We’ve decided to send some of your questions to our “resident Oprah” Dootsiebug. Here’s the first in what we hope becomes a series of “Ask Dootsie” advice posts…
My husband and I like to play games but we can’t seem to find much to play together. He’s into Magic the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons; I’m more of a Trivial Pursuit kind of gal.The real problem is, I’m a bit of a sore loser so we try to find two person, non-competitive games, such as Pandemic. And we don’t have a video game system, but we would consider investing in one if it will give us a shared past-time.
Do any Offbeat Homies have ideas on games we can try out while I work on my sportsmanship? -Heather
While I’ve gotten better about it in recent years, I can be a pretty sore loser. When I was a kid, I would flip over a game board and yell “You cheated” if I even thought that losing the game was a remote possibility.
I’m not much of a video game player (at least not with other people) because I can’t scale the learning curve of most video game controls. That usually puts me in the “going to lose my shit” mindset. I also find that the more adrenaline-pumping a game is, the more likely I am to want to throw my controller. That said, the Wii is my console. The controls are intuitive and I love the way some of the games utilize them. It’s definitely not for everybody — the games require physical movement and many of the games are a bit childish.
Generally speaking, I’d say that co-op games (games where you play alongside your partner rather than against) are ideal. You’re not competing — you’re playing together. I also suggest games with an element of whimsy — somehow, it’s harder to get mad if everything is cute. Whatever you choose, good luck! But here are my suggestions for Wii games for bad losers…
Great board games for every group
Tabletop gaming is huge right now. Once relegated to children and uber-nerds, board games have gone mainstream. If you're looking to add some tabletop fun... Read more
BoomBlox
Imagine a game that’s Angry Birds meets Jenga for the Wii — designed by Steven Spielberg. You smash blocks using a variety of techniques, like chucking balls or throwing bombs. You can play in tandem, chipping away at the level in turns. Need to break some stuff if you lose? Move on to the next level and go to town! It’s a simple, silly game but it’s surprisingly fun.
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
This game is co-op. It’s a platform-style game featuring elements of Disney characters and design. You draw (and erase) elements in the world to move through. One of you plays as Mickey, one of you plays as Oswald, one of Walt Disney’s early characters.
Mario Kart Wii
This is a racing game with a field of Mario characters. I’ve never had a problem with losing at racing games; part of me just accepts that I’m a terrible driver in real life, so being a bad driver in video game world is okay. Some sore losers will hate this game, and that’s okay. My Mario Kart strategy is to hate one of the computer-controlled drivers — I usually pick Baby Peach, for no apparent reason — and gauge my success against her rather than the person I’m playing against. Just don’t race on Rainbow Road. Ever.
Mario Party 8
This one is also hotly contested by some sore losers — I’ve never had a problem with it. Mario Party is a bunch of mini games in a board game setting. Playing through all the smaller games, you get to take turns winning and losing with your fellow players (the game is designed for four players, but you can have up to three of them computer-controlled.) The game also throws curveballs to even the playing field. Part of this game is knowing that the game itself is going to screw you over in the end–the game cheats, not your fellow players! (You can lessen the crappiness by adjusting some settings.) I suggest 8 for a reason — I’m told Mario Party 9 is way more frustrating.
Pretty much any of the Sports Games
If you want to work on your sportsmanship… duh, sports! Bowling, table tennis, golf, baseball, archery, basketball. Whatever your game is, play it. And no, you don’t need the fancy racket Wiimote holders.
So, Homies, what kind of two-player games would YOU recommend for pouty losers?
I was JUST looking this up the other week, so I have a ton of non-competitive 2-person games on our wishlist: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=wish_list
I knew we needed more games since we’ve banned Monopoly Deal (where stealing people’s property is a part of the game) unless we’re playing with other people (It’s a great game though!)
If you were to get any console I would recommend Xbox with Kinect. Not just for games, but it’s a great way to get each other to exercise and the voice control is great for when you want to go to the kitchen and pause a TV show without picking up the remote. Games-wise on Xbox we’ve played Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Dance Central 2 and Just Dance 3, Kung Fu High Impact (Not co-op but each level is so tiring it’s good to take turns), Gunstringer (the 2nd player can drink a beer with their other hand while playing!), all the Rock Bands, and Kinect Party (silly fun), Portal 2, Halo 4 (not that great).
I agree with everyone saying Forbidden Island and Fluxx. We have Star Fluxx which is fun and anyone can be the winner. A good iphone/ipad cooperative game is Space Team. It’s free!
Another vote here for Super Mario Galaxy (1, but especially 2), Wii Super Mario Bros and Epic Mickey! I’ve never been a gamer (wasn’t allowed to have video games as a kid) so I’m horrible at games and it makes me sad 🙁 But in Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, there’s what I call “girlfriend mode” that consists entirely of picking up sparkly star bits and shooting bad guys without being a player per se. It’s great if you have a gamer friend and you suck but you want to “help”.
Super Mario Bros for the Wii is also pretty good, although if you’re like me, you die within the first half of every level, so you’re not very useful.
Epic Mickey is fun even though I don’t like being Oswald (I want to be someone cool like Goofy).
OH! We love the newest Ratchet and Clank for ps3… the 4 player one. I’m always Ratchet and my husband is usually Dr. Nefarious. We turn it into a drinking game, whoever dies has to take a drink (because in 4-player mode, unless you all die at once, you don’t game over). Sometimes we play it as a strip drinking game too. Highly recommended!
I’m also a bit of a sore loser…
One cooperative game that I like a lot that hasn’t been listed yet is called Yggdrasil.It’s against the board, just like in Pandemic or Forbidden Island, but in this everybody is a different Norse god and you’re trying to hold back Loki and other evil guys. The downside to the game (at least for me) is that there’s only one Norse goddess.
One other two-player game that my husband and I like to play is called Mr. Jack. One of you plays Jack the Ripper and the other is an inspector trying to find him. We’ve found that it’s more difficult to beat the game as Jack so we switch roles frequently which keeps us both pretty happy.
I heard that both of these are supposed to be good!
I am exactly the same!!! Husband is well aware that I like to play nice. PLAY NICE DAMNIT!!!
We bought and learnt Agricola together. It’s heavy on the strategy, kinda like a step up from Settlers of Catan. You each play a person with a spouse, you build your house and farm, get children and at the end, add up all your points to determine the winner. It doesn’t really rely on chance, unlike Catan or the evil Monopoly. There are too many variables to keep track of your score until the end. You get a different deck of cards each game to keep it interesting. I really like it! It’s our go to board game for 2 players.
Has anyone mentionned ‘Hanabi’ yet? It’s a PvE (player versus environment) deduction-based card game! So you actually team up with your partner (up to 4, I think?) to ‘outwit’ the game, eliminating the feeling of competition. It’s a lot of fun!
Augh I just commented that without reading the 2nd page of comments. Yes! You end up being angry at the game collectively, a sweet feeling.
If you have a WiiU, Nintendoland is AMAZINGLY fun! I was expecting it to be okay, but it turned out to be great!
Do NOT play Ticket to Ride. My ex got so butthurt (I am allowed to use that here, right >.> <.<) when we played because I would remember the extra-long train rule and usually win and that would lead to "WITHOUT THAT STUPID RULE I WOULD HAVE WON" etc etc.
Someone else suggested Forbidden Island, I second that. It's teamwork. Also "Hanabi", a simple-to-learn cardgame that is all about teamwork and you all either win or lose.
Someone recommended Guillotine, which is a very fun game and is 90% luck so while you can get mad about some things it's really what cards you get. There are some player-attacking action cards. Don't use those on your SO. (*cough*experiencewiththat*cough)
aw man we LOVE ticket to ride…. but yeah its probably not great for sore loosers… but we have it on steam and on the i[ad so generally play solo against a computer instead, plus its much easier to play on a computer than on the board (dont get me wrong i lvoe the board versions too and i think we have most of the expansion maps) but i definitly prefer playing it online.
I’ll have to try the online, never have ^^
The Lord of the Rings board game is great for those who don’t want to compete against each other, but man, you can be pissed off at the board!
I definitely recommend Ticket to Ride; after being an avid watcher of Tabletop on youtube I finally convinced the “video games are better” husband to agree to a game of Ticket to Ride; we’ve already since bought one of the expansions and are eyeing another. We have a rule of not tallying how many games each of us has won/lost – his parents have an elaborate and controversy-starting decade long scoresheet for scrabble and just yeahhhh no thanks.
If you’re interested in some of the games mentioned here but want to see what they’re like, I DEFINITELY recommend Tabletop; it’s a youtube series by Wil Wheaton, hosted by Geek & Sundry. Each episode is a different game or set of shorter games, and is a great way to see how some games work in an actual setting, without trying to find local groups that will let you watch or buying it only to find you can’t deal with all the rules/pieces/effort. I’m always dubious of my own ability to pick up rules for things, so being able to see a game played through makes me feel a bit more confident!
A lot of good suggestions so far. The one(s) that came to mind for me when I read the post are the Dungeon & Dragons board games. They are cooperative and since your husband likes D & D, he can help with some of the rules. There are 3ish themes available and each comes with a couple of 2-player scenarios and there are hundreds of scenarios you can get online. The game also scales well for more players so I have found it to be a good investment (we have 2 themes).
I will second borderlands, but for the Wii, for a video game that is trivia-based and also kind of snarky, I swear by You Don’t Know Jack. LOVE that game so much, and up to 4 players can play. It’s a remake of a really old computer game and we have it for the Wii, and we LOVE it when people come over. It’s a great party game 🙂
I don’t know if anyone said this yet (didn’t have time to read all those gazillion comments that I will be revisiting later on) BUT, the game Hoopla by the people who make Cranium is AWESOME! You can play it with 2 or 50 people and it’s designed for everyone playing to work as a team to win…so it’s either everyone wins or no one wins…. so much fun. Kind of like Cranium but you can play with just 2 people and there’s no board. Takes 15 mins too. 🙂
The only time my husband and I play games is when we are flying. We take out the iPad and play scrabble which takes up most the flight. I usually call my husband an ass if he wins and people on the plane look at us funny 🙂
We play Karaoke Revolution on PS2 & PS3, but we play without switching the character and mostly to keep getting platinums so we can unlock more stuff. Great for parties too.
I would agree with the comments about LEGO video games, I found them particularly fun to play on co-op because there often things that two players must work together to accomplish. I’ve only played 2, LEGO Batman 2 on the Wii and LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 on the PS3 and we enjoyed both of them. HP was quite noticeably easier but I didn’t mind because it satisfied my geekiness completely. We’ve also enjoyed Little Big Planet (but not connected to the network because other players can be poop-head mean). I find racing games can get particularly competitive so I steer clear.
INVEST IN ZOMBICIDE! It is amazing, you won’t regret it and it’s a co-operative game. Super Dungeon Explore is good, too.
I’ve completely skipped over the pages and pages of comments so far but I’d recommend for pouty losers games that you get points for winning and have running totals. So if you lose one game, that doesn’t mean you lose the whole set – you still have a chance to “win”. So games like the old “Rack-O”, Nertz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nertz), or Yahtzee.
My husband and I are in a similar position- I like games that are co-operative when we’re playing together as a) I hate losing and b) I hate my husband losing. One of our new favourites is Escape: The Curse of the Temple, this one requires a computer or CD player and a table to play on (table is important). We also like Forbidden Island, which is very similar to Pandemic and has a sequel coming out this year called Forbidden Desert which promises to vary more from the Pandemic blueprint. A new one we haven’t tried yet is called Robinson Crusoe, but also looks good.
The other category of games that seems successful with us are non-confrontational games but where you’re both partaking in the same game- sort of like multi-player solitaire. In this category we’ve tried Trajan (my new favourite), Agricola (best at >2 really unless you agree not to screw each other over deliberately), The Village, Race for the Galaxy (enough card variety to satisfy a CCG player but not a high conflict game).
We go to boardgamegeek.com for info and recommendations. My husband recommends this list for games that are good at 2 players- might be worth checking out!
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/123148/metalist-for-2-player-games-geeklists-62-lists
Never play Risk together. Last time we played (and it didn’t help there was copious amounts of whiskey involved), I literally thought my boyfriend and I would break up over it. We got BRUTAL.
And as for games that we play together, we’ve got Xbox 360, and I’m loving Call of Duty 3 zombies mode. We play the split screen co-op and sometimes my boyfriend’s friends show up too, and we have soooo much fun! It’s also less scary when I’m playing with him…
When my parents were still together, my mom threw a game of Risk into the fireplace while playing with my dad. LOL
How about some good old fashion Jenga? Even when you lose, you get to knock over a tower of blocks and that’s really fun!
Or Jishaku? When you lose, you get a lot of magnets to play with!
Seriously, I love Settlers and Ticket to Ride and Pandemic and my husband and I play all of these together. But we are both occasionally sore losers and it often helps to take a break and play something less stressful.
And to whoever suggested Racko: great suggestion! I love that game!
There is a great program online on youtube called “Tabletop” it’s hosted by Wil Wheaton and he plays a huge variety of tabletop games (wits and wagers to zombie dice to ticket to ride). They even had a PANDEMIC episode. He plays with celebrity friends (that change every episode) and for me it was a great way to be exposed to a world of new games.
I recommend checking out a few episodes which feature game play closer to what your hubby enjoys, and find games that sound interesting to you. Plus the show is so fun to watch, and they have a deal with Target that sells all the games (in case you don’t have a local game shop around you).
I’m not afflilated with this show, btw, just a big fan.
If you have enough people to make teams, you can play Cranium and have you and your partner be a team. The different categories make it fun as most people are great at one but suck at the other 3.
Forbidden Island is a great co-op game, the whole point is for everyone to get pieces and leave the island before it floods, so if someone is left behind or you don’t get all the treasure, you all lose.
Cards against Humanity (or Apples to Apples if kids are involved) are great for groups as well, and they’re so much fun you don’t feel aggressively competitive while playing.
I also recommend watching Tabletop (tabletop.geekandsundry.com) for some ideas. They play the games, so you know if it’s something you’d like to play before you buy it.
OMG. Is Heather me!? I feel this way all the time! I hate loosing I get entirely too invested in the long game instead of the short. Then I throw a tantrum or pout and the whole evening is ruined! I know it makes my partner super frustrated because he wants to share games with me. I just don’t have the patience or desire to spend 3 hours learning rules. I totally agree with the whimsey angle. The more stuff there is for me to pay attention to that is NOT the game, the more I like it. Games that require quick turns are important too. The longer you dwell on your choices (or in my case lack of them) the less frustrated you’ll be.
I am a total fan of the game Wasabi (http://www.amazon.com/Z-Man-Games-7022-Wasabi/dp/B001LQXYG4), because it is about delicious food and cute sushi. Its like if sushi and scrabble had a baby! It works really well as a two player game and I am too distracted by the weird food words to really get too invested in winning or losing.
I also like the entire line of Sandstorm games, ESPECIALLY Kittens in a Blender. It requires a bit of modification for a two player game, but I am so distracted by oohing and awing over the kitties, that I am way less worried about losing. (Nutz and Poo are also fun!)
Zombie dice is also fun, just because it is short, and relies on very little strategy. Having a game involve more random aspects, like dice, makes things way less stressful as a whole.
As for video games, my partner and I will pair up for some old school katamari, and take turns, which is low stress and Xbox has a two player cooperative plants versus zombies which is totally fun too!
Now wish me luck while I learn Carcossone as well as Guillotine for valentines day. Lets hope I don’t have a melt down.
Have fun! Carcossone is largely about the long game, but turns are pretty quick since they’re all about “place this tile”. Guillotine is quick and easy to pick up though, and rather silly fun too.
thanks for the pep talk! I made him promise if I was learning TWO new games as his valentines day present, that I had to have an Adventure Time marathon before bed too.
I know this thread is now ranging on the old side, but no one has mentioned the ones I immediately thought of- so I wanted to.
One of my absolute favorite 2 player games is Ubongo the Duel. It’s a spatial puzzling game where you are competing against yourself essentially, though there is a winner. There are other Ubongo games that are great too, and scale to 4 players. The scoring is a bit more random on those, but perhaps that would work to your advantage.
The other one that I thought of of was FITS. It’s sort of like competitive solitaire tetris the board game. There is a winner, but like the Ubongos players don’t affect opponents chances of winning. We gave that one as a wedding present and they said it was one of their favorite gifts and they played it ALL the time. (these were not people I would call gamers either)
Bonus game- a little harder to track down because it’s an import, but Finito! is great. It’s sort of like rack-o (I think- never actually played) and bingo. It’s so light and fluffy, but you always want more. We call it the potato chip game- because you can’t play just once. It’s good with two, scales to four, and if you get 2 sets- scales to 8! The first time I ever saw it played was at a party I threw in my apt. I walk back to my bedroom and see 8 people crammed in there all playing this game. It was awesome. 🙂
Good luck to you!