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Special Feature: Warrior Woman (Part II)

By Alex Petraglia on Friday, August 11, 2006 at 12:00 PM EST  

Mom Fourth
The Games

Alex:

Of course, what really matters is the games. Yes, setup may be fairly easy for a mom, but if she’s unable or unwilling to play any of the entries in the XBOX 360’s catalogue, then the world’s currently most powerful gaming console is only a very expensive piece of white plastic. Over the course of several weeks, Mrs. P played through about ten various titles on the XBOX 360. I watched on, copying down her impressions and then adding my own. In each of the following pages, you’ll find her words first, then my own.

Mrs. P:

So now we get into the good stuff. At first, I was actually dreading this moment. I was worried that my own inability to even play a game would hinder the realization of this project. And things were absolutely horrid early on. While drawn in by playing, I found the controls in most titles to be too esoteric for me and I was just uncomfortable sitting in one place, holding a controller in my warm, tense hands. But over the course of time, I came to relax with the controller and master several of the controls in the games I attempted to play. In doing so, I could focus more on the actual games themselves, which I found to be quite fun. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Hexic HD

Mrs. P:

My first foray into the XBOX 360 was a simple puzzle-type game called Hexic. This was definitely something I could see myself getting hooked on. It was very pleasing visually; I loved the jewel colors. It also requires some skill and a good eye.

I liked the incentive to go farther into the game and get bonus points. It evolves in an entertaining and fulfilling manner, with added challenges when the bombs and stars are thrown into the mix, for example. I do think you should be penalized though if you make a mistake, that way you’re more apt to make a good move rather than just playing willy-nilly.

The music is good and relaxing, not over-zealous and not agitating or distracting. It just works well with the theme of the game. Not much left to say about Hexic other than it’s a game I would come back to.

Alex:

I figured this would be a perfect jumping point into the arcade style puzzle games XBOX Live Arcade provides, and that she wouldn’t have too much difficulty adapting, as a long time fan of both sudoku and crosswords. I was right. She took to the game immediately, mastering the controls and mechanics in seconds. The first night, she spent a solid four hours alone just playing this, working up through the levels, and having an all around enjoyable time. I hoped that the rest of this venture would go just as swimmingly.

Marble Blast

Mrs. P:

With Hexic out of the way, I moved onto the first game in a long line to really frustrate me. Not to the point where I wanted to put the controller down and walk away, but almost. This was a good exercise to get me use to using both the sticks at once to control movement and camera.

The game was almost dizzying. I felt like I was high up in the heights of the atmosphere. I liked the game a lot, I was just not very skilled at it. I have difficulty not falling into the chasms and down into eternity. The levels reminded me of an MC Escher drawing, with the multiple looped levels and the brick and stone work.

Alex:

I personally found the controls in Marble Blast to be particularly easy, but obviously that sentiment wasn’t shared. She had trouble using the shoulder button to activate the powerups, jump, and steer the ball simultaneously.

One thing I did note though, was that the developers at GarageGames really make everyone feel the way they want you to feel: The exuberance of passing a particularly difficult section and the anguish when you accidentally careen off the edge a second afterwards. It was interesting to take a step back and see someone else go through those emotions while playing.

Uno

Mrs. P:

I was familiar with Uno as a card game, having played it, so I figured this would be a breeze. Upon playing though, I was stymied by the lack of control that I felt I had. I felt that the game was guiding my card choices, a fact I didn’t much care for.

I also felt that the pace was a little too rapid. With the skipping of turns and switching direction, it was just a little too quick for me. I felt like it required no skill and the whole game was preprogrammed and decided before we even started.

Not a game I’d revisit, unless I was playing with a real deck of cards.

Alex:

I found it funny that so early in this enterprise tensions began to mount. Things came to a head while playing the simplest of games, Uno. We ended up having a rather heated debate.

You see, my mom was under the impression that the game was “pressuring” her into using cards she did not want to use. When the player’s turn arrives, the computer automatically highlights the cards in the player’s hand that can be used. One of these highlighted cards protrudes out from the rest in order to display the player’s choice. However, my mother felt that the computer was unceremoniously suggesting her to pick the initial protruding card. Aha! “Conspiracy theory!” she cried. As it turns out, the initial protruding card is simply the playable card that is furthest to the left.

Unbelievably, she could not grasp this concept. She felt as though she was back her youth; back in high school and a friend was peer-pressuring her to do something not of her own will, except this time she was in Xbox Live Arcade, her friend was the computer, pressuring her to pick a certain card.

Anyway, I tried informing her that the game was simply guiding her, not pressuring her. This, it seemed, was not the right thing to say. Suddenly, she became very defensive.The conversation went something like:

-“No, Alex, it’s not guiding me, it’s forcing my hand!”
-“Ma, look! If you tab over to the right you have other options. The card that protrudes is your choice to be thrown into the middle, not the computer’s choice.”
-“I see that, but the computer is trying to remove my free will from the equation.”

Yeahhh. The computer is taking over. Perhaps this is how the third Matrix should have ended. The leader of the machines was, in fact, a descendent of the evil A.I. from the Xbox Live Arcade’s version of UNO.

And this, as they say, was the end of our session with UNO. Peter Moore must not have had this on his mind when he was making bold claims. Well, shucks, let this be a lesson: keep your mom away from Uno!

Geometry Wars

Mrs. P:

Beautiful, but overwhelming. At first I tried not moving much, then realized that would bring about a quick death. Then I thought if I kept shooting, I would be able to easily annihilate my enemies. Having mastered the right stick to shoot, I still need a lot of work on my left to work quickly out of the way of those trying to pulverize me. Ultimately not too successful; this game would require a lot more diligence and time on my part. I found it to be fun for about five minutes though, but couldn’t see much long term appeal.

Alex:

This started out exactly like I thought it would. First, she flew directly into the first target, thinking maybe that was the point of the game. Then, she bothered to read the tutorial. I chose this game to play right before we moved onto the real games, because I thought it would survive as good practice to get her accustomed to using both sticks.

“Alex, where am I? There are too many colors! They’re very beautiful though.”

Bang. Boom. Ker-plunk. Three lives lost in as many seconds

In the end, all she took back from this game was its beautiful appearance (By the way: The new high score is 125 million! That’s 555x better than my high score!). I grabbed the controller, glided around for about 150,000 points, and she marveled. Despite my success, she remained turned off by Geometry Wars.

Mayday, Peter Moore, Geometry Wars is down.

Condemned: Criminal Origins

Mrs. P:

So after mixed results with the Arcade games, I was told it was time to get into the real meaty stuff. Alex started me out with an action title called Condemned. I popped the disc in the drive, started up the game, and had at it.

The opening credits reminded me of Se7en, which I was tricked into watching one night by you-know-who. I’d quickly learn how cinematic the entire game itself actually was. I liked the early sequences and introductory areas. First, I get a crime scene that I can investigate. Then I’m put hot on the trail of the serial killer himself? Within ten minutes, I knew that this was my kinda game!

I noted the duality of the game’s title. I recognize that “Condemned” not only could refer to the locales the player visits, but the sordid state of Thomas himself. I wondered, was the protagonist himself a man condemned and bound to suffer a grisly end?

In terms of visuals, I love the textures. I imagined touching the walls in some areas and seeing the dirt come off onto my hands. Even flat surfaces, like in real life, appeared to have some roughness to them. I can appreciate the nuances and the detail that goes into creating the visuals. All in all, I was drawn into the game; at times, I felt like my whole body wanted to crawl into the screen.

The controls were tough at first, especially lining the view up perfectly so as to pick something up or activate the tools. But they quickly came with practice and time.

One of the things I didn’t like about the game was that it was hard to figure out where to go at times. I spent a lot of time backtracking, retracing my steps, and getting stuck for exorbitant amounts of time in an area. Meanwhile, I just needed to look a different way to spot a door leading to the next area. Sometimes I feel like a rat trapped in a maze. Alex told me that the game wasn’t very linear and the developers didn’t design it, like some other games, to keep the player moving forward at all times. This was frustrating for someone like myself with little experience. The only upside, I thought, was that like a good movie, I can go back to this game and pick up on so many new things each time.

Despite an inability to follow the storyline too well (or what little there was of it, I imagined), Condemned was by far my favorite game on the 360. I loved the visuals, subject matter, mix of forensic gameplay and combat. A real treat and I found myself hoping the other games would be equally as enjoyable.

Alex:

This was the first first-person action title she had time with, and I was eager to see how her practice with the dual stick control of Geometry Wars would carry over. Turns out, not very well. She had great difficulty keeping the view focused on screen, often spinning wildly out of control at the most inopportune moment or plodding along merrily whilst staring at the ceiling or floor.

But things did improve over time. After about a week of playing just about every night, she became positively masterful at the game. She was able to walk forward, facing ahead and turning swiftly if need be. She could not only aim her weapons accurately, but execute attacks and blocks at the right time. By the time she reached its finale, I can confidently say she was as expert with Condemned as any veteran console player.

In fact, I actually cringed more while watching her play the further she got into the game. This wasn’t because what she was doing was wrong, like original attempts the first few nights, but instead what she was doing was almost too good. It was somewhat surreal to witness some of the goings on on-screen. At one point, she was being chased head-on by a vagrant. Then, in perfect rapid succession, as he ran close and swung at her, she stepped back, tazered him, and then shot him once in the head with the revolver. She let out a maniacal cackle that made me reposition my chair just a tad farther away.

Ultimately, what I found interesting about her experience with Condemned was the realization that there will pretty much be at least one AAA title your mom would enjoy playing on the XBOX 360. Perhaps she’s a golfer? Tiger Woods 06 is the perfect choice. Maybe she likes auto racing? Then Project Gotham Racing 3 will fit the bill.

Apparently, my mother just so happens to enjoy bludgeoning homeless people with 2×4’s. And that’s the reason, I suppose, she enjoyed Condemned the most of everything she played.

Prey

Mrs. P:

A first-person shooter called Prey came next. I felt a bit flummoxed by the opening scene in the bar. I didn’t realize I needed to interact with the characters. Instead, I was just concerned with moving through the area. Initially, I felt very tense, like I should be expecting something bad. And it came soon enough.

I liked the music in the bar, (oooh, barracuda!) but the audio went downhill sharply after that. The background music was nearly non-existent and the loading screen music was repetitive and bland. While obviously I can’t judge the voice-acting based on experience I’ve had in other games, it didn’t seem nearly of as high a quality as you’d expect in movies, and from what I’d suspect, neither games, as well.

You can feel the textures; the steel looks cold and the light looks hot. You can feel the texture of the membrane covering the doorways and the slickness of the organic walls. I loved the character’s designs, from Tommy’s leather jacket and jeans to Grandfather’s ornate Cherokee costume. What’s so cool, when you approach something, it’s so 3-dimensional. You realize that it has an underside and you can approach it all around; like everything feels like it has depth.

I liked the ability Tommy has to switch to the spirit world to regain health. It’s almost like a game inside a game. I very much enjoyed using the spirit walking ability to solve puzzles and the spirit world to regain my health. Visually, it was so dramatically different from the alien world; it looked like it could have been carved out of a mountain in the Southwest.

The first real puzzle that proved to be challenging was where Tommy needed to get through a door covered in green goo. I started shooting the balls for fun to watch them explode, but obviously didn’t have much luck moving on. Finally, I made the connection to push the ball toward the door and then shoot it. I learned I need to use the environment more to my advantage when playing the game.

Alex:

Even though the controls in Prey are similar to those found in Condemned, it was like starting all over again for her. It was difficult for her to get use to the initial movement controls, without swinging violently out of control and running off into the walls. To compensate and practice, she pushed very gently on each stick until she got accustomed.

She missed a lot of the goings on during the scripted “carrying” sequence. It would seem, when I played through, I knew exactly where to look at all times to see the best possible action on-screen. As such, she missed a lot of what was happening. A second playthrough proved more successful.

The interesting thing was, it took her quite some time to realize that the left stick only moved the player physically, while the right stick only moved the camera. Part of the trouble was that she was using the left stick to try to turn left and right. Instead of trying to look left, for instance, using the right stick, she was pushing the left stick to the left expecting the character to turn. By accident, she quickly learned the concept of side-stepping or “strafing,” I explained.

I explained that the game was somewhat controversial because seasoned veterans felt that the tension of dying was gone because Tommy restores his health in the spirit world and is promptly returned to his body. She replied that “no, the real tension the game draws on is you trying to save Jen.” She enjoyed not only the mechanics of the death walk, but also the fact that it spared the player from having to play through a section of the game all over again. She thought of it as “a very diverse game.”

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Mrs. P:

After Prey, Alex said it’d be an easy transition to an action role-playing game. At first I thought anything with role-playing sounded a bit risqué, but my fears were soon allayed.

I was extremely impressed with the opening: that sweeping sequence over the Imperial City. The music was magnificent, very powerful, as were the visuals. All in all, very cinematic. Shortly thereafter, Oxblood the Orc was born.

After playing for only about twenty minutes, I began to realize how massive this game truly was. It seemed like a lot of learning and a lot of work. A quick glance at the booklet only drove that point home. But onward I played, if nothing else but for science’s sake.

I got stuck trying to arm and dress my character. I entered the journal and inventory menus and couldn’t get out back into the game for the longest time. Very frustrating. I spent a good hour just trying to get out of the initial cave area at the beginning. It was ultimately very satisfying though to run around and slay the rats. I was just flustered by my inability to proceed at a more rapid speed.

The scene where I left the sewers and emerged in a beautiful vibrant and lush world was remarkably powerful and I felt a great sense of reward for my time spent battling in dank caverns.

I spent about 15 hours total playing Oblivion, but felt like I barely scratched the surface of it. The sheer number of things to do, people to meet, and places to see seemed a bit overwhelming, but I can see myself returning to the game to continue the legend of Oxblood in small blocks of time, over the course of several months.

Alex:

With no hard evidence to back this claim, I think it’s fairly safe to say that the biggest genre amongst gaming women is the RPG. From World of Warcraft to Second Life, I think women are drawn to the fact that they can mold an alter ego and take him or her through an involving and rewarding adventure. I saw that at work here with Oblivion.

To start, she spent a considerable amount of time just choosing and designing her character at the start. Then in the actual game, a majority of her time was spent not furthering the storyline per say, but instead customizing her character’s look with weapons and armaments and wandering aimlessly through Cyrodiil.

I do think Bethesda’s choice to use dynamic skill adjustment based on the player’s actions, rather than a point system, paid of greatly in our little endeavor. Somehow, I just couldn’t imagine her pouring through menus, trying to decide what points should go where.

I was somewhat surprised that she wasn’t more enthralled with the game. Like she said, she only spent 15 hours with the game and her inexperience didn’t make for a whole lot of progression or experimentation, yet I truthfully thought that Oblivion was the one game that would grab hold and not let go. Part of the problem, I thought was that she spent most of her time doing small quests for various individuals, rather than massacring monstrous enemies, which as Condemned showed, she rather enjoys.

Project Gotham Racing 4

Mom

I’m a superficial car junkie. No, you won’t find me at any NASCAR rallies or digging beneath the hood of an antique Camaro. But, like a lot of women, I find a finely tuned sportscar zipping around a track at neck-snapping speeds can be oh-so-hot. Sadly, the only way I’ll get to ever engage in such an activity is with a videogame, it would seem. And even then, I had trouble.

Right off bat, or the starting line, so to speak, it was difficult to even start up a match. I found myself flipping through menus and various other screens for a long time before I even got into a reach. This was another example of when reading the manual was helpful, but it seems a little absurd that someone would need a written instructional guide.

I was unable to properly drive manually, often forgetting to shift down going into a turn, leading to many smashed Ferrari’s. Alex suggested switching to automatic, which I did after trying to figure out how to for about ten minutes.

I had a chance to try out the different race types, but aside from the straight head-to-head matches, found them all to be either too difficult or too annoying. I came to grasp the Kudos system pretty easily, but only managed to pull off a few neat tricks and score a few points before crashing into the wall.

To me, this was the most visually stunning of all the games I played, probably because I found it to be most realistic. I loved the brilliant, vibrant colors and crispness of the textures, especially on the cars. And boy did I love the cars. It seemed to have the most beautiful automotive machines on the planet. The eye candy alone was almost enough to make me want to come back.

Alex

I knew I wanted Mrs. P to get behind the wheel with one of the 360’s racing games; it was up between Ridge Racer 6, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and Project Gotham Racing 3. I realized that no actual gamers really played Ridge Racer on the 360, so asking my mom to play would be unfair. I thought she would be unable to appreciate the finely crafted dialogue and storyline of Most Wanted, so that was out to. So I settled on what many consider to be both the 360’s crown jewel and one of the best modern racing titles, PGR3.

I should have just turned off the manual transmission type before she played, but knew that it’d be more fulfilling (and entertaining) if she tried to play with having to shift. I wasn’t expecting how bad she’d do with it

I noticed she switched to the in-car view quite a bit. While I personally enjoyed the view at times when playing, I found it particularly hard to use. For her, switching between the behind-car and in-car views didn’t really have dramatically different results when it came to her driving ability (that is to say, she wasn’t particularly good with either). But I do think she appreciated the more immersive feel with the dashboard view.

As for her major complaint, hell, even I had difficulty sorting through PGR’s vast menu system. So her objects with regards to setting up a game weren’t entirely unfounded.

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis

Mom

Like I implied in my Project Gotham impressions, part of the reason why I thought people play videogames is to do something that they otherwise cannot. I can’t drive headfirst into a wall with a Porsche. I can’t slaughter a battalion of aliens. So, I have to ask, why would anyone want to play a digital form a ping pong? While yes, it’s much easier to tap a button than swing a real paddle, I found it to be much more difficult to play Rockstar’s ping pong than real life ping pong.

Again, this could have just been my lack of experience, but I felt that the game moved way too fast. I couldn’t accurately return my opponent’s volleys without looking like a moron. The serve meter was hard to time right and with a dual function left stick, I often found myself running off into the corners when I should have been aiming the ball.

While the graphics in this game are attractive, they’re somewhat bland and uninspired. I understand that Rockstar was going for the ultimate in reality, with ever detail accounted for, right down to the sweats stained shirts. But this is one case where super-real didn’t pay off. From the grotesque looking characters to the nearly identical arenas, everything just seemed unexciting.

In the end, Rockstar’s Table Tennis didn’t hold me, and I found it hard to imagine how any other of the company’s games, liked the fabled Grand Theft Auto, managed to have such long-term appeal to so many people.

Alex

I don’t think she’s too off base with her thoughts on the game’s monotony, both with regards to the visuals and gameplay. But I found Table Tennis a breeze to master and a lot of fun to play online. The trash talk potential alone was worth the price of admission, though that’s a factor that I’d imagine wouldn’t appeal to many mothers.

This was another classic example of her not being able to master the controls and feeling frustrated with having to learn an entirely new control scheme at the onset of the game. She did make the mistake of jumping in head first to a match, but after a silly showing, I suggested she make use of the game’s training mode. She obliged, and played through each activity until she felt comfortable in them, but still had a great deal of difficult in the actual matches.

Finally, after her complaints that she’d rather play ping pong on a real table, with a real person, I politely showed her someone else’s opinion. Whether it was her inability to control the player all that well or the fact that the game just didn’t interest her, Rockstar Table Tennis saw little play time.

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