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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The galaxy of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is wonderfully designed, but hacking leapgates dissuades one from being able to explore it.

Being a current resident of the DC area, we got hit with a major snowstorm this past weekend (almost 3 feet around these parts). 250,000 homes in the DC area lost power for a greater part of the weekend including my own. Being stuck at home with no power meant no electronics, very little lighting, and no heat. What do people do with no power for extended periods of time? Read? Fortunately, I had a fully charged DS ready to go, and ended up spending several hours playing Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. It’s somewhat of an old game, but with my love for Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, I’m more into puzzle-based RPG games as of late, and so I decided to put several hours into Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.
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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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