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What do girls typically want out of a video game experience, assuming they want one at all?
The video game industry is a heavily male-centric environment, driven by shooters, sports games, and military games that boast nearly entirely male audiences. But breakthrough genre-bending games like The Sims are starting to bring women who are normally turned off by video games into the market, so I'm wondering ... now that they're here, what should we be making for these new players? We could make Sims clones all day, of course, but is there something broader we can learn from that game's success to create a broader range of games that appeals to the female audience?
Clearly, shooters and the like have never been that compelling to women. From what I've observed, it seems like management sims, logic puzzles, and social environments are far more attractive.
But it may well be that these types of games are only just barely scratching the surface. There may be some new genre we've yet to create that women will flock to in droves.
So, jatraqueras, here are a few questions.
1. If you are already a gamer, what games are you usually drawn to? Are you more of a gaming tomboy, going for shooters and the like, or do you lean towards the more traditionally female genres — sims, adventure games, and MMORPGs? Why, in either case? What about them grabs you?
2. Thinking of the games you play, what do you wish you could change about them, in general? What do you feel is missing or strange?
3. If you aren't a gamer, what about games turns you off?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I picture women enjoying something along the lines of Everquest where they get to roam around a virtual world trying to get guys to buy them drinks and looking for killer deals on designer lip gloss.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I like logic games best. But then I don't think I'm a typical girl at all, if there is such a thing.
I've avoided most games because I get so addicted that I don't think I would be able to eat and sleep and stuff, much less keep a job. I get addicted to even the little stupid ones. So you see what I mean. An actual good game like Civ2 or something might be seriously dangerous.
I stayed up all night playing tetris many times. Minesweeper and freecell were both heavily addictive to me. Also in the early 90s a solitaire type game of Mah Jong (like on Win3.3). My favorite computer games (of the few I have played) weren't the adventure type role playing games but always the ones that were more like logic puzzles. I like shooters too but not quite as much.
The experience of losing yourself in a game, of becoming pure reflex action for hours on end, is a very pleasant one. Any game in which you can come to do this with practice will attract me and addict me, if I let it.
There was a game years ago in which you had to use a number of elements given to build a Rube Goldberg type machine to accomplish a certain task at each level. The number and variety of the elements (e.g. caged hamsters running on wheels turning conveyor belts, candles, helium balloons, fans, basketballs, see saws, trampolines, etc.) went up at each level. It was an engineer's dream game. Totally addictive from first click. I wonder if there is some terrifically advanced successor to that game out now, and if so can I possibly avoid it and so be able to keep my job and sanity.
What would be super cool, I think, is if someday addictive games like this left you with something to show for your hundreds of hours of investment besides carpal tunnel. I would love to come away knowing something true about the real world, even if it's Morse Code or the Svengali word for belly button.
[ May 27, 2004, 05:35 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Final Fantasy is what I like. A 30-100 hour game set in another world, like a good book and movie rolled into one with an interesting plot, a lot of cool characters. And swords... Lots of awesome swords.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I have a girl friend who's addicted to Caesar & the likes. I think she plays Sims too. Other than her, all the girls I know are not very fond of computer games, besides small / logical ones.
Then again, I've had my periods of Solitaire addiction too - at my best I managed to play and win a 107 seconds one with "Vegas rules" and "Draw one" And in the old days of Commodore I was mad about BattleShips and a very simple pinball game named Flipper... Ah, those were the days ! My poor "Space" key had a hard time though
Edit: Almost forgot that I once started to play Freecell from game no.1 and gone to 200 and something, winning them all, and became bored... Too easy
Edit 2: Geoff, that was your 1000 post !!! No landmark, I guess, huh ?
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*wonders why girls don't like Video games that much* There are so many good ones with a lot of very good looking lead characters. I don't like shooting games that are 3 d because they make me dizzy and sick. I can't figure out what to do about that. I'm having this same trouble with Silent Hill 2... I really want to play it, but it makes me dizzy to play too long. I loved Resident evil 2. Mainly because I could curse at the screen as I tried to kill those irratating zombies.
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Syn, old shooters also made me dizzy in single player mode. And I've since quit playing single player. But multi player is totally different, and totally addictive !
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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ARND, I like the OLD King's Quest, and other Sierra games. The sort of puzzle-adventures, not the fighting. I do NOT like the new surround sound, virtual reality style games.
I also like Pharoah and games like that.
I used to be addicted to Columns, a tetris-like game for the Macintosh. God I loved that game!
Like AK, I tend to get really addicted, so I have stayed away, and have discovered internet b.s.-ing as my new procrastinatory measure.
So, I guess I am the "typical girl"(even though I haven't been a "girl" in a really long time) in the gaming world.
Why do I like the games I do? I love puzzles and riddles, and that is really what those games are, more than "adventure."
[ May 27, 2004, 06:43 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Hey Im a girl:) and I like video games. Especially games where you play against someone else, the computer isn't as fun as another person. Specially my dad, he's so fun to play with. I like shooting games and racing games.lol
Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I've been playing Runescape lately. I think that for me, a game has got to involve more than killing the bad guys; there has to be some other point to it. I like the idea of quests, etc.
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I have been largely anti-video games since Atari went by the wayside for one reason: too many buttons. Despite the fact that I played clarinet for 12 years, I have the digit dexterity of a duck. However, most recently, I have played Gauntlet, D&D (Heroes, I think), and Worms.
I loved Gauntlet, especially playing by myself. "Hitting a bunch of buttons" was fairly effective. All totaled, it took me less than 24 hours to beat. A serious ego-booster for me.
D&D was strikingly similar to Gauntlet, but I had a hard time seeing what was going on. The color contrast wasn't as high, and the perspective was too far away. My hitting buttons technique also wasn't as effective.
Worms is a fun idea, but too difficult to control for my taste. My intense competitiveness (is that even a word?) combined with my lack of dexterity is maddening. I don't necessarily need to win, but don't like losing either, especially when I feel like I'm at a disadvantage.
Anyway, as far as what I like in general, I like having some kind of goal besides just upping the number of things I have to kill and the speed at which I have to kill them. I don't mind multi-player games when the players are working together. I just don't like competing when I feel like I can't win. Shoot, I have to go. More later, maybe.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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More recently I got hooked on Rubik's Collapse on-line for awhile... completely addicting.
I think the thing for me was when we were all growing up, I thought computer games were fun and liked to play them every now and then, whereas my little brother loved them and wanted to play them all the time. And of course, when one person wanted to play, they got to play all they wanted, and when two (or three) wanted to play, we had to take turns. So since BpW wanted to play a lot more often, he got a lot better, and when we were taking turns his turns lasted a lot longer than mine, and I would get bored and go do something else, thus never getting addicted.
Moral of the story: if you want to get girls hooked, make sure they have their own systems.
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ooh, this is interesting enough that I'll post (I've been a little nonexistant).
My all-time favorite games have been... the Exile series by Spiderweb Software (Jeff Vogel), Starcraft, Diablo, the Myst series...To a lesser extent, I've enjoyed Quake, Final Fantasy (VII, VIII, a few others), Tetris-like games, Lode-Runner, and computer card games (Spades, Hearts, Bridge).
I don't like games that require a high amount of accuracy/control-stick skill required. Like I have a guy-friend who really loves games like Jak and Daxter, but that's the kind of game I'd almost never play. I loved watching Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, but I'd never play it myself. Too much dependence on coordination. It's too easy to get stuck at a single point and have to try the same thing over and over again. I don't get that "sense of accomplishment" for hitting the buttons just right to make a jump after executing a bunch of perfect moves.
The kind of game I would really enjoy is an RPG in which the plot is greatly affected by your actions. The super-linearity of the final fantasy series bugs me. I prefer a simplified graphics set-up to the extreme-realism that a lot of companies are shooting for. Puzzles are fun. Good plotline is well appreciated.
Starcraft I like for its group-fun replayability. It has relatively simple rules and a clean set-up. If there were hundreds of different kinds of buildings and monsters, it would be a lot less fun.
Diablo is honestly fun because of the random-item generator. It makes the game surprisingly addicting when you get a yellow item and Really Want To Know what that item is. The player goes through hours of monotonous killing just for the cool magic items.
Myst is very pretty and has cool puzzles. I liked all three of them. I don't really love the 3-d movement of the third Myst, it can give you motion sickness.
Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness post. It's too early in the morning for me to be more intelligible.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I'm still looking for the kind of game my wife would love. She seems to like leisurely affairs without many consequences, like a city-building sim in which things can't actually go too wrong. Logic puzzles are strong, and she likes adventure games that aren't too difficult or too sexist. Wargaming of any kind does not appeal to her, she avoids shooters like the plague, and she thinks RPGs are tedious. So maybe she's not a gamer, really.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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now that I've read the other posts, i'll do a little responding on games I forgot about.
Civ I/II: great games. Strategy and development of buildings/military units. Yey!
more FPS (first-person-shooters) like UT: Didn't seem like there was enough feedback on this specifically. My freshman year, I played Quake a lot. Most nights for a few hours the first semester. I got reasonably good. Sighted with my mouse, strafed with the best of them. I played some UT Tournament my sophomore year, but my computer wasn't quite fast enough for it. So I had to stop playing. Since I got my new computer my senior year, I haven't tried picking up the first person shooters again. I wasn't too pleased with the increasing realism of the characters. I thought Quake III looked kinda lame with its super-shiny metal and high-resolution levels. Maybe if the realism were actually better, it would be nicer than the old stuff. So FPS's take coordination, but only in that vague, kill-them-first kind of way. If I had to jump across moving blocks the entire time I was killing people, then I'd hate it. Does that make sense?
Worms II: This is a silly great group game. Never came out for the Mac, though, so I only played this my freshman year. Minimal coordination required.
The Incredible Machine is probably the game ak was talking about.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Civilization is great. And of course, I love first-person shooters...Unreal Tourney 2004. They're better if they have some kind of progression or storyline to go along with them, though.
Does anybody remember Fury3? I miss that game...
Posts: 9057 | Registered: Nov 2000
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Logic -Cliff Johnson games: Fool's Errand and 3 in Three are both old, great puzzley games from a while back. He has them free on his website [url=http://www.fools-errand.com/]here[/url (I didn't like the other game, At the Carnival. I wouldn't start with that one). -Myst series if she hasn't yet. There's Real Myst, a remake of the original that came out a couple years ago. -Obsidian is a really really cool old PC puzzle game like Myst that likes to break the rules. Find this and play it if you liked the Myst series. -Lode Runner: original. I haven't played many of the newer versions... I guess I liked Lode Runner II, but I don't think I liked 3d lode runner.
Leisure building -maybe she'd like Diablo type stuff where you're constantly upgrading your cool items from items you get by killing monsters. Killing the boss monsters doesn't have to be difficult if you level up enough beforehand. Lots of "augh!" "Ugh!" "Awrgh" though, if she minds that kind of thing.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I do, I remember Fury3 ! It was my first "real" game when I bought my PC. I played it like a maniac. I've tried Descent since, but couldn't quite get the same feeling... At one time I could tell you all the worlds and all the bosses, but it's been quite a while since...
And I'm almost sure you're right, pH, when saying that ak talked about TIM. At one time it was an addiction in my class. Go figure: Computer Science class, 23 boys and 8 girls, and a lot of computers !
Edit: I realize the title says "Girls and Gaming", but I can't stop myself...
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Eljay, which Spelunker did you like? There have been a couple of games with that title. I loved the C64's spelunker, but if that's the one you're talking about, you're the only other person I've talked to that was familiar with it.
My wife likes adventure games, and although she was only introduced to them in about 1999 or so, vastly perfers the old, King's Quest style 2D games to more Grim Fandango-ish 3D games. If there is any hint of anything needing even a moderate degree of hand eye coordination she looses interest, despite having fairly good hand eye coordination. In adventure games that have action sequences, she'll either quit playing or have me play through the action sequences for her. Tetris type games and puzzle games pull her in more deeply than any other type though. She stayed up until about 2 AM the other day playing Diamond Mine.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I think I gave you my gaming resume on the other side, Dog, but I can tell you about my 7 year old daughter. She really likes something called "Crystal Maze" but I've never actually seen it (always a good feeling as a parent) They ran out the demo tokens. Hopefully when my husband was in charge. Something else from Wildgames she likes is "Otto's blocks" and I remember liking "Q*bert". I find Blackhawk Striker to be a glorified Space Invaders. I liked Space Invaders when I was a kid, but I don't find Blackhawk Striker interesting.
These share with Tetris that the goal is coverage. Bowling has the same appeal. Doing something and getting it all done is important to a lot of women. I used to play Mario to get every coin and kill every bad guy. Now I play to get as far as I can as fast as I can and it works much better.
I was thinking about this a while back, whether there is a difference in sports between error avoidance and goal achievement. In the case of a Third Invasion war game, anything short of total anihilation would be disaster (according to the rules of that game) but there may be some flexibility in how it is done. But in the Second Invasion (with Mazer Rackham) it is only necessary to get the right ship. I guess there is a way it could be like looking for the really big "hole" in minesweeper. But imagine a minesweeper where the blocks change positions and don't give tidy numbers. Maybe it would just be too frustrating. Anyway, I don't know if you are still asking about that or just generally.
I think that beyond the basic OCD-satisfying puzzle games, women want activities that allow them to be psychologically diverse. I have a wacko theory that men tend to have a psychological archetype and tolerate physical diversity, while women tend to have a physical archetype and tolerate psychological diversity.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I loved playing The Sims--I was addicted for several months a few years ago. I thought the only flaw was that the kids stayed kids forever. I'm probably going to go back when the new edition that rectifies that problem comes out.
I also liked Black and White, but the controls were really weird. And I could never train my animal right, so I basically never used it, preferring to perform miracles myself.
Basically, the God-mode games really appeal to me. Can't imagine why.
I also really liked Diablo and Diablo 2. I knew someone who said he didn't like the game because it was just mouse-clicking your way through everything, but I disagree. I liked getting quests and reading the tomes and stuff. The story is what kept me going. And getting cool stuff, like Suneun said.
I got Diablo in a pack with Starcraft and Warcraft II. Those were cool, but I was never much on the strategy of it. I preferred to cheat and get through a level just to get the story.
My friend Courtney has Heros 1, 2, and 3--those are kind of on the same lines as Starcraft or Warcraft, with a few differences. It's fun, but I can never get on it between Courtney and another game-loving friend.
When my brother got his Xbox I played the car game a lot--you know, the one that came with the machine? That and the skating one. I'd play those against my brothers or nephews. I'd play Ghost Recon sometimes, but it was more fun to go head-to-head with one of my brothers and try to kill them first. I almost never beat my older brother, except once when I hid really well in some bushes and he was right in front of me , knowing where I was yet still completely unable to see me. I had to leave after that because after he died he came back with grenades.
I also really liked KOTOR, it rocked my socks off. Again, mostly for the story, and trying to keep the light-o-meter up was always fun.
I also want to get a Game Cube so I can play the Classic ones--Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda...I played in a Super Smash Brothers tournament that was really fun, even though I lost the first round (against the only other girl).
Basically I really like anything story driven, especially in Fantasy or, to a lesser degree, Sci-fi. RPGs are fun, as well as Control-from-on-high types. And I like playing with a group.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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While everyone is throwing out their wish list for games I'll throw out mine:
I have a weakness for games with crappy graphics which are strong on strategy. As an example, I just spent several hours last night playing Axis and Allies against a friend on his computer. I also absolutely loved red storm rising on the commodore.
What I like about these games is the turn based approach and the need/ability to think out complex strategies rather than having to immediately react to game situations.
So Geoff- make more games like those, but maybe with cooler graphics.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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Noemon, yes, the C64 Spelunker, although I did play another version later that was okay, too. Can't remember what, we went through several different computer systems.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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You know I might play a first person shooter, though I never have, if there were really generous controls. While I realize you couldn't hit everything all the time what if there was a much more generous algorithm that allowed you to hit the target easier? Because I didn't play video games my whole life, I don't have the manual dexterity and/or the reflexes necessary to play the current first person shooters. I realize turn based type games take that out of the equation but I've stayed away from most of those because I'm afraid I'll get addicted. I loved watching Steve play Diablo though, but even then every now and then you had to fight and it happened faster than I would like.
I liked the old easy games, like frogger and asteroids. Something that you can win or at least get through some levels without a 3 hour long computer session time.
AJ
The other thing that intimidates me about the newer games that I see Steve play, is the oodles of keyboard controls to toggle between one weapon or display pane and another. I like relatively simple point and click, without a lot of complications of keyboard controls or searching through huge menus (though this isn't quite as bad with Civilization type games cause there isn't the time constraint) But if you are in a game where some reflexes are required you bascially have to have the menu set up memorized after the first 10 minutes of playing if you want to get anywhere.
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In short, I think if you want to attract more non-gaming girls, you have to lower the complexity. This doesn't mean it still can't be entertaining and challenging, it just means that the rules are simple, and stay nearly the same throughout the game, and there aren't a lot of wierd or unexpected plot twists. The girls that are die hard gamers already like the "guys" games, so they aren't really a target audience that would change sales.
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I loved the Sims. I haven't played in years do to the ridiculous amounts of time I spent playing it. I am afraid of the power Sims2 might have of taking over my life. I've got Hatrack, I can't afford another addiction. I loved Myst-esc games. I loved Starcon. I like games that Porter and I can "figure out" together. I also liked "Worms", perhaps in part due to the cuteness factor. Girls do tend to like to "connect" with other humans, so games like Everquest seem to make sense. Sims creates the "illusion" of connecting. Many video games "isolate" the indivicual and that is not appealing to your average girl. Even LAN parties with shoot-em-up games, that is no more a social connection than playing basketball. Not that there aren't plenty of girls out there that enjoy both, but we are talking "average girl" here.
I have found that I am not very coordinated and have poor reflexes. I agree with the "too many buttons" thing. Ah how Porter loves buttons! The more the better. But I have great difficulty "becoming one" with my computer controls that way. I have my hands full just trying to point and shoot! Anything that requires timing and reflexes is at least slightly intimidating to me. I enjoy best games that don't ask such things of me.
There is definitely a stereotype and a stigma associated with video games being for boys. The sexism commonly found therein doesn't help. The stereotypes will change over time, but I'm not sure how much you can really do to speed up the process.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I also like the Sims too... but I cracked my Livin' Large disc and that sucks.. I bought Double Deluxe but I have to sell it because I can't use it on Win 2000!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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jebus "dumbing down" in the co-ordination arena doesn't mean anything about the mental arena. The rules of chess are relatively simple. To actually understand and master the game, you have to be anything but "dumb". And you don't have to be terribly co-ordinated either.
quote: In short, I think if you want to attract more non-gaming girls, you have to lower the complexity. This doesn't mean it still can't be entertaining and challenging, it just means that the rules are simple, and stay nearly the same throughout the game, and there aren't a lot of wierd or unexpected plot twists.
Sounds like dumbing it down to me .
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But I like weird and unexpected plot twists. Something like that would only really appeal to really dumb girls... and some dumb guys as well.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I've played King's Quest (ages ago), Sim City 2000 (also ages ago), and Tetris. King's Quest and SimCity got boring, and Tetris I removed from my computer because I have no self control.
I haven't actually tried to play anything else.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I miss Fury3. I've been thinking about buying either a joystick or a gamepad thing for this computer, but I don't know how well that would work, considering I'd want to use it on Fury3 _and_ UT2K4.
Storyline! I say give it an interesting storyline that you can actually get into. Like in UT2K4, they have background stories behind the Assault levels, and you have teammates you have to pick and stuff, and all of them have backstories, too. I think it makes things way more interesting.
Posts: 9057 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:1. If you are already a gamer, what games are you usually drawn to? Are you more of a gaming tomboy, going for shooters and the like, or do you lean towards the more traditionally female genres — sims, adventure games, and MMORPGs? Why, in either case? What about them grabs you?
I guess I would already be consider a gamer (for a girl anyway ). I enjoy FPS (I remember playing Doom back in the day), with my favorite probably being UT (I've not had much of a chance to play UT2k, but what I have played, I've really liked - vehicles are cool!). I think I like UT better than CS because it's more abstract - weirder levels, stranger mutators, wilder weapons, stranger characters, runes - basically it's less realistic, which I guess is why I like it - if I'm going to be blowing people to smithereens, I'd prefer it be more imaginary. I've never played SIMS - I think I'd get bored with them. I really like the strategy multiplayer games like Warcraft (II and III), Starcraft, Age of Empires, Red Alert, and even Lords of the Realm. I like the strategy (I love the city bilding), though I tend to play multiple humans vs. computer controlled. I've played some more RPG-style games - Diablo I and II and NWN. They're good when I want mindlessness - bash everything - people, zombies, monsters, crates, trees, buildings, doors, etc. And getting new neato toys is fun - Grapthar's hammer of extreme platinum bashing! I also like old school games like Worms II (one of my first true game addictions - I drove all over town trying to find it the day after a friend had introduced me to it), Mario, Snood, Space Invaders, Tetris, Sherlock, Crystal Quest (my earliest memories of playing a game constantly are shooting all those bubblegum guys).
quote:2. Thinking of the games you play, what do you wish you could change about them, in general? What do you feel is missing or strange?
I guess I tend to get bored easily - I'll play a particular game for a couple months, then get tired of it, but I do come back to them. I'm not really sure if I can think of things I'd really like to change about them though.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I loved stuff like Monkey Island and Kyrandia, games where you just walk around and solve puzzles, with plenty of sarcastic humor thrown in. The game ak mentioned with the Rube Goldberg device-building sounds like a blast, too!
Most games look interesting to me, but don't hold my attention for more than two minutes. I start playing, learn what the controls are, then immediately stop caring what happens. And Suneun was dead-on with this:
quote:I loved watching Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, but I'd never play it myself. Too much dependence on coordination. It's too easy to get stuck at a single point and have to try the same thing over and over again. I don't get that "sense of accomplishment" for hitting the buttons just right to make a jump after executing a bunch of perfect moves.
I've always thought that the mind game Ender played would be great. An infinite amount of puzzles and characters, constantly adapting themselves to me? Oh yeah. Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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I stand by what I said about the fact that simplicity doesn't mean dumb. 9 times out of ten true simplicity is much harder to come by than unnecessary complexity.
Another thought. I know many girls watch their significant other play the games. Would there be a way which you could put more "audience participation" into the regular games?
quote:I know many girls watch their significant other play the games.
I have this horrifying memory of me and my roommate spending winter quarter of my freshman year WATCHING Jason play Wing Commander. We made fun of him for ignoring girls to play the game until we realized that he wasn't lacking for female attention - WE WERE WATCHING HIM PLAY THE GAME. It was so sad.
I did used to watch my brother play Zelda, but it meant that when I went to play, I knew where everything was. Yay!
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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In my experience, the game that is the most universally liked by girls and women (especially those that don't generally like games) is Snood. The second most popular is Tetris.
My wife loves those two. She basically refuses to play any game with a story, unless she can skip all the story parts without affecting the gameplay. So RPGs are right out, as are most shooters. For console games, she prefers multiplayer head-to-head types, such as Mario Kart (in its various incarnations), Tekken 4, and Super Monkey Ball. She tends to prefer a more cartoon-ish feel over realism (for example, she doesn't like Gran Turismo 3). Another feature that is necessary is that the game can be played in small chunks of time. She never plays for more than one hour and usually less than 30 minutes. Puzzle, fighting and racing games are ideal for that kind of play because you can get right into the action and there is little to no continuity between games.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Basically, there are more women over the age of 18 playing games than there are teenage boys playing games. Specifically, women over 18 are 26% of the gaming population.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Is there such a thing as a video game that is funny? I think I might go for something like that.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:1. If you are already a gamer, what games are you usually drawn to? Are you more of a gaming tomboy, going for shooters and the like, or do you lean towards the more traditionally female genres — sims, adventure games, and MMORPGs? Why, in either case? What about them grabs you?
I would be a gamer of the flavors RPG and puzzle with a liberal sprinking of Sims. I like pretty. And I like RPG's where my actions can affect the play.
Shooters are only fun for me on a LAN where I can actually here guys shouting "WHORE!" at me when I cut them down. Playing single player or over the internet all by myself just isn't fun at all.
MMORPG's don't appeal to me because, by and large, I am playing to relieve the stress caused by the idiots of the world. Why would I want to invite them in to mess up my little world?
quote:2. Thinking of the games you play, what do you wish you could change about them, in general? What do you feel is missing or strange?
Sims -- It isn't so much that I want a change as that I'm too lazy to learn how to make objects. Sims 2 looks so awsome that I fear for my thesis should I buy it. Aging was what I thought was missing from the first one. Heck, I even loved the GBA version that isn't even really the Sims.
Morrowind -- Still haven't beaten it. Still don't intend to. I love this game. I love the world it's in. I love the character building aspects, side quests, everything. I hope they make one that fixes the money system, and lets me make enchantments to cast recall on target. Until I played this game, I thought Ultima 9 was awsome and amazing, but this is so much better! And thank you once again, Geoff, for telling me about it.
GTA: VC -- This is stress relief as an art form. The actual plot, eh, I guess I enjoyed it. The random mayheim with a record of what you're costing the police is really where it's at. It also has the joy of Crazy Taxi built right in. Can't wait for the next one.
Tetris, PuyoPuyo, Bust-a-Move -- all lumped together as puzzle games. All are play to keep playing and pretty colors. Mmmmm. Thier flaw is that I know so few people to play against. 7th guest and 11th hour were fun for the puzzles. I know there was some story going on in the background, but so what?
Space Channel 5, DDR -- Simple Simon says games that are only challenging because I have no rythm. Oh, and SC5 is beautiful to watch, just freaking beautiful. Rez might also fall into this catagory. I've been known to play it until my eyes water. The problem with these games is simply length. Need more levels or songs or something.
I would like to try another game in the Myst family. I hated Myst, but I think it was because I didn't own the game and only got to play in 15 minute increments at a friends house. I liked that I didn't know what was going on.
Ideally, I think I'd like a game where I get to develope a character while exploring a large world I'm not sure what is about and solving little puzzles along the way. Which is the fantasy game, right?
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Yeah I know lots of girls playing games. I agree with everyone who says they like puzzles. But I think just random puzzle games don't really capture my interest for a long time. I like having the plot as well. When we were little I played Legend of Zelda (sp?) with my little brother. He did all the killing stuff and I solved all the puzzles. I dislike games that require me to have to quickly kill something. That was actually the reason final fantasy was so great. You got to figure out how to defeat a bad guy while not having to worry about getting all the control buttons and stuff right.
Other games I've liked have been things like Myst and this other game that I have totally forgotten. I think that the character was some guy going on a quest and he had to solve riddles and puzzles to progress at each step.
Sim and Sim City are fun just because there's always something new to do. But after you've built several cities to full size and technological advancement the fun sorta...goes away. I've never beat sims though.
Civilization II and Alpha Centauri were okay except that I "beat" them both on my first or second try.
Games I never liked Mario Brothers - could never master jumping *shrug* Quake- how *do* people manage to see what is going on in that?
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And in the old days of Commodore I was mad about BattleShips and a very simple pinball game named Flipper... Ah, those were the days ! My poor "Space" key had a hard time though ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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