Ah, where do I begin. Gaming with my fiance has been the almost-central part of our lives, keeping us sane during the majority of our long-distance relationship. It started off with table-top roleplaying over Skype and transgressed to shooting each other over Halo.
My fiance was the entire reason I got so avid in video games again. Before, I only had a PS2 and only played RPs, like Xenosaga and Tales of Eternia, with long periods of time between getting new games. In the meantime, I simply replayed old games (Xenogears, FF7, Chrono Trigger, etc).
However, everything changed once he started ranting over Skype to me about Oblivion, which his then-coworker showed him on the 360. It being a first person RP, I thought less of it, thinking I would get bored with it too easily and didn't care much about it, until I finally came from a visit from England and saw it. My jaw simply dropped. "This is what videogames look like now?! I can barely even count the pixels!" was my first thought (yes, my VG experience had dwindled to almost nought with all the travelling I did). I was left quite impressed, wanting to give it a try and avid to make the ugliest Oblivion character ever.
It was my turn to turn him over to the dark side of Halo, after a few of my Brit friends introduced me to Halo 2 (and boy did I REALLY suck back then). I ranted and raved to him about it, which he also thought less of, because it was a FPS, and those can get old kind of fast. We bought Halo 1 and 2 at the same time, and played for 2 weeks straight on the Campaigns, with hearts racing, jaws dropping and yells of frustration at both the storyline and our own iniquitable deaths. We were hooked and nothing was going to get the 360's grip off us.
The grip tightened even more when he got me a 360 of my very own last Christmas, so that we could at least play while I was in Long Island, and ever since, my own small collection of games has grown over such a short period of time, through my own purchases, or his fuelling of my addiction through presents. Weekends were spent playing through the Halo 3 campaign over and over to get the metagame scoring achievements, and simply just going at each other in a Custom Game. It kept us together, laughing and yelling for stupid things, and venting any frustration I felt with schooling by hearing a lovely death yell eminate from my tiny tv. If anything, I have him to thank for rekindling my love for videogames and tolerating my rantings about them.
Now that all that good stuff has been put forward, I must deal with the downside of gaming with my fiance. And that is me. I, to quote him, am a sore loser. I'd like to not think of it that way, that I am not upset at people for killing me, but for the fact that I cannot kill them first. But it stills boils down to simply that: sore loser. Being from the Caribbean, I can't help but be competitive and frustrated when I fail. Failure simply is not an option for me. It drives me nuts, thinking that I've played Halo a lot longer than he has, yet I can NEVER seem to beat him in a one-on-one. Many a times I have turned off the machine, upset at my lack of skills, cursing at the controller for not doing what I wanted it to do. Yet, there he is, giving me a hug and telling me I'd do better next time. I still pout and sulk about it, but the simple fact that he doesn't take it to heart and still plays with me week after week must mean something.
Thank you, Sean, for making me love videogames again and tolerating my crappy attitude everytime there's a sticky on my head.
Other participants!
Gaming with my wife
You could be doubling alone
Next Gen Killed Our Gaming Relationship
Forced Perspective
Playing With My Toys,
From Gaming Geek to Heroes Freak
My Lady and Gaming
Gaming with your significant other
Gaming Together, Maybe?
Girl Gamers = Hawt
Move Over Hott Boy, I Want to Play
'Til Mongoose Mowdown Do Us Part
Valentine's Day is for Gamers
Frag the Girlfriend!!
