10 Ways To Get Your Girl Into Gaming

Image via Complex Original

We spend our lives chasing fantasies. For some, it’s wealth. For others, it’s an exotic vacation. The rest of us would just like to have a girlfriend who will play CoD with us (and actually enjoy it). 

Unless you’re one of the lucky few already synced up with a gamer lady, chances are you’ll have to mold her into one.

It might take a delicate hand, so a genre breakdown is in order. But it IS possible.  “Skillful surgery” instead of “blunt hammer,” so to speak.

If anything, remember: be encouraging. Don’t nag, don’t be a backseat gamer, and don’t patronize her or insult her intelligence, which we’ve probably done a couple times here. 

First-Person Shooters

Gateway: Any of the Halo games, on co-op

Bonus: Half Life 

The co-op approach is probably most relevant in this genre; FPS’s are particularly fertile grounds for instantly-sprouting rage blossoms. You don’t want to throw your girlfriend into the snake-pit of CoD servers, which is worse than throwing a non-swimmer into the deep end of the pool. Actually, it’s more like throwing a non-swimmer into an active volcano. So ease her into it with encouraging words and a Needler.  

Playing co-op makes game-playing into an activity you do together, and will hopefully disassociate her memories of you throwing a controller through a glass window last week because that 12-year-old chav murked you again.

It helps that Halo’s got a somewhat engaging story to follow, and it won’t require too much of her attention since the plot was evidently written by an ocean rock.

That said, if you really want to engage her with a decent single player storyline, plop her down in front of Half-Life. She’ll also be exposed to a strong female figure in Alyx. 

MMOs

Gateway: World of Warcraft (obviously)

Bonus: Upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic

Common sense should not be ignored: be careful with this one. Some of us have chosen to give Azeroth a wide berth. We’ve heard all the tales of gamers – both male and female – losing themselves in the grinding/raiding ether, never to be seen again until they turn up dead in a puddle of flat Mountain Dew and liquefied Twinkies. But hey! Mila Kunis runs with a guild. Why can’t your girl?

Our advice – tread lightly, and just be cognizant of the potential that you might not be having sex for awhile if she DOES get hooked. So it goes.

RPGs

Gateway: Final Fantasy IX

Bonuses: Mass Effect 2, Fable 1 and 2

There’s a reason why one can’t traverse YouTube without stumbling over an emo Final Fantasy AMV/GMV coated with a shitty Evanescene or Nickeback track. The ladies love Final Fantasy.

Not that your girlfriend is a Nickelback fan (or a stereotype of how male gamers view females), but the point is that FF taps into everyone’s emotional side. When it isn’t being overtly melodramatic, that is.  If she IS a Nickelback fan though, you need break up with her in the worst (legal) way possible.

Final Fantasy IX‘s story had emotionally powerful themes without deteriorating into anime tropes, so we’d recommend that one as a starter. The cutesy graphics don’t hurt either. Before she knows it, she won’t even remember how she got to level 78 because she just wanted to see what happened with Garnet and Zidane.

If you don’t want your girl dying her hair blue and wearing cat ears, though, you can always have her take the badass role of FemShep in Mass Effect. Its gameplay isn’t very convoluted, and it’s wrapped in a relatively mature storyline. 

Platformers

Gateway: Ratchet and Clank

Bonus: Rayman Origins

This is one isn’t too hard – it’s an innately accessible genre. Typically the art direction is universally appealing, and the game’s tone doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

Ratchet and Clank is a good place to start; there are explosions and shooting, but it’s not Saint’s Row. There’s enough PIXAR type charm to turn on those little happy lights in your girl’s cerebellum. 

Really, the platforming genre in general is a good place to start for any gamer, male or female. 

Action Adventure Games

Gateway: Uncharted Series

Bonus: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

There’s no better way to lure her into her gaming by using another man who represents the pinnacle of everything you aren’t. There’s a high percent chance that she’s into folks like Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and now, Nathan Drake.

Granted, there ARE other adventure games you could use; i.e., Tomb Raider and God of War. Unfortunately Lara was one of the original gaming symbols of anti-feminism; she could still be a turn off to some girls, feminist or not. Oh, and God of War has orgies. 

Plus, Uncharted is an exercise in cinematic grace combined with a simple control scheme. Such a combination should be sufficient to pull her in. There’s also always Ocarina of Time, of course.

Puzzle Games

The Gateway: Professor Layton series

Bonus: Puzzle Fighter

Professor Layton is a guy who hangs out 24/7 with a little kid named Luke. 

Your girlfriend, luckily, isn’t as corrupt as you and won’t think anything strange about said situation. So the Layton series is the perfect initiation into the puzzle genre, with its Ghibli-eque art direction and accessible brain teasers. Think of it as Brain Age, but with characters she can actually care about.

And once she’s done with that, you can introduce her to competitive puzzle games with Puzzle Fighter, which is one of those games that somehow deflects accusations of aging gameplay mechanics. You’ll be fine until you break a giant red Ken jewel on her, dumping a whole mess on her side of the screen. 

Racing Games

The Gateway: Any Mario Kart game (duh)

Bonus: Daytona USA at the arcade

It’s one thing to ask your girlfriend to play a video game. But asking her to play a racing game like GT5 or Forza is a whole different beast. You might as well ask a meat-curious vegetarian to try beef tartare as their first foray into experiencing what real life should be like. 

But of course, that’s why Mario exists nowadays – he’s the ambassador to the casual gamer. This wasn’t always the case, of course. Nintendo fans can scream “BUT SMASH BROS” all they want, but when it comes to the mainstream quasi-gamer, his expertise lies in pulling in the younger demographic and the older, casual/occasional player.  Everyone’s role changes as they get older and time rolls on. Same goes for the plumber. 

It’s ok – just go with it. Sit her down in front of any Mario Kart game, and she’ll be hooked. You may not ever get her into Forza, but at least (almost) any Mario Kart title is awesome.

The fallback is to take her to a decked out arcade and sit her in front of an actual wheel in Daytona USA. Who can’t appreciate the arcade experience, racing against friends?

Sports Games

Gateway: Mario Power Tennis

Bonus: Mario Strikers Charged

Ok, look. Just go outside and play some one-on-one with her, for Chrissake. Or volleyball. Or Tennis. Or walk to the park together to laugh at joggers. 

However, if you’re really that sedentary, Mario comes to the rescue again. With options like Mario Power Tennis or Mario Strikers Charged, she won’t have to deal with that Pick and Roll that never works like it f!@#ing should in 2K12. 

Nintendo keeps their sports games simple. Because no matter how whip-smart she might be, chances are that she’ll be as interested in a playbook as you are in her Jimmy Shoes Chews Shoos Whatevers.

Fighting Games

Gateway: Mortal Kombat

Bonus: Pocket Fighter

We won’t profess to any profound understanding of this one: girls always seemed to gravitate towards the OG Mortal Kombat back in the day.  To this day, we still don’t know why.  Maybe she liked ripping your head off. 

Of course, you can always try Pocket Fighter if MK doesn’t work. 

Horror

Gateway: Resident Evil 5

Bonus: Left 4 Dead

We’re going to assume your girlfriend isn’t a stereotypical representation of everything that enrages feminists and Janeane Garofalo. Hence we can assume she’d be down to try out zombie-slaying.  

Again, the key here is the co-op.  We might be cheating a little big with L4D, but you really don’t want someone like Pyramid Head to be her dancing partner during her first tango with the horror genre.