When Did You Last Beat Your Wife?
By @edent
· gaming · 14 comments · 650 words · read ~17,057 times.
(This post started out life as a comment to Robert Brook's Not Everything Is a Game post.)
I remember when I stopped beating my wife. I used to beat her regularly without ever wondering why. Without really considering how it made her feel, the effect on our relationship or the effect it had on me.
Beating her was just something I did. I didn't take any particular joy in it. I wasn't experiencing huge emotional relief after she was beaten - I didn't feel smug, self-satisfied or powerful. Deep down I knew that beating someone when it's not a fair fight is no kind of victory.
I can come up with various excuses as to why it happened. People used to beat me - they did fairly regularly. That's no excuse - but I found myself beaten so many times that I just became numb. The pain and humiliation that a child feels when defeated is almost too much to bear. So I removed it. Next time I was beaten I simply sighed and moved on.
I can remember the first time I beat someone. After a disastrous inter-school Chess competition - yes, I was that kid - I tried out for the Scrabble team.
I beat everyone. Every single one of them.
I know I felt a flush of pride. A sense of worth and of power. This is what winning feels like. It felt good. Great in fact.
I didn't like it.
I saw in the face of my opponent the crushed spirit that I had known for too long. I realised that the price of victory is failure. I couldn't stand the heavy responsibility of causing that much pain and anguish in another... But I carried on anyway.
I learned to quash the shame of victory just as I had quashed the shame of defeat. Success was marginally preferable to failure, so I competed only when there was a fairly decent chance of winning.
I used to beat my wife at computer games, board games, and quizzes. I thought that's what I was expected to do. Play my hardest. Play for victory. Crush my opponent. Damn the consequences.
But winning never felt good. It never made me happy. Any short lived joy came at the expense of my partner's unhappiness.
Command And Conquer changed all that. For the first time, we could play collaboratively. We would team up to defeat an opponent - working together against an emotionless enemy. An aggressor who didn't mind when we beat him mercilessly.
From then on, the majority of games we've played have been collaborative. The Lego Star Wars, Batman & Indiana Jones games are perfect examples. Not only can you play together - it's actively encouraged. Victory only comes through teamwork. Not one leader instructing a team - but players working collectively.
Where games are single player - we've found ways to work together. On Zelda, I take charge of the fine co-ordinated jumping puzzles and my wife does the rest. We sit together and solve the logic puzzles, plan where to go next, strategise our next move.
Do we sometimes argue? Do we fight over who messed up? Do we moan about who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory? Of course we do! But we're not fighting each other - we're fighting for each other.
My only regret is that there aren't more collaborative games. Lego, Boom Bloxx, Rock Band - what else? Too many games pit you against your friends. Why would I want to beat my friends? I like my friends - I don't want to defeat them. I love my wife and don't want to beat her.
Playing together is much more fun than playing against one another.
Running Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds on Linux
Introducing CAVE TEAM - a new board game #JanJam17
Rules for Cooperative Poker #JanJam17
MrJaba says:
you should try some left 4 dead. Beating off a swarm of zombies together is a great experience!
That sounds like a fine idea. I remember flushing all my coins away on a House of the Dead arcade machine in the student union. Might just be time to reawaken those memories.
You can buy House of the Dead 3+4 (I think - it's a boxset of two older ones, anyway) for Wii dirt cheap. Buying fake guns to put your Wiimotes into costs a bit more, but is probably worth it for the childish satisfaction factor. Turning the volume up more so 🙂
AwkwardTurtle says:
Let start by seconding Left 4 Dead (2) as it's an amazing game, that really really encourages working together with other people. Another option is Killing Floor, which is sort of a cross between House of the Dead and Left for dead. It's also cheaper.
Ron Jeremy says:
That sounds like an X-rated collaborative game. Beating off a large swarm of zombies could be very messy.
I completely agree, cooperative modes are where it's at in a relationship.
I had a real blast going through Splinter Cell: Double Agent with my girl, and we're eagerly anticipating its sequel. Also, Mario Galaxy is pretty solid, I let her use the controller, and I get to shoot the star gun to help her, while we solve the puzzles together.
Hi Dan, Thanks for the Mario Galaxy tip. I figured there had to be more to co-op gaming than just shoot 'em ups.
Hello to everyone from Reddit! You can read their comments at http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/agug0/when_did_you_last_beat_your_wife/ and http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/agugg/when_did_you_last_beat_your_wife_on_collaboration/
The Wii seems to have a fairly collaborative ethos - although not that many collaborative titles - Tennis doubles is a firm favourite here 🙂
if you still have a PS2 laying about. Cookies and cream or Kuri Kuri mix (one is the NTSC name and one PAL not sure which way round) is one of the best co op games there is imo, highly underrated game because it looked like a kids game on the shelf
Mike says:
If you've got an Xbox 360 lying around, Gears of War 2 can be a lot of fun, playing through the campaign cooperatively and then online in "Horde" mode where you and a team face off against all kinds of monsters.
MrJaba says:
oh yeah definitely second gears of war one ans two also army of two if you can get past the cheesiness, that's got a sequel coming out soon too. It may sound a bit excessive but if gaming is quite a large part of the relationship then it could be worthwhile getting a second of the same console as a lot more games are co-op if you have two copies, but this is obviously quite pricey!
Thanks for all the suggestions. Completely burned out of shooting games by House of the Dead. Might look for some puzzlers next.
I've got a Wii and an Xbox (original, not one of these new-fangled 360 doo-dahs) but I'll certainly keep the suggestions for other consoles in mind.
@MrJaba, while I like the idea of buying two Xbox 360s, another TV and two copies of the game.... I think spending £500 "just" for some dual action might make the relationship might suffer more than if I continually won at Street Fighter II 😉
Janet says:
When I read the first few lines, I was like "Terrence, you savage monster", and thought this article was about beating, domestically! Haha!!!
Ah, phewey.