Leveling Down

Everyone knows Rock Band is a huge hit, but what else appeals to non-gamers?

Last week I started the conversation about the types of games non-gamers (specifically, wives and girlfriends) could enjoy or at least tolerate. After laying out some general principles and looking at some broad areas of gaming, this week I’ll be narrowing my focus and talking about some specific genres that might appeal to non-gamers. I’ve organized the games from most appealing to least, in general. As always, your mileage may vary, and I’d love to hear others’ ideas as well!

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Rounding out our main categories, today we will be looking at Best Action/Adventure, Music, Real-Time Strategy and XBLA games. Looking at the list of titles from this year, there were a surprising number of good action/adventure games out this year, and even though neither of us owns a PS3, you can’t talk about action/adventure in 2009 without mentioning Uncharted 2. I’m glad I didn’t have to nominate that game though, since that would probably have made for some tough decisions. Music games, on the other hand, seemed to take a step backwards, or maybe we are just getting sick of them. Meanwhile, Live Arcade continues to put out good titles worth taking a look at.

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In Broken Sword, as in Penny Arcade Adventures, mimes = evil. Remember that.

We really are in the gaming doldrums right now. But hopefully with E3 coming up, we’ll start having some games to look forward to! Anyway, I’ve been playing a lot of this and that - I’m probably TOO diversified in my gaming right now. But hey, I’m having a blast! Apologies in advance for the crazy tone…I’m just in one of those moods.

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Some of the best games are also the simplest

Mirror’s Edge – Almost finished with this game, although the things I have left to do are the most challenging. I failed a speed run (an entire level under a certain amount of time) by being slow by 2.1 seconds. I then ran it back, and managed to pass by shaving 3.3 seconds off my time. 10:58.8 seconds was enough FTW! Anyway, if you are masochistic and enjoy punishing yourself by trying to shave milliseconds off of your times, you should really play Mirror’s Edge!

Peggle – To take a break from the intensity of Mirror’s Edge I downloaded Peggle on XBLA. I’ve heard a lot about this game but didn’t know too much about it, but figured at $10 I could afford to take the plunge. It’s tough to explain how the game works, but it’s easy to explain that it’s a lot of fun. It’s particularly rewarding every time you clear a stage. I kind of wish I got this for DS, because it’d probably be nicer to play on the go, but it’s a good game to relax with between intense sessions of bigger games.

Chinatown Wars (DS) – I’ve been playing about one mission per night. It’s not as engaging as I thought it would be, but it’s not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll probably save the majority of this game for my upcoming trip on Memorial Day.

Over 80 hours into this game already. But I’m excited because that means a new game to play is around the corner…

Infinite Undiscovery – A few more Achievements left in the game to get and I will be totally done. I’m hoping to get them this weekend, when I beat the optional end-game boss on the hardest difficulty for that 1 Achievement point. By beating her, I should also hopefully unlock the other most difficult Achievement in the game – one that relies on me having collected every one of the unique 880 items in the game. If I don’t get that Achievement, I’m done anyway – not going through it again and trying to collect every single item.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Finally got the 1000 in the game! cmfl3x and I played a few online matches this week and it wasn’t bad, but without matchmaking, it’s time for me to part ways with the game. It seems like no one really plays 2v2 online though, as it took me maybe 20 minutes before being able to find three other players to start a game.

Street Fighter IV – Still playing this, especially whenever my brother has time to play. We’ll just hop in a room and play for hours. Surprisingly, my Sagat is giving his Abel a little more trouble than we both expected, so either I seem to be catching up to him in fighting game ability or I’m learning how to use the imbalance of my character against him. I prefer to think it’s just the former, but I’m sure it’s a mixture of both. I hit my current goal of breaking 2000 Battle Points this week, and I’m definitely starting to see higher level players. Played against a 4500 player once, and when I lost, I only lost 1 point and he only gained 1. Wha?!

Peggle – Been playing this on my DS. I’m sort of addicted to the game. I never played it much before, but with it coming out for the DS I figured I’d try it out and now I’m playing it on my subway commute home from work every night. I can definitely see why the Japanese are addicted to Pachinko – Peggle seems to take that addictiveness of watching a ball bounce around different pegs but also adds more pinball-like gameplay enhancements that are now making my subway trip home far too short each night.

Resident Evil 5 – Still struggling for a long time trying to decide if I should go pick up the game today since Toys R Us is giving out a $20 gift card with it. The thing is, I don’t know what to put the $20 gift card towards. I think it expires at the end of the April, so it’s kind of forcing me to have to use it sooner rather than later. Maybe I’ll just get at 1600 point card or something.