I have a couple of friends that absolutely love having over when I play video games. I love them as an audience.
I played through the first Dead Space, which is a fantastic game, by myself, but then I played through it again, with an audience and it is still a great game. In fact, it is my opinion that the audience made it better.
I played Heavy Rain entirely in this manner, and the experience was harrowing, to say the least. There are times in that experience where I had to repeat difficult sections with an audience member screaming or gripping my arm. Overall, there was an additional level of tension not unlike performance anxiety.
But we all got through and my friends, who normally would never play video games, got to enjoy the storyline.
I’m thinking about starting up Uncharted with the same folks, as well as possibly Dead Space 2. I think it will be a good time.