Raiders of the Lost Sim
Regina:
About five years ago, there was a new phrase developed in our house called "People Games." This is what my then 2-year-old son decided I played. I would get a new game and he'd say, 'Oh, Mom, you got a new People Game!'
I agree there aren't a lot of games out there that appeal to women. As I look at my CD rack I see a bunch, though, with most of their expansions. I loved CivII so ended up getting Alpha Centauri when it was in a bargain bin. I also lucked out and picked up the expansion, Alien Crossfire, which is super hard to find for less than around $50 because they quit making it all too soon, for about $10 with a Buy It Now from eBay. I've tried and tried and tried CivIII and to my mind it just stinks! I enjoy the culture aspect but there're too many other things in there they changed.
I also love Sierra's City-building series and have all of those. I started out with Ceasar II which had a demo for Caesar III and I couldn't wait until I could get that one. I remember visiting the Heaven's Game forums and amazed at how many women were into playing the City Building series.
I've also given Tropico a shot but I found the scenarios were ridiculously hard and the open-play got too bogged down too quickly. You could start on a nice little town but by the time it got up to any size at all (like 1/3 of a larger island) everything became so inefficient the city would basically melt down.
I think one of the all-gime classics out there is Zoo Tycoon. I got the original game for Christmas shortly after it came out then later got the expansion packs. I was even one of those who helped to make the User Expansion Pack (thanks to the wonderful brains of the fellow in England who figured out how to make scenarios for the game). With all of my involvement in that community, though, I ended up getting so burnt out on that game I just about couldn't play it. I since bought Zoo Tycoon 2 last summer but honestly in my opinion it just can't beat the original. Sure, it has some nice features but the user-made animals for ZT1 gave the game tons of replayability, whereas while I haven't checked recently, when I got ZT2 there was no user-made content.
My 7-year-old loves to play games and I haven't bought him a new one in ages. He mostly plays original NES games and finds freeware games online to download and is reasonably happy. Sure, he wants to get a gaming system and I'm thinking about getting him one in the next year or so.
My daughters are into games, too. My 16-year-old loves playing RPGs and my 19-year-old loves RPGs and creating things for TS2. They both play TS2, too, although they don't seem to be as rabid about it as I am (thank goodness!).
I like to read game reviews in the newspaper and our local writer does a bang-up job. He said one game that he was absolutely surprised with was the Lego Star Wars. He said he had bought it something like three months hence, and was still playing it several times a week with his son, which is a rarity for them. He said the game was fun and had good replayability.
Another game I think is awesome but they've never made it for PC is the Harvest Moon series. My sisters and nieces are huge fans and I've tried it and it's great!
When it all comes down to it, though, I don't play much now besides TS2. I had base TS2 for an entire year before NL and wasn't getting tired of it and now with NL it's just that much more fun. For the most part I think my family thinks it's safest if I stick with one game at a time. LOL
rohina:
Alpha Centauri with Alien Crossfire is one of my absolute favourite games ever. I loved Civ and CivII, but I thought III was kind of a stupid step backwards. I'm definitely excited about new Civ, and will most likely get it for my birthday or Christmas.
One game that was similar, and that a number of my female friends liked was Master of Magic. It was very like Civ in some ways, but it had exciting heroes and battles where you had to make decisions. Plus, you know, the magical spell casting.
Hook:
I heard Myst was popular with female gamers. Never played that one myself tho.
Some of the old Sim games are great. My favorites were Sim Farm, Sim Life and Sim Ant. Sim Ant did have you fighting the red ants, but it wasn't as bad as most of the RPG games. I always loved it when I got the message in Sim Life, "Pigs have mutated to fly." :D
Hook
Regina:
I tried Myst and just couldn't get into that kind of game. My cousin loved it, though.
You reminded me that some of those older Sim games are one my son loves, too. He plays SimAnt, SimEarth, SimTown and more. They're great kid-friendly games. Oh, and SimTunes is wonderful, too, because they're composing little musical diddies. He also plays the original (if you can imagine) SimCity on his dad's computer. I don't think he ever gets much past putting in the power plant and first zoning, but it seems that each time he learns a little bit more. Another one of his favorites is his dad's Real Planes Flight Simulator for RC airplanes. He can now successfully land the plane on the easier levels.
Hook:
I think I enjoyed the original Sim City more than the sequels.
Another game I had a great time with was Rollercoaster Tycoon. The first thing I'd put into every park was the carousel, just for the music. I love fairground organ music.
Hook
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