Happy Mother’s Day! Video Games and Characters My Mom Likes

Last year around Father’s Day, I wrote a blog about all the video games my dad likes. So, in honor of Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, here’s a blog about the video games and characters my mom likes. Yes, some moms DO like to play video games, too!

Your Mom is in Another Castle

First of all, my mom does actually have a favorite video game character. It’s Princess Peach! She doesn’t really play platformers or other Mario titles, but every time she sees a Mario game that has Peach in it, she all like, “Aw, it’s the Princess!” I think she may even idolize Peach just a little bit. Yeah, if you want to know where I got my craziness from, I can bet it was from my mom! If I can find one, I should get her a toy of Princess Peach one of these days.

Frogger

Back in the early 80’s, when I was little and we’d go to an arcade as a family, each one of us had our own favorite game that we’d always camp out at. Upon entering an arcade, I would zip on over to the Pac-Man machines, my dad would make a bee line for Centipede, and my mom would hop on over to the Frogger cabinet. I don’t think she would have any interest in the more recent Frogger updates and remakes, but I do remember her liking the old game in the 80’s.

Dr. Mario

I think this was the first NES game I convinced my mom to play. And she LOVED it! I think we only rented the NES version a couple of times, but when Tetris & Dr. Mario came out on the SNES, I made sure to buy it and that’s what she played the most. Plus, we could play it together since it had my favorite puzzle game on it, too (Tetris). Since then, I’ve made sure to have a version of Dr. Mario on whatever generation Nintendo console we had, like Dr. Mario 64 or on WiiWare, so my mom could get her fix whenever she was around. And the GBA NES classic Dr. Mario cartridge has been in her GBA DS slot since I got it!

Speaking of the DS, when that first came out, I bought my mom one of the original fat handhelds for her birthday or Mother’s Day (can’t remember), and I swear she has played that thing more than I play my DS! Lately she’s noticed how many DSiWare games I’ve been reviewing and she wanted some for hers, but I told her that only the DSi can download those games. So now she wanted a DSi. So, for an early Mother’s Day present, I found a pink DSi on sale right before the XL came out, and I bought her one along with a few DSiWare games. And one of those was Dr. Mario Express!

Zoo Keeper

No, this isn’t the awesome early 80’s arcade game from Taito. Instead, it’s a DS puzzle game that’s just like Bejeweled, but with animal heads instead of gems. I bought it for her when I first got her original DS, and I swear she’s played that more than any other game I’ve gotten her. Even Dr. Mario! She even plays it on her new pink DSi, and really appreciates the bigger and brighter screens!

Bejeweled Twist

This was one of the DSiWare games I put on her new pink DSi. I figured she might enjoy it since she plays Zoo Keeper so much, but she still likes Zoo Keeper better! Even though the DSiWare version of Bejeweled Twist is just a scaled back version of the cartridge game, I figured she would still be happy with the downloadable version and it would have all she would need.

Book Worm

Back when the GBA was big, I got this game and she enjoyed playing it, so I downloaded Book Worm on her pink DSi as well. I think out of all the DSiWare games I got for her, she plays this one the most. And I like it, too, as I enjoy good word puzzle games like Scrabble or Scattegories. She’ll sometimes ask for my help when she’s about to lose!

5 in 1 Solitaire

When I reviewed this one on WiiWare a while back, my mom enjoyed it so much that I put the DSiWare version on her pink DSi. So now she can enjoy it on the go as well. I wonder if I should get her Nintendo’s Club House Games?

Diner Dash

Last year, when I went to PAX, I took my mom and brother Jeff along so they could see Seattle. At PAX, she took a liking to the Xbox LIVE version of Diner Dash. So, just for her, I waited in line to demo the game so I could get a free Diner Dash apron for her. She still has it hanging up in her kitchen today! I got her a version of Diner Dash for her DS, but it’s kind of hard to play on the small screen. I need to get her to play Diner Dash 5: Boom! on the PC, which I reviewed a while back. I wonder if I’ll be able to find any good presents for my mom when I got to PAX in Seattle again this year?

Fast Food Panic

This DS title is a cross between Cooking Mama and Diner Dash. So, after I reviewed it, my mom kind of confiscated it for herself! She likes it pretty well. What’s strange is that even though I can get her to play this, she’s never been interested in the Cooking Mama games. In fact, I don’t even think she would like them! Every time I bring a new Cooking Mama game home, she always groans, “Oh no, not more ‘Even better than Mama!’” I don’t think she likes Cooking Mama’s voice! I think it’s hilarious!

Recently, Nintendo released some casual DS games in time for Mother’s Day. But I don’t think I’ll get them for my mom. One is a sequel to Personal Trainer: Cooking called America’s Test Kitchen. They’re just interactive cookbooks on the DS, but my mom already knows how to cook very well, and she could probably teach those games a thing or two! Another one that just came out is Picross 3-D. I downloaded a demo of that for my mom to try, but she didn’t like it. I think I’ll still get it for myself, though, as I enjoyed the original DS game and the new one’s only 20 bucks.

Tropix

This is just a collection of casual puzzle games, and I think it used to be a cell phone game, too. I put it on here because it’s one of the few DS titles that was able to tear my mom away from Zoo Keeper for a length of time. Since my mom likes puzzle games, sometimes I can get her to play some of my favorite puzzlers, like Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. Only problem is she gets mad if I beat her too quickly at that game, and she always picks Morrigan! Yuck!

Animal Crossing

When the GameCube original came out, I think my mom dabbled with it for a little bit. But it was the Wii City Folk game that she REALLY got into. My mom even learned how to turn on the Wii all by herself so she could play Animal Crossing without my help when I wasn’t around! That’s a big deal! I daresay that she might’ve gotten a little bit addicted to it! Both me and her were SO mad when, about 9 months later, our save file for that game got corrupted and we couldn’t play it anymore! All that hard work…gone, and neither one of us wanted to start a new town! I’ve been hemming and hawing and debating if she’d like the DS Wild World version. At any rate, I’d have to say that Animal Crossing is one of Nintendo’s best ‘new’ properties.

Grandmother Gamer

I can’t wrap up my Mother’s Day blog without taking about my grandmother! She’s a mom, too, of course, and she also likes to play games! She plays a lot of solitaire and puzzle games on her computer just like any other casual gamer. But what’s surprising is she also likes to play Deer Hunter games!

Back when I was reviewing games for The Dallas Morning News, it was the mid to late 90’s and that’s when those Deer Hunter games became popular. My editor gave all of those kinds of games to me to review for some reason. I got so many of them that I finally had to tell my editor, “No more deer hunter games!” And you know it’s unusual for me to say ‘no’ to a game review opportunity!

Anyway, when I was done reviewing those games, I would let my grandmother and other relatives from Alabama try them. My grandmother LOVED them and she was really good at them, too! Her favorite was a 3-D sequel to the original Deer Hunter, and she had the highest score out of everyone in that game. She even made up special rules to challenge herself, like she would never shoot does, only bucks. One time she told me that she wished she didn’t have to shoot the deer with a gun in the game. She said she’d rather be able to just take a picture of them with a camera. I think her gameplay idea was pretty good, don’t you? At any rate, she has a new computer now and it probably can’t run those old games, but she still talks about those Deer Hunter titles to this day!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Well, I hope you all liked my Mother’s Day blog. And if your mom has already passed away or if you never really had a mom in your life, then I apologize if my blog brought up any bad memories. But if your mom is still around, do be sure and do something special for her on Mother’s Day. (I bought my mom a case for her new pink DSi and it has Hello Kitty on it. She loves Hello Kitty.) Same goes for any other lady in your life who is a mom or a motherly figure, like your wife, sister, aunt, or other friends. Let them know how special they are. In the comments section, if your mom likes video games, let me know what kinds she likes and what her favorite video game characters are, too! –Cary

No Responses to “Happy Mother’s Day! Video Games and Characters My Mom Likes”

  1. Cary, some of those hunting games can be found on the web – can’t vouch for quality. But I do know that some of the series are still going on with modern versions. Can’t say which, but I bet there’s a modern Deer Hunter or Cabala PC game available somewhere.

    Also, didn’t Nintendo come up with a hunting game where you shot photos of Pokemon? Oh, also Dead Rising lets you take pictures of zombies – but that’s not quite the same thing, huh?

  2. I’ve helped my grandmother try some of the newer Deer Hunter games. She says she likes the old ones better. Go fig.

    Yeah, the Pokemon camera game was called Pokemon Snap. But I really can’t imagine my grandmother playing a game about Pokemon or zombies. 🙂 –Cary

  3. Afrika for the PS3 lets you take pictures of animals in Africa. She might be interested in that.

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