Games I wish she’d play

My wife and I are gamers, and though she has decades of gaming behind her, I’d have to say I’m the more avid of the two of us. This isn’t a problem, but there’s the occasional cooperative game or thought-provoking title that comes along that she seems to have absolutely no interest in. Usually, the games she dislikes are the ones that don’t play cleanly into one genre; a tactical shooter, for example.

Well, a couple weeks ago, we had a breakthrough. When the first Rainbow Six Vegas came out, I wanted her to play cooperatively with me. She refused after half-a-try of not getting the hang of it, and I couldn’t appeal to her to give it some more time. That is, until I recently got the sequel; my wife loves Role Playing Games, and as soon as I told her that your character could level up and get new stuff, she was automatically open to at least trying it.

Despite prefacing our first session with, “I’ll try it to get you off my back, but I know I’m not going to like it,” she fell in love with it. Over the course of the coming week, we played through the entire story campaign together. She wound up enjoying the slower-pace, thinking-man’s tactical gameplay, even though she’s historically too impatient for it.

This all got me thinking about making this post – one about the other games I wish I could get my wife to play. There have been many I’ve suggested to her repeatedly over the years, only to be shot down with disinterest (though I call it ignorance to their greatness). So, here’s a list of the top 5 games I wish my wife would play:

#5 – HALF-LIFE 2

Now, my wife’s isn’t adverse to playing Half-Life 2. In fact, it’s been on her “Need To Play” list for a few years now, which is way too long in my book. She enjoys dystopian science fiction (a taste I think I passed along to her), and has always seemed interested in it – she just keeps getting distracted by newer stuff. I keep telling her that the story, atmosphere, and gameplay are well worth the experience, but this is one title she continuously puts off.

Likelihood of her playing it: Moderate. While she keeps avoiding playing it, I know she has interest in the game. I might talk her into it one day.

#4 SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE

I haven’t really ever gotten onto her about playing this incredibly good strategy game, but it still one of those titles that seems to intimidate her. It looks complicated at first glance, but its a rewarding experience that she keeps denying herself. She’s a fan of science fiction and stuff, and I secretly would love to discuss the finer points of TEC frigate effectiveity, but I think she’d mourn the lack of any character driven plot.

Likelihood of her playing it: Doubtful. She’s too disinterested in it to get past the learning curve.

#3 UPLINK

Uplink is a hacker simulation game with a thick atmosphere and a story that creeps up on you as you snoop around the game’s virtual internet. It involves cyberpunk themes – with is a plus if I ever wanted to talk her into playing it – but its core gameplay can be so demanding, frustrating, and complicated that unless she somehow got hooked on some aesthetic aspect of the game, she’d be too annoyed to ever try it a second time. Which is a shame, because the game spews surreality.

Likelihood of her playing it: Almost impossible. She’d find the game too stressful.

#2 OUT OF THIS WORLD

This platformer from the early 90’s was one of the first games that attempted to mimic a movie’s level of immersion. On the surface it appeared as a standard side-scroller, but it was actually a literal work of art. Through thoughtful, expressionistic art direction and subtle gameplay design choices – such as the lack of a HUD – Another World (or Out of this World, in the US) made you feel like you had traveled to this barren alien landscape yourself, unnervingly alone and overwhelmingly vulnerable… Which is exactly why she’d hate it. This game was difficult, bordering on the necessity of clairvoyance to beat, and though I think she’d take away some level of appreciation for the experience, she’d just break all my joysticks in the process.

Likelihood of her playing it: Impossible. She’d get killed by slug things in the first level and then throw my PC out the window.

#1 DEUS EX

My wife’s aversion to playing Deus Ex is a tragedy for me. Here is a game that oozes atmosphere, character, suspense, and gameplay genius that she dismisses because it looks and sounds old. Now, I know my love of this game isn’t colored by rose-tinted glasses; I’ve seen testimonials online of gamers who played this game for the first time recently and immediately were awed by it. Sure, its presentation seems outdated at first, but give it a chance! This game offers everything she likes about cyberpunk and dystopian fiction, and her only hang-ups on it are superficial. That, and I genuinely learned to look at the world we live in a different way when I played this game. It literally changed my life when I was 17, and I’d love to be able to discuss its themes and symbolisms with the love of my life.

Likelihood of her playing it: Low. It’d take all the willpower she can muster to give it a fair shot for me, but by that time, she might dislike it just to despite me and how much I’ve built it up in comparison to every game we discuss.