When I got married, I made a decision to whole-heartedly commit my life, talents, and time to another individual. This means if my wife wants to talk to me, I stop what I'm doing and listen -- and hopefully respond back with an intelligent reply.

But how does one do this and have time to conquer multiplayer in Uncharted 2?

Luckily for me, my wife Janet is both hot and awesome (only two of the multitude of reasons why I married her), and she has approached my hobby with an open mind. Little did I know that, by strategically introducing her to games, she would become a gamer in her own right. And I've found that she really can serve as a great judge of quality -- a great dissector of the wheat from the chaff.

I should point out that I knew my wife enjoyed playing games long before I came around, specifically board and card games. Early in our marriage we were fortunate enough to discover the Settlers of Catan, a board game known for its strategy and subtle economy. My wife took to the game effortlessly, easily becoming an evil baroness of Catan, crippling all of her competition (our friends), and cruelly culling my sheep production. (She also can hand me my ass in Scrabble. She's just good like that.)

It wasn't a hard sell for me to introduce Janet to the digital version of Catan on the PlayStation Network.  We downloaded it for $10, and Janet began to cripple online competition in similar fashion. This was my first success in introducing her to console gaming -- something that I tried before with the PSN version of Jeopardy! (which sucked not only my $15 but also balls. I think we played that game maybe twice before we had to put it down faster than Old Yeller).

From this initial success, I introduced her to something that we could play together: PixelJunk Monsters. This seemingly simple tower defense game suddenly dominated our evenings. Janet's sheer enthusiasm was a bit unsettling for me. I would come home from work and the first thing she would say to me was a one-word question: "Monsters?"

I found that I could no longer simply come home and play a solo game because Janet was set on destroying the unending hoards of cuteness with upgraded defense towers. My days of getting owned in Uncharted 2 online came to an abrupt end.

I think that Janet could have played Monsters until the apocalypse. We still haven't beaten it, but I think we will give it a try again. Though I think I might have to enforce some restrictions for my own sanity.

With Monsters under her belt, I thought it might be a good time to showcase the crack of all strategy games: Civilization.

It was funny to see her play and to hear her compliments and complaints, She would get so angry at the cheap tactics of the other civilizations she was competing against. And she'd complain that the combat system for the game (Civ 4 is the version we have at home) was broken and that it was not fun for her to engage in warfare.

Now, we experienced Civ players all know that you don't necessarily play Civ 1-Civ 4 for the combat. It has never been the most riveting aspect of the game. (I haven't yet delved into the redesigned combat of Civ 5, so I don't know if it's better.) Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that "stacks of doom" and 10-minute turns are par for the course when it comes to Civ.

For my wife, as soon as things got more complicated in the industrial age, I could tell she was losing interest and patience.. Her strategy devolved to avoiding combat at all cost. To this day, I don't know if she has ever fully completed a whole match of Civilization. When she gets to the frustration point, she often quits and just jumps into a new game -- rinse and repeat. I'm pondering buying Civilization Revolution, the console adaptation which might be a little less time-consuming and testing for her patience.

Janet had a similar experience with Heavy Rain. She really enjoyed the investigation and malleable narrative aspects of the game, but she hated the combat sequences that involved intense concentration and timing. As soon as a character had to get in a fight she would throw me the controller. (Apparently it's a man's job to squish bugs, mow the lawn, and defeat digital foes for the woman he loves.)

Watching my wife play video games gave me a fresh perspective -- it allowed me to "see" these games for the first time. For instance: Why do we put up with some of the tropes of gaming that honestly aren't that fun? Why do I have to grind so hard to get extra strength and more abilities? Why do I have to suffer through a 30-minute turn in Civilization?

For example, I recently downloaded the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow demo. I played the demo and thought to myself, "Man, this is amazing!"  But once I showed it to Janet, I saw at once how heavy-handed Patrick Stewart's narration was and how simple the game looked. “Nothing to see here, people! Just a dude busting up some lycanthropes, no big deal!”

Perhaps it wasn't as epic as I thought. I was honestly embarrassed that I thought so much of it. Janet sat watching as I played, but I knew that it wasn't as compelling to her as some other games she had encountered, like Heavy Rain or Civilization.

This is not to say that a game's merit is based on whether or not my wife appreciates or likes it. (I'll probably get to the Castlevania game eventually, but it definitely made me reconsider whether it was worth $60 right now.) But a 6.5 in Game Informer or a five-star review from Joystiq means less to me nowadays than my wife's opinion.

I think we've become so steeped in gaming culture that we forget that the entire point of this hobby is to have fun -- something that a fresh pair of eyes, unjaded by the gaming forums and reviews, easily recognizes. I mean, honestly, how many of us have bought the five-star platinum uber-game, only to put it in and be disappointed? (I'm looking at you, Red Dead Redemption!)

We want so badly to be in the "in" crowd when it comes to these games that we run the danger of forgetting why we play games in the first place. And that, in my opinion, should not be happening.