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My mom wants to get into video games.

I think any simplistic "competitive" games would work well, if you really want violence and decision making, but I think they're better if she has someone to play with, try Mario Party and it has a dozen different mini games, there's also bomberman, stuff like that. And most of the time those games only requires you to move your character around, pick things up, so they could get her familiar with the controls and movement without being too precise.
 
Adventure Games seem like a good idea to me. (Monkey Island Special Edition for example with the voice acting, I would think be a good option.). Although they won't necessarily help with the building up of reflexes and whatnot for other games.
 
Violent, complex and at the same time noob friendly ?

dc8AT.jpg


and most Rail Shooters .... the wii has THOUSANDS of those.
You can even add Sin & Punishment if you want more complexity, not so much violence (except in a "these developers are raping me" way) and MUCH less noob firendly

Also,
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And Mario games if she want to drop xD
But the last world from NSMBW is insanely violent O.o

And if you see "violent" in a way more broad sense, you can get Wario Ware.
They are complex, with thousands of micro games and require fast thinking because how violently it changes from one to another.

or
Boomblox_box.jpg

The funniest part is to explode lttle cute animals ... they know this so much that it is in the cover =P
 
Nintendo's games (Super Marios, Donkey Kong Countrys, Zeldas), especially SNES era stuff.

Puzzle games (Tetris, Meteos, Lumines etc.)
 
That is only one study. There is quite a bit of videogame research out there, with conflicting findings:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=video+games

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/41/7/1477.full

http://www.mendeley.com/research/video-games-spatial-cognition-3/

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=22800

http://gamepolitics.com/2011/06/15/research-finds-puzzle-games-improve-039working-memory039

http://www.physicaltherapytoolbox.com/pdfs/wii07.pdf

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-3810739.html

http://www.hoise.com/vmw/08/articles/vmw/LV-VM-10-08-32.html

http://www.rehabpub.com/news/2008-09-25_02.asp

http://nyp.org/advances/rehabilitation-research-burn-center.html

As per game suggestons:

Wii with Wii sports, WiiFit, Skyward Sword, and Just Dance.

A 3DS with BrainTraining, MarioKart, Nintendogs/Cats, FF VI, and a foreign language tutor game.

If she is the Tom Clancy type then pick up some MGS or Splinter Cell games down the road. FF X, X-2, or even XIII-2 might pique her interest, as long as you can coach her until she gets the hang of it.
 
How old is your mom?

Start her off with something that isn't too crazy. Plants VS Zombies is a good one. Popcap games are easy to get into. Then you can move onto more something a little more difficult like Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, etc).
 
That's awesome, I wish my mom would give games a chance. Still trying to convince her to try the Portal games (someone needs to be convinced to play Portal!!?!?!) :(

On the plus aside, I think my grandma might give Machinarium a shot :)
 
I think Portal can be a good start. It stands perfectly between making you think and she will get adjusted to gameplay mechanics.

If that is too rough, DS/iOS puzzle games will do.
 
Another vote for rail shooters. My mom tried to get into gaming when I had a Saturn, played NiGHTS, and got violent motion sickness. But then she tried Virtua Cop and she turned into the terminator. Loved rail shooters after that, and it sounded cool to go "My mom can beat Time Crisis."

If I was looking to get into games and was offered popcap games and this watered down brain trivia shit, I'd be insulted. I'm not your mom, but still.
 
Show her a bunch of different games and see what she likes the most, there might be some surprises. My GF has liked RE5 (coop) and Black ops the most even though she is very much against violent video games :D
 
When I brought my Neo Geo MVS up into our apartment my mom was the first to jump on it immediately to play Puzzle Bobble. Of course I had to show her the basics, but once she learned she still sometimes wants me to turn it on for her to play.

So yeah, let your mom play Puzzle Bobble.
 
Plants vs Zombies is perfect. Nice combination of strategy and hand/eye coordination, which is what she wants to improve.
 
Make her an experiment and start her off with something fairly complicated that uses dual joysticks. Maybe not something insane, but perhaps Portal? Have you dedicate hours to learning it and see if with some help and dedication people can actually learn. I've always felt that the overwhelming problem for people wasn't skill, but interest. I just don't think people care enough to learn. It's like me. I don't care enough to learn how to fix my car, because I have a father who I can always take it to.

Do what other people suggest if you wan't her to enjoy herself though :)
 
My mom used to bake a lot as her hobby. Coming home every weekend for delicious pastry was great. Now she's playing videogames. So do everything in your power to tell her that videogames are evil and make you stupid.

Sexist? Fuck you, I want pastry.

Edit: Posting this right under this gif makes me look like a jerk.
 
I've found that Peggle is a great introduction to video games because it doesn't involve any hand/eye coordination. You just aim your shot and shoot. You have to use strategic shots, but overall the game mechanics are simple and unintimidating.
 
You simply should start by making her tries tons of games of tons of differents kinds. She needs to finds what she likes and what she don't. Thinking she's supposed to like X or Y is a mistake imo. Some moms won't go further than Crosswords, some others will like Resident Evil. EXPLORE with her and guide her through the discovery of her tastes.
 
eosos said:
Pretty sure this was somehow confirmed as fake.
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Maybe, but it still hits close to home for me at least.

My stepfather died and my mom was alone on a farm in the middle of nowhere at a vulnerable time. I moved in with her to keep her company while I went to college and bought a Gamecube and AC with part of my inheritance. I got my mom into AC pretty hardcore - we would set an alarm to wake up on special days for example - but after a while I stopped playing every single day. She still played. Couple years later we both got DSes and AC:WW and played quite a bit again. I eventually moved on from that as well.

And I know that my mom, deep down, felt a bit hurt that I stopped playing both times because it was a way of bonding with me. She wasn't into Kurosawa films or Morrowind, so this was one of the few things culturally we had in common.

So reading this makes me :/.
 
Animal Crossing (the Gamecube version). One of the greatest games of all time, in my opinion. Great game for casual and core gamers.
 
I think you need to start with inoffensive games, easy to handle(small number of buttons, no frenetic action etc) with easy difficulty, then you progressively "hardcorize" her.
Don' t understimate frustation, in some cases a fighting game with simple controls and easy difficulty could work too.
 
Tetris is the game everyone who doesn't play games should play first, because it is the one video game which will likely stay relevant until the end of civilization. It's like the chess or backgammon of video games.

I'm not saying this is a good or bad idea, but from personal experience the oldest folks I've ever played with were in MMOs. I've raided with folks in their 50s and 60s who play nothing else, I wouldn't count any type of game out if someone's interested enough.
 
What about Skyrim on easy difficulty? I think you should try and get her to appreciate story based games, not just casual crap.
 
Trancetronic said:
Super Mario Bros. The original. On NES. Then work your way up.
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Nah. Too unforgiving and I don't think most moms would have patience for that. Game over and start the whole damn game all over again? Lol.

Start her off with some light, addictive puzzle games, or maybe even something like Fruit Ninja which is very simplistic but requires fast decision making and reaction. Then try some more complex things with her. If she likes party games, try Mario Party.
 
Elebits
My mom used to hate video games until she saw me playing Elebits back in 2006. She then tried the game and got addicted to it (her save file has over 180 hours now I think). It's a really fun and simple game, even though the camera isn't really good.


elebits-20061211051141391-000.jpg
 
If anything, first... spend some time with her and play a few videogames with her. Not only she might get an idea of what to expect but you could get what kind of stuff she might like more.
(plus she might like a game more; if she has some memories of you playing with her attached to it)

For example, mine likes Breakout (and all clones), stuff like Wii Sports, shooting-gallery-like games, and "party" games like Mario Party and Wii Party (board, min-games, memory, etc.).

But she can't stand anything overly ..3D or complex. For comparison, my dad enjoys Super Mario Galaxy and Sonic Colors because of the 3D movements and colors.

But all that, on TVs. They can't and don't like handhelds. :p
 
mahjong is the only right answer

my mother is 50 years old and extremely greek (so very foreign.. hates technology)

but she sure loves mahjong flash games :p I've seen her quite honestly play over 100 hours. She says it relaxes her!
 
ckohler said:
What about Skyrim on easy difficulty? I think you should try and get her to appreciate story based games, not just casual crap.
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Games which teach fundamentals and get the hand/eye coordination tuned are never a bad choice first. Not all simple, fundamental games are casual.

If you drop her into fucking Mass Effect, she might either get bored or expect all games to be romance novels.

My opinion is that it would be superior to drop her into something immediately accessible with scaling difficulty that she can pick up, fail, put down, and then learn that itch of "I know I can do better next time." Failure is the single most important learning tool. Don't give her something that's unfairly cheap of course, but you don't want something that barely offers more than observation either.
 
Like others have said you should try asking her what she wants to play first, and not blindly assume she wants Wii Sports or Picross or whatever.
Maybe you should just play games you like and have her watch and see if she takes an interest/expose her to game stuff.
My mom saw a magazine advertising Caesar III many many years ago, and she eventually got the demo for it and she liked it so much she bought the game and all future Sierra city-building games, but before that she had never ever played games.
 
ilnadmy said:
A few days ago I sent my mom a Wall Street Journal article about how games are good for your brain, and now she wants to start playing games. The problem is, the article says that complex, violent games are the ones that improve your decision-making skills because they're so fast paced and complicated, but I can't very well just give my mom a Call of Duty game and expect her to float. I kind of want to ease her into gaming by starting her off with some easier, casual games, and then moving up from there.

Do you guys have suggestions of how to get her started? I was thinking of buying her a Wii with some games like Wii Sports and Mario Kart? Or maybe there are some simple PC games she could start with first? I don't really play downloadable games much so I'm not aware of what's out there and what's good for a beginner.
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Dunno what platform she has, but I'll assume at least a Wii and an XBOX 360. Anything that requires organization and order is catnip for lots of moms. Try something like Zuma (horribly programmed and badly debugged, but addictive game on XLBA), and if she manages that okay, Tropico 4 is a pretty fast-paced, fun simulation game that can be a bridge to a more traditional "action" game.
 
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