The Queue: Extroverted Noob
You're a social creature, want to hang out, but are not very good at video games.
"Future Music Festival 2013" by Eva Rinaldi Celebrity Photographer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
The Queue makes up a specific player persona and presents three perfect games for their particular quirks. Feel free to recommend your own interesting personas in the comments and share this post with a friend who matches this description!
Humans are social creatures made most happy by relationships, but you’re dialed to 11. You’re an extrovert, whether you’re saddling up to the grill master at a backyard BBQ to discuss sausage searing strategies or issuing an earnest “good game!” at the end of an excellent round of team deathmatch.
The problem is, your enthusiasm for camaraderie far outpaces your skill set. But, where some see a problem, we here at Play Kaizen see opportunity. You have the award-winning smile*, the attitude, and two thumbs just as good at moving analog sticks as the next person. We’ve worked with worse, and we have space for you in this party. Three spaces, to be exact.
Welcome to The Queue, Extroverted Noob. As a note, Noob is a label applied to someone new to games, aka “newbie.” While it is sometimes used in a derogatory manner, like the infamous “get good, noob!” wielded in tedious deathmatch scenarios, it can also be used in a warm and collegial manner. I’m going with the latter!
*No awards won.
The Client
Our client is a social creature. One who prioritizes things shouted in their direction through a headset over trophies earned through skill and sweat. They want to play with friends, first, second, AND third (it’s important), and due to inability, distraction by the social element, or indifference, they just aren’t very good at games.
Let us examine them more closely. The client is defined as such:
Their motivation is to “hang” with friends. Everything else is secondary.
They like video games, but they have zero interest in being good at them. The only headshot they’ll brag about is one that drives a good story.
They prefer “funny” over “epic.”
This is one way they relax and wind down. They are probably sipping a beer while they play.
They appreciate a practical joke or prank. If the game lets them mess around, they’ll take that opportunity.
The Game Requirements
It is not enough that we know the person. Now, we need to pore through lines of code to find the ideal software bundle for this Chatty Carson, or Verbal Vivienne, or even Talky Ted.
The games deserving a premier slot on this social calendar will entail:
Support for four or more players.
The gameplay should support verbal high-fives, trash-talking, friendly digs, and general prompts for running commentary.
A minimum level of skill should not be required to participate. If this player’s questionable performance ruins the experience for all, that isn’t a viable selection.
The game should not get in the way of talking. No narrative, no cut scenes, no intricate puzzles. This is happy hour at the local dive, not a detailed wine tasting with a loquacious sommelier.
Cooperative play is preferred to competitive play.
The Queue
Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers, Overcooked: All you can eat
Deep Rock Galactic, released 2018, available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Recommended for your preferred platform.
If Deep Rock Galactic had a smell, it would be three day old socks in a freshman dormitory. It is a jovial romp that has personality down to its metallic core, roles for every player, and plenty of room for contribution and jokes.
Each job - for up to four players - sends you into an alien cave network. There are bugs! If you want to shotgun or machine gun bugs, there are plenty, and that is work that needs doing. But, this is a mining company and pipelines need to be grinded on (and, yes, built), holes must be dug (with pickaxes and power tools), platforms built, and donkey-like robots ridden to the job site.
You can even, honestly, just meander about and find materials that bring in resources for everyone.
The result is a hilarious game in which everyone can contribute, sticky situations abound, you will get lost, and you will require help. The game’s mechanisms are seriously enjoyable and well-crafted, but the game otherwise doesn’t take itself seriously at all. For quite a while this was our lunch game of choice because it was such a delightful break from work.
You don’t need to be any good to drill some killer rocks with your mates.
Helldivers, released 2015, available on PlayStation and PC. Recommended for PlayStation. Note that a sequel was recently announced and I am THRILLED.
Helldivers is one of a handful of games that has sincerely made me laugh so hard I was crying. I decided to bring a tank to a mission. The tank was so impossibly difficult to drive - either due to developer incompetence, hubris, or spite (or all three) - and the sheer madness of it was too much to bear. This was funny enough, but when we tried to use the motorcycle with a sidecar - an equally incompetent piece of vehicle design - we lost it.
This game is constantly slapping you for foolish mistakes, but in the best possible way. Step off your drop pod pad too quickly? Whoops! You got squashed by your teammate’s pod. Call in extra ammo? Watch out, that might squash you too. Be careful of the friendly turrets, they just might shoot you. In fact, friendly fire is very prominent. Oh, plus there are gigantic bugs.
This game is a top-down, twin-stick shooter that takes the premise of Verhoeven’s outstanding Starship Troopers and dials it up to eleven. The faux fascism squeaks from its very pores, down to the magnificent capes you select (and twirl!) for your troopers. Don’t be misled by my intro - the game is wonderfully crafted. It just also makes it clear that your mistakes will be punished with a good, sound squashing.
In space, nobody can hear you giggle.
Overcooked: All you can Eat, released 2020, available on PC, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox. Recommended for your preferred platform.
In a few months I might be writing about PlateUp! (coming to Switch shortly), but for now, Overcooked is what’s on the menu. This game is beautifully, magnificently stupid, with a capital S.
You, and up to four friends, are managing a hectic factory kitchen in real time. Orders are streaming in, food must be prepared, dishes plated, and plates cleaned. It is sheer chaos, but it requires communication, intuition, and fingers. This game is funny and tragic and best of all, it’ll be incredibly easy to point out whose fault it is, mock them, then start another level.
I think the best part of Overcooked is that it is so simple, but might be the game (among the suggestions of this blog) in which you screw up the most dramatically and often. Sure, the other games feature combat and can lead to death. But the simplicity of Overcooked makes the errors all the more collaboratively catastrophic.
It is the video game equivalent of your favorite Chef’s Kiss gif.
Edited by Joshua Buergel
A big factor in any kind of social gaming I want to do is comedy. The game has to let us laugh at each other and still be fun for the person being laughed at. That has DEFINITELY been my experience with Overcooked. Pointing fingers and shouting epithets during and after a stage is as much fun as the game itself.
I really enjoy the metaphor of happy hour at the local dive. DRG is one hundred percent that vibe. It’s half off appetizers on a Friday and some banter with the waiter who you know by name. And a new friend being explained nicknames and in-jokes.
The “questionable performance doesn’t ruin the experience” piece feels really important to me.
Our broader friend group united under Overwatch back in 2016 but it fell apart fairly quickly because it broke the above rule.