Two-Player Games for Mixed Skill Level Players? 506
koreth asks: "What are some good two-player games that a newbie can successfully play with a more seasoned gamer? I want to find a good console or PC game I can play with my girlfriend, who has only recently started gaming. Something cooperative would be great, but head-to-head is fine too. All the games we've tried are made for players of roughly the same skill level -- so either I end up dumbing my gameplay way down (no fun for me) or blowing her out of the water without much effort (no fun for her). Is there any game out there that gives two players tasks of varying difficulty to keep both of them engrossed, at the same time?"
Handicap in fighting games (Score:5, Informative)
Something simple - two suggestions (Score:5, Informative)
Another one, though I haven't played for years, that I would suggest would be Super Bomber Man or a sequel - easy to pick up and fun.
And the person above who suggested a MMO has an excellent point, though depends how casual you want the gaming to be as they generally require a large investment of time.
DDR/Stepmania (Score:3, Informative)
There's a open source knock off called step mania that's more feature-rich. Thousands of songs for step mania are available on the net, and you can add your own.
LEGO Star Wars, WC3 (Score:5, Informative)
On the PC side, WarCraft III might be a good idea -- you can play against AI opponants, and select various handicaps for each player if desired.
Puzzle games are a lot of fun to play together, too -- my wife and I have played Bookworm together and had quite the good time.
Mario Party (Score:5, Informative)
Another great Japanese game is "Ribbit King"- http://www.ribbitking.com/about.htm [ribbitking.com] sort of a weird golf game where you launch frogs off of a catapult to ultimately get the frog into the hole. You score points for getting teh frog to cover larger distances and interact with the dense kooky environment. It has a lot of charm goofiness and just the right amount of skill to be fun and never frustrating.
Guild Wars all the way (Score:5, Informative)
Plus, a huge and wonderfully detailed world for the two of you to explore and to battle against, with no xp grinding, nor any of the other traditional MMOG timesinks that make some other popular worlds so tedious. The time saved can then be used
Recommended.
Re:I can only suggest a board game... (Score:3, Informative)
Na na, na na na na na na Katamari Damacy!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Guild Wars all the way (Score:4, Informative)
Capcom's Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo... (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puzzle_Fighter [wikipedia.org]
This game strikes an amazing balance by being both compelling for serious competition and entertaining for casual play. David Sirlin has a relevant article (http://sirlin.net/archive/slippery-slope-and-perp etual-comeback/ [sirlin.net]) describing "perpetual comeback" as it pertains to Puzzle Fighter and why it makes that game so very fun.
Are you still looking further?
Well then...
Another example of perpetual comeback is the fighting system in Battle Arena Toshinden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Arena_Toshind en [wikipedia.org]) where each character has usually two special moves (in addition to their normal repertoire) that they can only perform once their health gets very low (i.e., they are about to be knocked-out). These moves (sometimes referred to as "desperation moves") usually do a great deal of damage and can easily turn the tide of a round or just win the round outright so they add cool intensity to the conclusion of many matches (even when one player is notably superior because they need to be extra careful to avoid getting hit by one or more of these "come-back" moves). These moves can be difficult to perform for those uninitiated to the common fireball and yoga-flame joystick movements they typically require but they totally have the best risk-vs.-reward benefit when a player is learning the game. I'd recommend studying and practicing the execution of those moves first to new players. Additionally, some characters have very easy ones like (if I remember correctly) Ellis and Sophia only need to press back, forward, back, forward + Triangle to do theirs. Choose an easy and fast character to start with until you learn enough to venture out.
Of course there are some fun cooperative experiences (like Halo or MMOs) but if your partner shows an affinity for, and appreciation of, games requiring increasing reflexive (a.k.a. "twitch") skill, I would highly recommend the plethora of http://shmups.com/ [shmups.com] out there. Ikaruga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikaruga [wikipedia.org]) must be mentioned as one of the greatest here. All threatening bullets and beams are either white (with blue highlights) or black (with red highlights). Similarly, each players' ship can flip over to alternate between those colors as well. When you're the same color as bullets, you absorb them into your shield and they store in a meter which can be unleashed as homing shots. When you are the opposite color of enemy ships, your shots do double-damage (but you're vulnerable to their bullets because they are the same color as them). It makes for awesome tension because the whole screen can be completely covered in bullets but at least half of it is always survivable space if you're the same color as the bullets occupying that space. Check out "bullet-eater" mode too. You can beat lots of levels without firing a shot (i.e., by just alternating to the right colors and dodging terrain features).
Another great one is Raiden Project (http://gamespot.com/ps/action/raidenproject/index
There are lots of great cooperative Shmups but the only directly competitive one I have yet encountered is astonishingly fun. It is called Twinkle Star Sprites (http://en.wiki [wikipedia.org]
Lego Star Wars (Score:4, Informative)
It's available for consoles and the PC, and is a really fun game. (:
Mario Party (Score:3, Informative)
WarioWare is also good, because the games are so random that even an experienced gamer doesn't have a huge advantage.
Re:Coop all the way (Score:3, Informative)
- Mario Kart: Double Dash has a coop mode where one person drives and the other chucks stuff and creates sparks for acceleration. You can switch positions at any time.
- Mario Power Tennis: Play doubles vs the computer. Lots of fun. The Chain Chomp game is one of the best mini-games I've ever seen.
- Super Monkey Ball (2): I think there are 12 little mini-games, a LOT of fun for two or more people. Maybe 6 are great, the rest are alright but get old quick. The downside is that this game sucks for a single player.
- Ghost Recon: I play this with my wife and she loves it because you don't need quick reflexes. You can creep around rocks and bushes without being seen and shoot the enemy. We use the coop mode, and I sometimes handicap myself by taking odd weapons. I think it's a great introduction to FPSs.
Stuff I can't vouch for, but is probably just as good:
- WarioWare: I haven't tried the multiplayer on this game, but the single player was fun enough to figure out that two people would have a blast with it.
- Mario Party (I haven't tried this one at all). Again, lots of mini-games, some of which might be duds but I'd bet $100 that there are at least a few great ones.
I also wanted to mention that the Action Replay MAX from CodeJunkies is well worth picking up. I know, it's a cheat etc, but my wife got stuck at one point in Rayman 3 (tough platforming level). She stopped playing the game for a few months, until I picked up the Action Replay. I booted up the Cube with a couple of cheats and all of a sudden she was having fun again. I think that if a single player game gets too hard, it's not fun anymore and people just don't want to play that game. The AR costs $40 canadian (as much as a game) but it's very worth it.
Tekken... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:LEGO Star Wars, WC3 (Score:4, Informative)
Freeciv! (Score:1, Informative)
Usually we team up against several AI opponents. It's also possible to give a player some AI "teammmates", and this can help level the playing field a bit, though you'll have to experiment with the right number of AI teammates (me vs my friend and 3 AIs = him gleefully kicking my ass for once).
Just about all RTS (Especially TA) (Score:2, Informative)
Me and a friend both faught on the same team he had more experience so he was on defence. Meanwhile behind the lines I was building any ol base I wanted, which taught me what buildings there were and what they all did. Shortly after that I started building all manner of offensive units and structures.
Only took a couple of games for us to start building seperate self sustaining bases. Although even if it takes longer experienced players typically love to be on the front line defence in TA. (It gets seriously hectic and weve had a kill counter go up by over 300 units in a matter of seconds.)
Im fairly sure you can do that kind of thing with any RTS but TA is cheap to buy has a spare CD for multiplayer games and is still arguably the greatest muliplayer RTS ever created.
Serious Sam (Score:2, Informative)
Serious Sam 2 or City of Heroes (Score:2, Informative)
Games that foster "duoing" like City of XXX (Score:3, Informative)
And it is so genre relevant that it isn't funny.
After all, what would Batman be without his Robin or Batgirl? A sidekick is your friend indeed!
Handicap settings (Score:3, Informative)
Katamary (Score:2, Informative)
Worms! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Coop all the way (Score:2, Informative)
Graphic adventure games (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Worms! (Score:2, Informative)
Nancy Drew games (Score:2, Informative)
I would recommend getting the latest Nancy Drew games as the quality has improved. They are up to their 13th game so far.
More info at http://www.herinteractive.com/prod/index.shtml [herinteractive.com]
We also got the Agatha Christie computer game but have not yet played it.
Secret of Mana (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Coop all the way (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Guild Wars all the way (Score:2, Informative)