In the weeks leading up to my imminent marriage, I've tried to give you all a little insight to the workings of a relationship where one of the members is a devoted gamer and the other, well the other isn't so much of a gamer. My work was cut out for me.

It's not like she has never been a gamer...I mean, if anyone here wanted to play her at Monopoly she would kick your ass up one side of the street and down the other. By far she is the only person I know that can make it through an entire game of Monopoly laughing the whole time. She just isn't much of a video gamer.

Some of you might recall my Top 10 list detailing the games I wished my fiancé would play with me when I'm gaming. Tonight's list is slightly different, we're going to do the opposite of that and I'll share with you a little insight on the gaming mind of my soon-to-be wife. Tonight's list is the Top 10 Games Mrs. Excremento Plays and Enjoys. Catch you at the end.


Brain Age


Wow, I got this game for my DS right before we went to Cancun in 2006. The trip was a long 5 am to 7 pm, 3 layover affair which left me physically drained. Luckily I had my DS, my PSP, and my iPod to keep me busy. This was simply a charming little game that began to grow on me the longer I played it.

I loved this game for its amazing built in Sudoku game that isn't really even the main draw of the game. My fiancé however loves to constantly check her brain age. She wasn't much of a badass when it comes to the math portions, but was always quick about the reading and the adding and subtracting people puzzles. Not that great of a game for us, but it was the gateway to her playing on the DS.


Tetris


ZOMG! I loves me some Tetris, and I always thought I was pretty good at it. That is until I met my match at the heels of my betrothed. She seriously can whoop my ass at this game, that's right, whoop. I make no qualms about it, I honestly think (no matter how sexist it might sound) that women are better at puzzle games than men are.

Playing the game on Type-B was never an issue for her either, where I would constantly have trouble on Level 9 Height 5, she would laugh try it herself and make me look like a simpleton. It really doest get annoying to have someone who can't get one kill on you in Halo to hand you your ass at Tetris...damnit, I've played games longer than you!!! It's not fair...


Uno


I never should have introduced her to this game on the Xbox Live Arcade. Sure, I picked it up with my first points card because I heard so many people clamoring about how amazing that a $5 game could spend more time being played than many of the other $60 games they had. So yeah, the real reason I got Uno was that I wanted to get a game for Mrs. Excremento that would maybe get her to play some games with me and assuage the guilt I had for buying the Xbox 360 that summer.

I never knew that Uno = crack-cocaine, until she actually got to playing the game without me around. I remember it was one of my typical 9 hour work nights when I saw that she had jumped online immediately after I left for work and stayed online for the next 8 hours playing against random folk on XBL. I got home that night and asked her how it all went. She proceeded to say "I had no idea that time could pass that quickly (when gaming)." I gave her the "well, now you see the curse that I have had to live with my whole life."


Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix


Back when we first met in 2001, my PlayStation was freshly chipped because I had the PS2 with its backwards compatibility to play my 'Merican games. What I really wanted were the games I couldn't get here. I'm talking about the best versions of the DDR games (the American releases were utter shit compared to the Japanese ones). I think I paid about $70 bucks for this game. Every penny was worth it too.

I had my dance pad mounted on a board and would do bouts of the game as a way of working out. 40 minutes a day with the higher BPM games was a pretty good workout then. I met her a few months after picking this game up and when she came over for our first date, she had no idea about the gaming dungeon that I was leading her to. Well regardless, playing this with her during those awkward months when you first start dating was a great way to get to know each other. Her favorite song, which became quickly my least favorite (sorry honey), was When the Saints Go Marching In...It got old officially the 10th time I heard it, though it was always fun to watch her play.


Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo


I did have this game waaaaay before I even knew what it was like to have a steady relationship, and is one of the few games that I have actually had a solid match against my fiancé in. Sure, I might be playing as Dan for a lot of the matches, but when she would get to use Devilot, it was game over for me.

The only funny anecdote that I can think of when playing this game with her was that she would always try to English-ize every little battle phrase that the characters would be using. For example, she thought that whenever Ryu said "Ikuze!" that he was really saying "Intubate!" Now, I'm no expert, I don't think that Ryu attended medical school and knows what the word really means. What a great game to play, that reminds me, I really should pick up the XBLA version of this game sometime soon!


Viva Pinata


I got this game as another attempt to appeal to her inner gamer. I thought that she does good at the micromanaging games, and this wouldn't be too far of a step for her to take. Luckily, once I had her convinced that she could handle it and the controls were easy to use, the game was on.

I picked this up on a Friday night as a casual game. By Sunday morning, we were this game's thralls. I can't believe how deceptively deep and hard this game was to master. I'm still trying to conquer it! Well, at least the first couple of weeks playing this game together was a blissful experience. By the time we were trying to breed Zumbugs and Doenuts to attract the Roario to our garden, it was no longer fun, but had become a chore. At least when we got our first Elephanilla we shared a moment, a silent but reassuring "awww yeah!" that we just had to look at each other to communicate.


Super Mario World


I tend to think that if you don't enjoy this game or if you don't have fond memories of playing it, then my friend you have no soul! I don't care what the haters say, this is by far my favorite Mario game out there 2-D or 3-D. Its made better by the fact that it is one of the few games that she'll play with me all the way to the end. It doesn't hurt that this is one of the funnest games ever.

I can sit here and play Super Mario World from beginning to end in one sitting if I were allowed to. However, now that I'm not a kid I don't have the time to devote to marathon gaming like that anymore. I can remember I would be in the middle of trying to finish the Star Road levels while she would be slogging her way through the Vanilla Dome without any of my help. I'm sorry honey, I can't help going to Star Road, they're so hard but so fun!


Beautiful Katamari


Its funny, we all have the people in our lives that refer to games as something other than they really are. I still get it from her that I'm playing Nintendo when I'm playing my Xbox 360, and when it comes to this game, its not Katamari Damacy but "the garbage game." Ya know the game were you go around picking up garbage and things in that ball? Yeah thats Katamari in her eyes. Still, when she asked me when the game came out, I made sure I had her copy ready and unopened for her when she got home from work.

It's the first game in my game collection that I'd actually call hers. While I don't hate the Katamari games, I never saw much appeal to them in general. Playing this one by her side made me see the light. They are simply put, fun and easy games to play. This one was a bit short for my tastes, but didn't sting so much seeing how it cost $40 instead of the normal $60 for new 360 games.


Animal Crossing Wild World


I think I talked about this one before...yup here it is "I picked this game up to help assuage some guilt that I had for spending so much money on the DS by getting a game that my fiancé would play I hoped that would do the trick. Turns out it didn't, for the first couple of months at least. It has now gotten to the point where I can't pry the DS out of her hands. I just think how it used to have me under that spell too."

I love the fact that she has done so much for the town, done all of the decorating in the house, paid off most of the debt owed to Tom Nook, and she sends me letters with presents in them sometimes. There's nothing better than coming home from a hard days work (not that hard really) to find a letter in my mailbox from the love of my life with a present attached. The best one so far is my Luigi hat and Lone Ranger mask. I now run around towns with my green little outfit and black mask digging random holes for her to fill in later. Good times.


Rock Band


We went into Gamestop as a couple (a rarity for obvious reasons) mid-October to put a preorder on this wonderful box set of fun. While the geek stink was really overpowering that day, she braved the uncomfortable environs for me, what a trooper. Oh right, the game...I brought this home on one of my days off and played drums for a good 7 hours until she got off work and didn't get a chance to play again for a few nights later, when I finally convinced her that she could easily do the singing.

Let the record show that I think you have a beautiful voice honey, but we all know from watching season after season of American Idol that ALL girls think they can sing. This was probably one of the best games I have ever played with my fiancé not only because she does the vocals and when she's tired, the notes get flatter and flatter. This provides epic lulz for me playing on drums, which then leads to more fucking up and laughing. When one person starts to mess up, it tends to mess the whole event up. At least we are always laughing about it.



That does it for another edition of A Weird Kid's Top 10. I promise to you all that this will be the last “me and the Mrs.” post until we are actually married. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. As always, let me know if you have a particular top 10 that you'd like to see, and I'd be happy to oblige. And for all of you that have submitted ideas, I promise I'll eventually get around to yours. Thanks for reading!!!