One thing you try to do in a marriage is couple activities. OK, whenever we go out, e.g. to shop for things, to see parents/relatives/friends, or to small group, it’s a couple activity. But when you’re at home, are there as many such activities or are we more likely to disappear to our separate corners in the house to do our own individual thing?
One of the most conscious things I’ve been (trying!) to do is to get Ling involved in computer games. Of course things in this respect would had been that much easier if we’d gotten a Nintendo Wii in Dec 2007 instead of the PS3. Without getting into detailed arguments, let’s just say that serious gamers don’t really regard the Wii as their primary play console, as fun and as social as stuff on it is and that the Wii is the best selling console of the three main players now.
There’s been a couple of PS3 games that I’ve picked up that Ling has been interested in enough to give it a go. There was Virtua Tennis (though she found it pretty tough), the visually stunning exploration sequences in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (though I had to do all the gun battles for her), Prince of Persia (which she watched me play but didn’t want to try) and Lego: Indiana Jones which Matt bought for us in June last year.The latter was plenty of co-op fun, but I think much of that game’s references to the movie trilogy was lost on Ling.
My goal really is to get her interested enough to get her (mildly) addicted. So, four games so far that she’s had an interest in, but not quite to the point where she says things like “Darling, can I try…???”
That was until I found two titles that I think will absolutely do the trick. So, after Open House on Saturday, I picked up the below: Aquanaut’s Holiday:
Funnily, this is a game in the most general of terms. Produced by Artdink, a Tokyo based game development studio, you play an adventurer who’ll explore oceanic life in a fictitious Kisira Atoll situated in Polynesia. The visuals are amazingly life-like. Heck, they’re so good that Ling can recognize all the marine critters from her scuba-diving days, even creatures from a distance where they’re still about a pixel wide on the screen.
The outstanding visuals and that the game really teaches the amazing biodiversity of marine life aside, Aquanaut’s Holiday is no good as a game though. Way too much soliloquy (must be a Japanese thing) where the main character talks aloud to himself, and one story arc is this mystical voice that speaks to him. Breaks the realistic immersion.
But it’s been $65 well spent. It’s just simply fun to watch her squeal excitedly whenever she finds a new discovery: “Darling… see see SEE??? Hammerhead shark!!!!!” She’s gotten so into the game she’ll come check on me frequently when I’m alone in the living room to make sure I’m not playing the game without her LOL.
The litmus test? When I asked her yesterday night if she likes this game, it was a resounding and definitive ‘yes’. And after a while, she added, “now there’s finally a game I like that doesn’t need me to blow things up!”
Blowing things up. That’s my kind of game. But I guess marriage requires sacrifices, so… :)
Recent comments