I don't mean my penis, I mean my wife, my significant other, my soul mate,

So to give you a bit of a background, video games are what brought me and my wife together. Her favorite games traditionally have been RPGs and such. We met because of these and here we are 7 years later, married 5 and have a beautiful 2 year old daughter. My wife is not a hardcore gamer, but isn't a casual one either.

Now as times have changed and our lives have gotten busier, she doesn't invest time into those 20-40 hour games anymore (bar a new Final Fantasy). But when a co-op game comes calling, she's ready to go. We played through every co-op game available in the PS2/XBox/GC era, and have made it through most of the current gen games that support it.

To be honest, it hasn't always worked out. She's not big on Gears of War for example. But there are three games that looking through everything we've played stand out as the three games that she has enjoyed the most.

Serious Sam - XBox
One thing I've realized is that my wife doesn't want story in a co-op game. She obviously is fond of story in her RPGs, but when we're playing games she wants more activity than cutscene. She wasn't a big FPS fan at all. This game was the one that changed her mind forever.

So we system linked two XBox systems and each of us had our own TV in seperate rooms. The screaming, laughing and fun filled many a night for months. Her names for the enemies always made me laugh (one of which she called Hoppies, which became her name for the Flood in the next game) She was timid at first about her playing skills at FPS games, but she realized that I didn't care what her playing level was, it was just FUN. I know she's hooked when I'll ask her what she wants to do that night and the answer comes back as "Games!".

Halo 1/2/3 - XBox/XBox 360
I'll keep this as a single game for this post's sake. She always felt that this was too heavy in story, but the main draw here was multiplayer. My old roomates and friends would come over, and we'd hook up system link into multiple rooms, and there was my wife in the middle of the fight with other people laughing and cussing people when the warthog ran her over. Again, even though she wasn't the best, she didn't care because she knew that either I always had her back, or I was shooting her in the back (I did get punched in the shoulder multiple times for teamkilling/teabagging her just for fun). To this day my friends are amazed that my wife enjoys playing games, let alone has gotten pretty good at them.

Left4Dead - XBox 360
The pinnacle in my wife's eyes. A co-op mode with no story, constantly changing game dynamics and the fact that no game is ever the same. Going by my 360's blog, I've played the game for 35 days. I'd say 30 of those days included playing time with the wife in this game. As I said earlier when she's hooked that's all she wants to do. And that is no different here. Now I've mentioned this in IRC before, but she wants to move to advanced and expert modes. And while we've done all four campaigns with 2 bots, you realize that the AI doesn't always work out the way you expect and we lost many times where 2 other humans would have helped us win.

So now we're on the edge of the next big jump. Getting her to go online. She's teased with the idea a few times (she's becoming interested in Versus after seeing me play with other Dtoiders) but she'd really want to do the campaigns. In a way we're back at square one as she's unsure of her abilities and afraid of being ridiculed for it online. But as I did when we started this, I'll be there with her every step of the way.

One thing they say is that in a good marriage, sharing interests make a healthy relationship and I have to agree. It's another facet to our relationship and it always makes sure that we spend time together. I know gamer girls are more and more common nowadays, but I feel that I really won out with a woman who understands and loves my hobby.