or through discussions of play sessions.

Maybe if I met some new people who where really into RTSs or MMORPGs I would play those.

I’ll start where I began. If my friends were different could I enjoy Final Fantasy again?

Why Reviews in under 500 words?

I thought I should explain my thinking behind Game Reviews in under 500 words.

I find generally that game reviews are bloated detailing every little part of a game, be it story line or features.

For example I wanted to know about GTA4 before I purchased it. Reviews generally began by laying out the scenario and the beginning plot. Maybe it is supposed to entice me to go buy a game but to be honest I only found game stories interesting to play, not to read about. So I wanted to avoid making reviews laying out story arcs, if a story is great a simple “The story is great” will suffice. You can then go and make your own judgements on how good or bad the story is when you play.

The GTA4 review I read also laid out the new Mobile Phone feature. Taking completely out of context of actually playing the game this is a feature that is alot more interesting to play than it is to read. Knowing I can use a mobile phone in a game isn’t going to make me rush out and buy it!

So I wanted to write reviews that avoided being 5 pages long and detail every great piece. To me the message of a review should be shorter and simpler.

So I decided to try and make some reviews in under 500 words. In which I would lay out what the game is as quickly as possible. My main loves, hates, my overall opinion and who I felt the game was for. I also decided to throw in some “quick tips”, some short handy info that could save you frustration. So in COD4 knowing enemies will keep spawning unless you push on is actually helpful to know from the outset.

Is it possible to give all the information a player needs to decide whether to buy a game in 500 words? I think so (at least I hope so). I also avoided adding a score, adding a number to a subjective opinion just seems silly to me.

I hope this is useful to people and I hope over time I will have more than my current 0 readers. I’m doing this just for hobbies sake and will always appreciate criticism and praise. So please add a comment or e-mail me.