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Friday, October 12th, 2007 12:30 pm
familial trials
Randomly.
Part A
I got my niece the comic Bone that got a fairly good rating from parents who didn't sound terrified at the idea their children would one day have to interact with the real world. So far, she's enjoyed it, though since she's six, it's fairly slow going with getting her still for long; she tends to associate reading with bedtime and while she loves reading at bedtime, she finds it slightly surreal to attempt at five in the afternoon.
It looks cute, though.
Part B
Okay, for gamers.
My mom loves The Legend of Zelda type games. She's good at them, and at pretty much any strategy/puzzle game. But she has this quirk that makes me kind of want to strangle her. If she thinks it's too complicated, she won't bother, which is how we lost her on Final Fantasy despite the fact the game might as well have said Jenn's Mom's Ideal Game.
Zelda always tricked her by looking simple at first, and by the time she was trading weapons and mapping tunnels on graph paper in three dimensions (One day ask me about our first Nintendo; five hours every Saturday and every Sunday, with me and my sisters with graph paper, pencils, maps and *color coding* monsters), she was a junkie, so--
I need a rec on a game that either looks simple at first and then once you get your two hits, it starts destroying your soul. I want the heroin of the gameworld that sucks you in. But preferably heroin that looks a lot like pixie dust.
If I could pull it off, I'd throw her at World of Warcraft so hard she'd see stars. She's one of those people that looks kind of mediocre and lousy and way too anal at first and seems to do nothing but wander over five screens for days and make obscure markings on paper, and then you wake up one day and your mother has like, moved eighty thousand levels ahead of you, found all the magic swords, and just finished killing the big monster without checking the user's guide, then blinks at you innocently and wanders off the play solitaire. And you look down at five notebooks, colored highlighers, three pencils, multicolored pens, and some kind of obscure altar to the god of video games and remmber, again, why you aren't supposed to bet a week of dishwashing.
*sighs* Birthdays for parents. Hard. Gah.
Help?
ETA: ACK! Sorry! We have currently Nintendo GameCube, Playstation 2, er, somewhere a Nintendo Gameboy, two PCs. She'd probably vaguely prefer PC, but for something good, I can get onto anything.
Part A
I got my niece the comic Bone that got a fairly good rating from parents who didn't sound terrified at the idea their children would one day have to interact with the real world. So far, she's enjoyed it, though since she's six, it's fairly slow going with getting her still for long; she tends to associate reading with bedtime and while she loves reading at bedtime, she finds it slightly surreal to attempt at five in the afternoon.
It looks cute, though.
Part B
Okay, for gamers.
My mom loves The Legend of Zelda type games. She's good at them, and at pretty much any strategy/puzzle game. But she has this quirk that makes me kind of want to strangle her. If she thinks it's too complicated, she won't bother, which is how we lost her on Final Fantasy despite the fact the game might as well have said Jenn's Mom's Ideal Game.
Zelda always tricked her by looking simple at first, and by the time she was trading weapons and mapping tunnels on graph paper in three dimensions (One day ask me about our first Nintendo; five hours every Saturday and every Sunday, with me and my sisters with graph paper, pencils, maps and *color coding* monsters), she was a junkie, so--
I need a rec on a game that either looks simple at first and then once you get your two hits, it starts destroying your soul. I want the heroin of the gameworld that sucks you in. But preferably heroin that looks a lot like pixie dust.
If I could pull it off, I'd throw her at World of Warcraft so hard she'd see stars. She's one of those people that looks kind of mediocre and lousy and way too anal at first and seems to do nothing but wander over five screens for days and make obscure markings on paper, and then you wake up one day and your mother has like, moved eighty thousand levels ahead of you, found all the magic swords, and just finished killing the big monster without checking the user's guide, then blinks at you innocently and wanders off the play solitaire. And you look down at five notebooks, colored highlighers, three pencils, multicolored pens, and some kind of obscure altar to the god of video games and remmber, again, why you aren't supposed to bet a week of dishwashing.
*sighs* Birthdays for parents. Hard. Gah.
Help?
ETA: ACK! Sorry! We have currently Nintendo GameCube, Playstation 2, er, somewhere a Nintendo Gameboy, two PCs. She'd probably vaguely prefer PC, but for something good, I can get onto anything.
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From:Well, not the refusing-to-play part, but the rest of it - awesome!
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Re: "STUPID STUPID CAT CREATURES"
From:This one?
http://www.amazon.com/Bone-1-Boneville-Jeff-Smith/dp/0439706408/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-6113407-7533744?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192214303&sr=8-2
I checked it against Child's school and the blog I was reading (Child states its in the library, which is why I had it on my short list).
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Re: "STUPID STUPID CAT CREATURES"
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Re: "STUPID STUPID CAT CREATURES"
From:I don't think The Hobbit is inappropriate for a smart 8-year-old, either, come to think of it.
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Platform?
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Re: Platform?
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From:Hmm.
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From:OMG JENN TOTALLY Nthing OKAMI! Is FUN.
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From:They complained that you didn't say what kind of gaming system(s) you have! Heh.
peterb says "if she has a PS2, Okami or Dark Cloud might be ok"
if you tell me what gaming systems you have, I can possibly drag more specific recs out of them, if you want.
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From:Currently PS2, Nintendo GameCube, and somewhere a gameboy. Also a PC.
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From:(Prettier than WoW and you do not have ongoing monthly fees, you just buy the game. And then you buy the expansion set. And then you buy the next expansion set. And then... etc)
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From:Going to look now.
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From:The one I can think of that looks really simple may not be precisely what you're looking for. It's Okami, and it is - different, different in terms of the skills it requires and the way the game plays out; it is not precisel your typical RPG. But it's wonderful and addictive and I loved it, and the game has much more depth than it would seem. And you get to play a DOG who is also a GODDESS. How awesome is that?
A much more far-out possibility would be Katamari Damacy, which is not a role-playing game at all, but is the simplest, most addictive thing the world has ever seen. You start out and you're like, "Yay! I has a paper clip!" And thirty minutes later you're trying to figure out how to roll up the sun.
Oh, and one of the Shadow Hearts series might be a possibility; that one has a fairly slow build and the primary game trick is easily understood, if not precisely easy for those of us without hand-eye coordination.
Also, which Final Fantasy did she bounce off of? Or does deciding one is not for her mean the entire FF franchise is out? Because some have less challenging start-ups than others.
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From:Myst numbers 1, 3, and 4 are wonderful for the analytic types. I haven't played 5 yet so I can't vouch for it, but after the mess they made of Riven they seem to have shaped up. I do not recommend Uru - the controls made me drop it ten minutes after install, they were that bad.
If you have your heart set on an MMO, I recommend Final Fantasy 11. She would need a mentor, since there are certain customs that newbies simply can't possibly know (at level 13 EVERYONE goes to the Dunes and starts learning how to work in a party; some races are better for certain jobs and some are incompetent, etc) but I know a whole crowd of people will volunteer for that. :) FF11 is very friendly place.
Um, what else... Brain Age for DS, Elebits for PS2, um... I'm sure I'll think of more later. I tend to lean towards the simple, attractive games, so I have sympathy for your mother. XD FFXII beat my butt, but she might like the liscence system in that, too.
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From:*blinkblink*
Holy mother of Mario. I seriously thought that my dad was the only one who did that--I still have some of the graphs we made for the Mario games. I learned to draw maps, people, and straight lines because my dad was obsessed with Nintendo games, and refused to shell out money for guidebooks when he could just as easily make us do it in the guise of "father daughter time." I used to go with him to the store and pick out video games to rent based on what I thought I could draw for the graphs. I still have what some might term an unnatural fondness for quarter-inch graph paper.
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From:He's been working on a sequel to "Fool's Errand" for years now; I'm hoping it will be done sometime before the world ends. *grin*
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From:Love Zelda! My mom's way to old to bother. World of Warcraft. Uhgg. My nieces and nephews play that and it looks so darn hard.
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From:Okay, I'm a mom with grown children and this year I've discovered (along with a number of people my age) World of Warcraft. Tell you mom that she will LOVE it! I sure do. There are so many ways to play it.
I also liked Zelda and Sierra Online back in the day. I had the notebooks but did not color code them. I'm impressed!
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From:Also: I'm not a huge gamer myself, but I asked my brother for recs and he suggested Castlevania as a possibility. (Probably the Gameboy or DS ones, but I think they're generally all pretty good.)
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From:Right off the top of my head, I gotta say "Shadow of the Collossus" for the PS2 might be right up her ally; it's a game where each level is the boss itself. The Collossi are huge creatures that you must figure out how to climb all over them to get to their weak points while they actively try to toss you off. The visuals are amazing, and figuring out just how to even *get* close enough to the Collossi to climb on them is a puzzle enough for most gamers. Along the same thread and made by the same people (indeed, if you've played both, SotC is almost a sequal) is ICO. Full of puzzles and traps, but no difficult menues to navigate or stats to tweak.
Katamari Damacy and the sequal, We Love Katamari is another great addictive game. You have a katamari (pretty much just a bit sticky-ball) and you have to roll up items, getting bigger and bigger until you meet your goal. Watching this game, you have to wonder just *what* the makers were on; very colorful and slightly cracky, I reccomend this one to all ages; both your mom and kid should have a ball.
The Sims is a good game for the computer if you like strategy; you create a family, find them jobs, and make friends with other NPC Sims. But what makes people play this game for hours is the fact that you gotta take care of your Sims' every need; you have to tell them to shower, eat, sleep, watch TV or exercise, and so on, otherwise they'd be cranky and no fun. And in order to get further along in your career, you might have to do some very basic stat work besides; such as you might be a Waitress in the Hollywood career track, but in order to advance to a stand-in role, you have to talk to yourself in front of a mirror to built charisma, or read a book or play chess to built intellegence. Hours and hours of addictive gameplay ahoy!
There is also a couple versions for the PS2 floating around that has a very basic storyline (such as you live with your mom, and you have to do a couple quests in order to move out. Then you have to move out of the party-house you moved into. Then you have to move out again, etc, giving you better and better homes and more money to buy cool stuff with.) but is nonetheless almost as addictive as the computer version.
I'd have to reccomend all of the Silent Hill games as well, if your mom (and you, if you don't want the kid playing a violent game) doesn't mind fairly violent, VERY scary games. Especially Silent Hill 2 (which is the best in the series so far, IMHO) there is some great puzzles that's fun to figure out while scaring the bejeezus out of you. Also, the story is superb; much better than found in your average video game fare, and unlike most action games you want to keep playing - not because you want to beat the game, but so that you can find out *what happens next*. I really can't sing enough praises for this game, though I do have to repeat; violent, with very mature themes, and *very* scary.
Less violent and a very barebones story but is still fun, Drakengard 1 and 2. You can fly a dragon! How cool is that? You get a plethora of weapons to choose from, but for the most part you can just choose the weapons on which one you like the most; there's not a very obvious difference between them. Bloody, but if I remember correctly you have the option to turn the blood off. Very easy normally, an extremely repetative when you're fighting off hoards of monsters (X button X button X button X button lather-rinse-repeat) but then you get to these boss fights that will EAT YOUR SOUL. Plus you can fly a dragon.
Monster Hunter. You're a villager who is given quests to go out and kill a certain monster, or a certain number of monsters. Not exactly a strategy, but action enough to be fun.
Those are the games right off the top of my head that I think she'll enjoy. And all of these have been around for a while, so they should be dirt cheap (which is the important thing in my book; I refuse to pay over thirty for a game.) Enjoy!
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Yes indeed!
From:I LOVE the Zelda games, but I have had to purchase the official Strategy Guide whenever I buy a new one, and work my way though the game with the strategy guide open in front of me. I'm currently working through Phantom Hourglass, but I would never make it without the strategy guide.
So if your mom really likes the early Zelda games and already owns 1-2 of them, just buy her a used Strategy Guide off of Amazon, and that'll make it easy for her to succeed. Step-by-step instructions with pictures!
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From:I finally deleted my geared out, awesomely weaponed rogue not long after the Burning Crusade expansion came out because it totally screwed up raiding (which is what my guild focused on). That and I realized that I was 31 and alone and the game really wasn't helping that. Hee! So, long story short, I can give you my account which is the regular WoW package, plus Burning Crusade, that has a lvl 16 rogue character(a buddy of mine got into it just after I got out, so I played long enough to show him the ropes) to give her someplace to start for super cheap if you want it.
The WoW crack, she is worse than heroine.
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From:If you get a WII (which is amazing) you can download and buy all the older games or the games I mention here that may or may not work on the cube (I'm not sure because it's the hubbies system I just play what he puts on).
Many Zelda sequels are out that are pretty good. They start easy but get complicated quick. Zelda Wind Waker is pretty good.
My fav's so far that are adventure like but not over-the-top-want-to-toss-the-controler-at-the-TV are Paper Mario (all 3) and Lego Star Wars (you play the movies but with humor but no maps would be needed.
For the creepy factor there is always the Resident Evil's but I find them a bit extreem for saving progress quickly and not getting killed.
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From:Another game with slowly ramping difficulty and puzzles is Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, for GC. That's a Lovecraftian game if you've not already heard of it... But I found the latter levels frustrating and repetitive, personally.
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