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Yeah, puzzle titles are always a good bet for casual gamers.
On the FPS thing, have you tried Metroid Prime? Aside from some frustrating boss battles, that cuts back on the complexity of most console FPSes by removing the requirement to move and alter your view at the same time - instead of having to work both analogue sticks together, you only use the one. It's also lets you lock on to enemies, rather than having to target them yourself. Strictly speaking it's not really an FPS, but I'd still recommend trying it out.
Have you thought of giving a music/bemani game a try? Donkey Konga - the bongos game on the Cube - is good fun. Dead simple to learn (clap, hit left, hit right and hit both together are the only controls) and, because of teh visual cues, can be played relatively well even if you've got no real sense of rhythm. Sticking with bemani, if there's a possibility of a PS2 making its way into your house, I'd definitely recommend Space Channel 5 Part 2. In theory it's little more than Simon Says, but in practice it's like taking part in a musical stage show version of Barbarella. I've got myself into many an argument by claiming that it's the one of the best games of this generation - anybody can pick it up and play it, and it never fails to make them break out into a huge grin. It's just FUN.
The problem is that the PS2 is probably the best under-the-telly console around for casual gamers, simply because the fact that there are many more games for it than there are teh Cube or Xbox means that you've got a far better chance of finding something that appeals to you. It's home to some wonderful hidden gems.
Gregory Horror Show, for example. A sort of spiritual successor to the Lucasarts adventures it sees you - in the form of a little box-headed boy or a little box-headed girl - moving into a hotel in limbo that's run by a miserable, porn-fixated mouse and his domineering mother who lives in the attic (yay Psycho!) and trying to steal the souls (kept in glass jars) of other guests (a cowardly cactus gunman, a skeleton fish with a TV for a head, called 'TV Fish', an insane chef who's actually a candle) to give to Death so that he can send you on your way. Steal a soul successfully and its original owner will come chasing after you, should they see you, while you're trying to steal the others. You have to spy on them through keyholes (doing so makes your eye squeak like it's made of rubber when you look around) so that you can jot down their daily routine in your diary, allowing you to continue to move around the hotel in search of other souls without stumbling into them. It's one of the wittiest, smartest and most charming - albeit slightly disturbingly so - games around. It's also extremely welcoming to casual gamers.
The one ace that the Cube does have is Animal Crossing, which is more of a virtual playground than a traditional videogame. Create your own little avatar, move him or her into a randomly generated village, full of animal villagers. Spend your time digging up weeds, planting fruit trees, talking to other villagers, running errands for them, teaching them new words, designing your own clothes, completing a collection of furniture for your house. Go fishing, searching for fossils or catching rare bugs to help the curator of the village museum to fill out his exhibits. Tade presents with other owners of the game via a password system. Stick their village memory card in the second slot on your console and visit it - write them a letter, plant a new fruit in their village so that it'll grow into a new tree for them. travel back to your own village and discover that one of your villagers has performed a location swap with one of theirs.
The game's also linked to the Cube's internal clock, which opens up some truly magical moments. Saturdays after 7PM, there's a dog that busks down by the train station. Go and listen to him play and he'll give you an audio tape of one of his songs, which you can then play on the hifi in your house. If the sound quality's a bit shit, buy a different hifi (I got a gramophone for that scratchy, old-timey sound). Sunday mornings, play the turnip stock exchange. Fish and bugs are seasonal, meaning that you can catch different ones at different times of the year. When it's your birthday, your villagers will give you presents. During spring there's a sports day. My favourite event is meteor night, when you can see chunks of meteors falling from the sky in your village pool.
I regularly travel to the villages of those friends who own the game. Their regular human inhabitants range from between six and sixty-two years of age. It honestly is a game for anybody. |
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And, after reading your post, I'm going to be a lot more on the 'for' side than I might have been before -Gregory Horror Show sounds ace, and I've just had a look at some of the screenshots and it seems to be cute in the good way. (Nothing says 'cute in the good way' like a chef who's actually a candle...)