New Girlfriends and Video Games

So in anticipation of all the new games coming out this Fall and Winter I've been thinking about what free time I do have outside of work and continuing my education, to play these games is encroached upon by the time I want to spend with my girlfriend. In a perfect world I would love to be with a girl who is well versed in the language of gaming. A girl who "gets" gaming.. who has played, and beat a first person shooter, a girl who is a hardcore gamer. My current girlfriend is probably the closest I have found to this outside of Korea.

She grew up playing Nintendo games, typical Duck Hunt and Mario brothers, which is fun banter when we're bored or watching TV. The nerdiest thing (and I adored it, shows how geek I am) she has ever said to me was when I was driving up to Clingman's Dome in East Tennessee with her. It was in July, the sun was beaming through the trees and being in the higher altitude it was around 75 or so, it was great weather. I listen to a lot of different music, and I had a Meditation tracklist playing on my car stereo. It was fitting with the serene surroundings and the looming mountains slowly sinking to reveal the sprawling hills. As we're driving, Becky says out of nowhere "this reminds me of Final Fantasy X" I just looked at her, thinking Becky must have fell out of the car awhile back and was replaced by someone else.

I've never played any of the Final Fantasy's beyond VII so I didn't understand the reference. I just smirked and questioned her. She said "I dunno.. it's the music, and the mountains and everything.. nevermind" I laughed a little and told her "no, no.. it's funny. I do the same thing when I'm going someplace or sitting somewhere and my mind wanders. Game references come to mind.. I like it, it's cute." She continued to explain why she was reminded, and what she was talking about it it made me feel good knowing she was as geek as I was about games, at least in the sense that she does in fact play games.

I have a Wii and an Xbox 360, and one night I brought the Wii to her house and we played it for awhile. She seemed to like it, and I loved the fact that we could play games together.. peanut butter and chocolate.. it couldn't get much better. I'm trying to think of a way to introduce her to more hardcore games like Gears of War, or Halo 3 when it comes out. She's obviously invested time into a few of the titles in the Final Fantasy series, so I know she can tolerate games, and anyone who can invest that much time obviously has more than a passing interest. But the difference is that Final Fantasy is slower paced and more story driven. Whereas games like Gears or Halo are much more twitch, action oriented games. I for the most part just dismiss girls from those genres of games. Not as an insult to any females reading this who enjoy these games, but let's face it.. you're a minority. I'm glad you're there and I think it's refreshing to have the diversity of a female player in an online game.. but growing up my sister never went beyond playing easy to grasp Nintendo games and now the Wii. She plays some Guitar Hero II (she actually got me in to it, but only because her boyfriend got her into it.. so it doesn't count!) on occasion, but there again.. nothing brutal. It's not that she can't handle the games if she tried (or any woman for that matter) it's just that she didn't seem to have any interest in it.

Personally I love playing games period.. if it looks fun or interesting, let me have a go and see if I like it. My experience with women is, they either think it's "something he does when he's relaxing" or "he plays these games regularly, and I play this (singular) game from time to time". I'm just curious to those of you who have played the hardcore shooters or more "boy" games.. how did you get into them? What turned you on by them initially and if it was a man in your life that got you hooked, how did he do it? For the guys, if you have a little lady that can get a headshot like a pro, how did she get that way?

My plan of attack is to just bring over my 360 some night and see what goes.. show her how to play, how the controls work, and ease her in. I just don't want to seem like I'm forcing this complicated violent game on her, and have her turned off, and have me frustrated or feeling like this video game jerk.

Anyways, I changed my Xbox 360 gamertag to: Art Spark
it's not the coolest name ever, but it's a step up I think, easy to remember and says a little something about me.