I have a gamer for a wife. She's not a hardcore gamer by any means, but she supports me when I want a new console, she plays whatever my latest tabletop obsession is with me, she loves games like Geeks: The Convention, Uno, or King's Blood, and can be left alone for hours playing Sims 3.
This past weekend I had a strong desire to play some Super Mario Bros Wii, and when I couldn't get four people together to play it, I opted for playing some Co-op with the Mrs. We charged up our Wiimotes, and sat down to pick up a game that we had already started a few weeks back. About 30 minutes later I turned off the system, knowing that I was not going to be able to do that again. Ever.
You see, family oriented Co-Op games like this have two modes. There's the single player, where you run and jump and item collect and explore exactly how you want to play the game, and there's a second mode cleverly masked as "2 Player Mode", hereafter referred to as its true name, "Divorce Mode".
I am treading carefully here, as my lovely wife reads this blog, and trying to say that two people who love each other just cannot cooperate to overcome game obstacles. Oh sure, you can get through the first few levels, usually the first full area with somebody who rarely picks up a controller. But past that, these games become infested with small platforms, timed jumps, and precision moving that create perfect fight conditions.
It's not that either of us are bad at the game, we just have different priorities. She gets killed by a stray hammer while I'm trying to get into a pipe on top of the level. I learn to adjust a tilt beam, but send her vaulting down a hole because I made her miss the jump. We die four times to poor jumping and instead of avoiding the area, she wants to keep doing it because she's a completionist whereas I would rather move on to the next section. She won't understand why we're repeating the same castle area over again, and when I die trying to show her what we need to do, I become a back-seat gamer (and nobody likes a back seat gamer).
We had the same kind of issue when we played Little Big Planet together. We both want to find stickers and are forced to work together to get some of them, but if she wants to go left and I want to go right, a misplaced jump can kill either or both of us. And as the levels grew more difficult, the frustration of having to keep together in sync became impossible to keep up with. And if there's a timer involved? Forget it.
I blame the developers on this one, creating cute fun worlds that appeal to everyone without thinking about our marriages. I think before anybody puts out a co-op game, they should take it home and play with their spouse, or mom, or little sister, or something besides somebody else who understands the game concept. Do they get it? Can they keep up with you? Are you being a back seat gamer? Did you end up sleeping on the couch?
On the other hand, maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I need to use these cute worlds and talk of co-op play in order to be able to buy a game I want. After you sit down and beat the first level together, the wife is happy that you've spent some time together, and goes off to do more important things, like watch the latest episode of Lost, while you can get into the real meat of the game... hmm, I take it all back, that's pretty genius of them.
