My wife + iPad + Plants Vs. Zombies = win

Getting my wife to play games is a daunting task. My general rule to peak her interest would be the cute factor in any game, and try to work my way from there. So when I saw the simplicity of the graphics in Plants Vs. Zombies, I thought it would be easy to persuade Heidi to play. But the iPhone version of the game proved to be too small for her, and she quickly lost interest.

Fast forward to last Saturday when the iPad just launched. I had to pick up some for work, and fiddled with one to try out. I uploaded a backup of my iPhone apps on it to test it out, including Plants Vs. Zombies. After handing it over to my wife nonchalantly, I left to do other tasks. When I returned, I was surprised to find her COMPLETELY ENGROSSED with Plants Vs. Zombies. She was tapping the screen like mad, placing her plants strategically, and taking out waves of zombies - all on her own, with no persuasion from me.

My wife: "Is this [iPad] yours? Do you get to keep this?"
Me: "No, it's the company's. I need to bring it back tomorrow."
Her: "Aww...can't you bring it to work on Tuesday?"
Me: "No. You know, this game IS on the PC. You can play it on your laptop."
Her: "But you have to use the mouse. I like the touch screen!"
Me: *sigh*

While it's a bit tiring to get her to play games, it's all worth it when she DOES get into one. Just her reaction to the pole-vaulting zombies hurdling over her Wall-nuts is so adorable.

I just hope it won't cost me an iPad to get her to play more games...