Okay, here's the deal.

For my birthday three years ago, I asked my wife as a gift to play World of Warcraft with me. She would have to do ten levels with me, and then she could consider her "gift" done. Next thing you know, she's got a level 70+ priest, and we're having a blasty blast. My wife and I would spend night after night, we would pound out levels on World of Warcraft.

For two years, she and blissfully ground out experience and ran instances. It easily was the best time of our marriage (in my opinion :grin:), because I didn't feel like I was taking time away from being with her, we could do something we liked together. We had something we could mutually talk about, as opposed to me talking about video games and her talking about cranberry throw pillows from Pottery Barn.

Well, Warcraft lost it's flair and she didn't much care for the intensity of being in an end-game raiding guild, so her interest slowly petered out prior to the Lich King expansion, so I asked her for another game for this birthday, only this time, I wanted it to be a game she beats.

So the rules are this:
1) She has a short attention span. She loses interest in things, and the social aspect was a lot of the reason she hung out as long as she did.

2) She likes adventure games, but I'd like for her/us to play something more action-y. Maybe a couch co-op game, but can't be one of those frustrating games that makes you want to throw a controller. She needs to get away from this "I can't do it" mentality. Someone once told me the quote, "She's got a lot of quit in her." and it more or less described my wife.

3) Like it or not, she's actually gravitated towards casual games from Facebook. She was REAL big into Mafia Wars until that wore out, and now she's tinkering around with Farm Life or whatever the hell it is. All this leads me to the assumption that a game like Sims 2 or 3 might steal her soul, but again, I'm looking for a more action-y game.

PLEASE help, I really want to get her gaming again.

uncharted 2 is coming out soon and its got 3 player co-op... :/

Is Peggle out of the question? Also, she may like WoW again as the latest patch made running 5 mans purposeful again. Castle Crashers maybe?

uncharted 2 is coming out soon and its got 3 player co-op... :/

I was thinking the same thing. :thumbsup:

What about inFAMOUS, Warhawk ( I've ran across several women playing that game ), LBP, Fat Princess? I don't believe there are many Co-Op based games. Unless your want Army of 2, Rainbow 6 Vegas, or a tactical game of those sorts.

'Splosion Man' would be perfect choice in my opinion. It's a humorous puzzle platformer but it's lively enough to be an action game. I think there are 50 single player levels and 50 co-op levels with up to 4 players. About her attention span: levels are about 5-10 minutes long but because it forces you to work together in co-op you get a real sense of achievement when you complete just one mere level. For 800 Microsoft Points you can't go wrong.

Hrmm...maybe not a bad idea. She'll have an anuerism over the first person shooter controls, but who knows...I might give'r a try.

Definitely peggle, It could be used as a stepping stone.. She could even play the WOW Special edition of it.

Peggle. I actually had the demo and was playing it after hearing about it over and over and over again on two dozen different podcasts.

She came in and asked me, "What in the hell are you playing?" I guess she's just accustomed to my usual fare, but I don't think she was into it. I was trying to explain to her that "a lot of people really like this game", but she didn't get it.

Peggle. I actually had the demo and was playing it after hearing about it over and over and over again on two dozen different podcasts.

She came in and asked me, "What in the hell are you playing?" I guess she's just accustomed to my usual fare, but I don't think she was into it. I was trying to explain to her that "a lot of people really like this game", but she didn't get it.

Wow, Agreed its nothing special at first but after about 10 minutes with it It starts getting really addictive... Probably the closet thing to a facebook game (That doesnt suck) that you will find...

Fable 2. You can't get lost. It is fairly easy for her constantly find something new to entertain her. It is brimming with charm. Have her fiddle around with it while you are out of the house, and let her know that if she has any questions, she can ask you.

1 word peggle

I was thinking about Fable 2, especially 1) after I played it and 2) heard Lesley talking about how simple it was to play. You know, that might actually be a winner. Hmmm...

Jesus, Big But, 56K gamerscore? Phew.

Jesus, Big But, 56K gamerscore? Phew.


check your math it's 52,614

It's not very social, but how about Lego Star Wars? You sit next to her and you can laugh and talk and have a good time... and she can leave or join whenever...

1 word peggle
Uh, 5 words READ THE THREAD BEFORE POSTING!
I was thinking about Fable 2, especially 1) after I played it and 2) heard Lesley talking about how simple it was to play. You know, that might actually be a winner. Hmmm...

Jesus, Big But, 56K gamerscore? Phew.

Fable 2 is a fantastic game, Extremely simple RPG but still has lots of depth.. (You can't permanently die in the game either).. I'm not sure how CO-OP works though, Never got a chance to try it..

Co-op isn't great as it traps both players in a very confined space. They have to stay very close to each other. It's more of a single player game tbh.

How about LBP ?

It's a great Co-op game with loads of variety and u can have some friends play as well then if she wants she can head online with people around the world with her wonderfully customised Sackboy or Sackgirl and see what great lvls other people have created.

And if she gets really into it she can create her own stuff and even her own levels :) Might be good because with all the customisable stuff she can make the game however she wants it :D

I'm recommending you steer clear of LBP. My wife loves watching the game being played, but even I get tired of the controls in that game and screwing up. I've played around with the level editor, and that's a lot of fun. I don't consider myself a quitter necessarily, it's usually about most amount of fun for my time, so occasionally I have to take a break from LBP before I can get back into it. It's fun, but IMO, a little overrated. I've had it for several months and granted, I haven't turned on my PS3 for anything except for watching Blu-Ray movies for the past two or three months, but I still haven't beaten that game. I would play MLB 09: The Show or Motorstorm over LBP any day.

Um...S6...didn't you have a Sims 3 "copy" to try? My wife sounds a lot the same as yours, and she's addicted to Sims like you wouldn't believe. She spends hours downloading custom content. EA has been hinting at an online aspect for five years now, so no one in that community is holding their breath for it, but with Sims 3 I can picture it being more possible, now that free-roaming of neighborhoods is an option.

I really like the Fable 2 / Lego Star Wars suggestions. My wife and I beat episodes 1-3 on co-op, and even when she made us take over 30 minutes to get through the very last level because her double-jump mechanic wasn't the greatest, we were still laughing and having a good time. Fable 2 multiplayer is pretty decent on the same console, and it's like the Sims as far as socializing goes. People react to what you do, so if you flip the "safety" off in town and blow someone away, people get upset and will even talk about it in the town 100 miles away. The drawback to the co-op in Fable 2 is that if you have your own character, you can import that character's stats but you're still using a generic character, so you can't really change costumes, etc. Also, being a Skill user (ranged weapons) is a little more difficult, albeit not impossible. Skill has a feature where you can target body parts of enemies, so headshots are pretty easy if you have a quick thumb. The problem is, with one player the view switches to an over-the-shoulder aiming mechanism, so hitting them in the head, shooting the sword out of their hand, or shooting the family jewels off a bandit is pretty intuitive. In multiplayer it's a little more difficult.

If she does play Fable 2, and if she's anything like my wife, I can give you a rundown of what stats to give her in order to keep her character from looking like Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Most women who play with a female character don't like their char ending up looking like a man. They're not men, why should she be?

My wife also beat Jade Empire, which is a hella-fun game (Bioware, need I say more)? Probably one of the most under-rated games for the og Xbox. Like Fable, you can play as male/female, straight or gay/lesbian, and choose to follow the way of the Open Palm or the way of the Closed Fist (a more eastern philosophy on good vs. evil). Unlike KOTOR, there is no pausing to assign attacks, it's like Fable or other third person action games where you just do realtime combat. On easy mode my wife enjoyed it because she could largely button mash to beat enemies, but then as she played on she figured out the control scheme better and could control her attacks.

This is getting long, but if you want to message my wife on FB (you can look her up through my profile), I'm sure she can give you her recommendations as well. She'd probably say Sims 3 or Fable.

The Sims 3 thing...oh, yeah. I got all jinked out over your saying "DO NOT GET ONLINE WITH IT" and seeing as my wife is constantly getting online, I saw disaster ensuing.

I'll have to head out and give it a try again. I think my copy of Sims 2 will work on this thing, but I think she would like 3 more for the graphics. What different things are there between 2 and 3 I should be aware of?

Sorry man, didn't mean to freak you out. It's not a problem if you play with it, it's just that you can't try to login to the EA Sims 3 store using that key. That's all. Like I said, there is no online play yet, so that would be the main thing. Oh, and you can't download updates with it. I tried; didn't work.

Graphics-wise, Sims 2 and Sims 3 are actually really similar. The gameplay is what really sets Sims 3 apart. Needs are different, goals a slightly different, but now there are no loading screens and waiting when your Sim wants to go to a community lot. If you build several Sims in the same community and leave aging turned on, they'll age even when you're playing a different Sim in that community.

Buy her a wii, she can use her short attenion span on the minigame collections and you can make multiple jokes a day for a year about it's name.