*QotM is a virtual ice-cream sundae dreamt up by Later Levels
Giving and receiving game recommendations is one of the many chocolate sprinkles that makes being a gamer so tasty; that first “Have you played…” through to the final “…gahh, I don’t want spoil it, just go and play it” is a magical time where we stumble and fumble around the difficult process of articulating the why & how of enjoying something. Likewise the receiving of this, often garbled dessert, is rewarding purely to watch someone that into something and doubly-so if you take the recommendation and run with it to the point of giving it a go yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll even have the chance to pass this Eaton Mess of a conversation on to someone.
I’ve been both parties in this banana-split of an exchange many times, however it has been a while since the person I was talking to was not a “gamer”. Giving advice about games to a non-gamer is something that I’m aware I have a skewed perspective on. That’s not to say that a non-gamer wouldn’t appreciate the games I play… because I think that my tastes are wide & varied; it’s just that gaming is such a big part of my life that I’m unsure exactly which aspects of gaming may or may not appeal or be accessible to someone not familiar with the medium. For example, I once (some years ago) got asked when playing Mario “… but how did you know that the mushroom was good and not bad?” … and you know what? I couldn’t answer them. The mushroom moves along the floor and looks similar to the goombas, so why is it good and not bad? … see? There are so many aspects from control schemes, pickups, visual or audio cues, and accepted conventions that we, as gamers, take for granted.
With this in mind, it was with a certain amount of tentative footing that I undertook May’s “Question of the Month” posed by those excellent people over at Later Levels. As with last month’s answer, I will limit my response to 100 words… so here goes:
‘What game would you recommend to a non-gamer?’
“Lego Jurassic World made my 2015 top 5, and I’d be hard pressed to find a better introduction to gaming. The Lego games are renowned for their quirky humour, faithfulness to source material, and polished presentation. Likewise they posses an intuitive control scheme and avoid potentially off-putting elements such as lives, punishment for failure, or complicated mechanics to grasp. Furthermore, the drop-in & drop-out functionality allows someone to quickly come to the rescue at a tricky point… oh, and if you’re wondering why Jurassic World? as regular readers may have realised, I have a soft-spot for that universe.”
Hundstrasse 
I agree, the Lego games are good, especially for new gamers. They are all a lot of fun to play, especially the Star Wars Lego games 🙂
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When they first appeared I was just baffled by the idea… Star wars videogame using Lego… But they’re really well done in general
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So was I, but they were great fun, especially the original trilogy 🙂
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I agree with Lego games as a good place to start. When racing games were more of s thing in my youth, those were always good – simple instructions and something most people come across in their lives make it easier to comprehend the way it all works rather than try to follow too many plots and pick up too many control schemes.
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A friend of mine recently introduced a non-gamer pal to Zelda: The Wind Waker – and it was a hit! Turned out that this one was quite accessible!
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Cool, I think I would have assumed that the ‘scale’ of it would have been off-putting… Shows what I know!
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Yeah, I would’ve figured that too! True for any Zelda probably. But the game also gently leads you through the story, the dungeons, so the idea of an open world – side-quests, trading sequences – was not as offputting, I guess!
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I would say Super Mario 3D World. The game is super easy to pick up, very simple controls, but has challenges in certain levels. 4 players make it a fun party game to, and the whole crown system adds that little competitive edge for people who care for it. Lots of laughs to be had with this one.
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Good choice! … Yeah, they’re accessible and fun which I think is the key
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I’ve only played a little of some of the Lego games, but I think they have very wide appeal, especially for kids! I like that they’re all themed after popular movies and franchises.
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Yeah, they’re just good fun, and always do credit to the source material (which is more than can be said for many tie-in games)
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