Back Seat Gaming: A Spectator’s Sport

 

You are going to fast, turn left here, no you are doing it wrong!

Hang and I have a very relaxed lifestyle of mostly gaming, he has his rig, I have mine; we have a PS3 and a Wii and we will eventually buy the Move (prob at the Xmas sales). I generally just use my pc to play games, but Hang loves his PS3. Now as with most families and couples the TV is the central focus of daily life (how sad of us) and the console usually feeds into this. So when “his lordship” is playing his consoles what do us ladies do, or for that matter anyone else not playing the game, who is in the same room that might not have access to another form of entertainment.
Now as I said, I have my own PC, but both of us playing games and not talking to each other may seem very sad and it is, I cant deny that. Hang likes his PS3 and although I’m not really into playing PS3 games I like to watch Hang and ‘supervise’ his gaming efforts :P

We have both commented in the past about how games can involve more than just the player, and I’m not talking about Co-op here, I’m talking about the spectator: the person who can’t watch TV cos the other person in the house is playing a console game.

This discussion came up again recently when Hang now 40 hours thru Final Fantasy 13 sat on the couch next to me as we discussed strategy for the Boss he had encountered, which paradigms to use at any given moment, should he grind for a bit, should he try for a pre-emptive strike or use a potion etc. Now, this could be a rare occurrence because we are both gamers and spend alot of time dealing with strategy in games in various ways, Raids in MMO, group quest boss battles in various games etc or puzzles to find the secret item or path.

What we started discussing was how some games appeal to the back seat gamer more than others and how games can involve and engage the non-player. In my opinion FPS games don’t really engage the spectator apart from the odd argghhh I’m dead and me laughing, poking fun with a “NAHOOB” as Hang ain’t very good at these games, he has his moments :P but not many. So FPS games like MW2 or BF BC2, aside as I find these do little to engage the spectator, what do other games do, even if completely unintentional to engage the non player?

It has become a recent trend to add co-op to games, either online local or LAN and I’m all for this. I love playing co-op with Hangman and played RE5 to death on both the Xbox 360 and the PC and thru completely again with a friend Nikushimi from my WoW days. Its a good way to engage the the female gamer that would normally not play against another person, but would enjoy the gaming experience helping the “main” char get thru the game (it’s a well known fact, we girls don’t like to lose) :) And this helps the normally back seat gamer get into the  game as the co-op member. Games like RE5, Borderlands, Trine, even L4D 1 & 2.  Currently Hang and I are working thru The secret Army of General Knoxx on Borderlands DLC and will be getting the next instalment of the BL DLC when it goes on Steam sale. (Not mentioning Lara Croft GOL as Hang has ranted enough about this in earlier posts).  


Back on subject; with games getting more story influenced and character driven this certainly helps the person not playing the game get more interested in what going on. Games like uncharted 1 and 2, FFXIII, and Assassin's Creed 2 have defiantly engaged me on the PS3 even tho I haven’t played a single hour of any. I love to help Hang solve puzzles on games when he gets stuck like the glyphs in AC II or seeing something he missed like a route he just can’t find to the next area or a way to go, all these can help engage the observer into becoming interested in the game and you never know, play it themselves.

I anticipate this trend of engaging story driven content and cinematic interactive medium continues to grow and I can’t wait to try RE5 Gold on the Move when we eventually get that. I hope I don’t have to rearrange the living room to get to the recommended Move 8ft from eye cam :D. I do really hope the co-op MP game really takes off and becomes the future. Is this the way natural evolution of sitting round the dinner table talking with each other or playing board games?

On a side note I hope game devs continue to develop the strong female protagonist as seen in Hangs blog post earlier on in the year which I can’t find. Female chars like Sheva from RE5 who don’t need big boobs to open doors just the grenade launcher she found in the room before or Lightning from FF XIII :)