Friday, Dec 8, 2006
When I first started dating my girlfriend she was not really into games all that much. Sure, she played the Nintendo growing up, Tetris and eventually moved onto play Final Fantasy VII. After that, it was pretty much the end of gaming for her. She might pick up something here or there, but was never really enthused enough to go out and make a purchase. The comes along Katamari Damacy.
This is among one of the first games that I can think of she really wanted to play. A semi-casual to non-gamer asking for a new game. It was all due to the simplicity of the controls. I had tried many times to get her to play Halo 2. She feels that she's just so far behind with the dual analog sticks that it's frustrating and gives up. I can't say that I blame her, but a game like that comes easier to someone who's used to working on 2 planes. Katamari broke the mold for this. Granted it's not an FPS game, but it got her back into gaming. She has grown comfortable with that game enough to just come up short of finishing it. Where the serious conversion really took place was when Brain Age for the Nintendo DS came out.
When I first got Brain Age, she wanted to play it more than I did. The controls are simple and the game is fun although it does grow old. However she played it enough to warrant a purchase of a DS Lite and that game among many others.
Since playing the DS Lite for several months and after hearing me talk about the Wii for almost a year she's become a full blown gamer. It's all due to the simplicity of the controller. No, I was never able to get her into Halo 2 (although she wants to try Gears of War again), she's more heavily into gaming than she has ever been before. Last year she ended up waiting in line with me for a few hours for the Xbox 360. This year she sat in line next to me as a consumer for the Nintendo Wii. Mwahahaha, I have converted her and she loves it and so do I.
All it took was finding an easy enough game for her to get into and enjoy enough to want to pick up the controller on her own next time. She's working on Zelda: Twilight Princess....slower than I'd like her to, but she's getting into it. Hopefully soon enough I can get her back onto Gears of War and maybe she'll be ready for Halo 3 by the next holiday season.
I must say it's been quite a fun experience changing a non-gamer into a gamer. She wants to play games when people are over whereas before she would sit back, watch and be bored (understandably). There is hope for non-gamers out there. You just have to find a simple enough game to introduce them to and the rest will fall into place. Now I just gotta work on my parents next.
This is among one of the first games that I can think of she really wanted to play. A semi-casual to non-gamer asking for a new game. It was all due to the simplicity of the controls. I had tried many times to get her to play Halo 2. She feels that she's just so far behind with the dual analog sticks that it's frustrating and gives up. I can't say that I blame her, but a game like that comes easier to someone who's used to working on 2 planes. Katamari broke the mold for this. Granted it's not an FPS game, but it got her back into gaming. She has grown comfortable with that game enough to just come up short of finishing it. Where the serious conversion really took place was when Brain Age for the Nintendo DS came out.
When I first got Brain Age, she wanted to play it more than I did. The controls are simple and the game is fun although it does grow old. However she played it enough to warrant a purchase of a DS Lite and that game among many others.
Since playing the DS Lite for several months and after hearing me talk about the Wii for almost a year she's become a full blown gamer. It's all due to the simplicity of the controller. No, I was never able to get her into Halo 2 (although she wants to try Gears of War again), she's more heavily into gaming than she has ever been before. Last year she ended up waiting in line with me for a few hours for the Xbox 360. This year she sat in line next to me as a consumer for the Nintendo Wii. Mwahahaha, I have converted her and she loves it and so do I.
All it took was finding an easy enough game for her to get into and enjoy enough to want to pick up the controller on her own next time. She's working on Zelda: Twilight Princess....slower than I'd like her to, but she's getting into it. Hopefully soon enough I can get her back onto Gears of War and maybe she'll be ready for Halo 3 by the next holiday season.
I must say it's been quite a fun experience changing a non-gamer into a gamer. She wants to play games when people are over whereas before she would sit back, watch and be bored (understandably). There is hope for non-gamers out there. You just have to find a simple enough game to introduce them to and the rest will fall into place. Now I just gotta work on my parents next.
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