180: One Button, One Scotch, One Beer

[L.B. Jeffries]

One Button, One Scotch, One Beer

Alcohol and electronic entertainment go hand in hand - as long as the games are simple enough for a 3-year-old to play. L.B. Jeffries examines what makes a successful videogame for drunk people.

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[KrossZer0]

What's not a good drunk game? Street Fighter II. My roommate and I tried that once. It amounted to about 30 minutes of me attacking nothing while crouched in the corner on the far left side of the screen while my roommate struggled to plug in his controller.

Also, there was much shouting about the thickness of Chun-Li's thighs...

 

[Droshi]

I tried to play GTAIV while drunk a couple of days ago. Keep in mind, I was very well smashed.

It was hard as anything. I totalled a car every minute. Some really brutal crashes, haha.

That being said, I don't own that game. I have noticed that a game's simplicity doesn't matter for me when I drink. If I am used to playing the game (example: San Andreas, Mario 64, Halo) in such a way that I don't have to think about what button does what, or it all feels natural from how used to it I am, I have no problems playing it while drunk. I once got 30 stars on Mario in one sitting while properly sloshed.

 

[DangerChimp]

I think Gears of War 2 is a bit like pool -- you play better when you've had a couple drinks, but if you have one too many, you cross over from loose and flowing play into messy inaccuracy.

I love having a bit of scotch when I game, but you have to know the limit.

 

[Dom Camus]

Perfect drunk party game: the gliding mini-game from Super Monkey Ball II. Chances are most if not all of the monkeys will end up in the water, which keeps the spectators amused and motivates them to try and do better themselves. They won't, but by that time the first set of players will have unlikely new theories concerning how to make the perfect landing and will be ready for another try. (Splosh!)

 

[dcheppy]

What would make a good video game for drinking. The same things that make drinking games fun. Stupid insane rules that usually involve the loser drinking, a slightly competitive nature, an emphasis on luck or over skill or if not luck skills you would never use sober, rounds are short and people drink often. Either that or karaoke and trivia which are just bar games ported to a console.

There is nothing stupider than playing guitar hero drunk(although popular at parties). If you've ever played it sober than the decline in skills is beyond frustrating. Songs last 3 minutes or longer. In fact, since most of us play games sober, playing any game drunk does not translate well. A collection of mini-games would work if the only time you played it was when drinking, and employed a loser drinks type of situation.

 

[PopSchiller]

...there's always the Beer Pong game on the Wii, right? I mean, if you're not actually in a place big enough to house an actual beer pong table.

While Guitar Hero drunk is awful, Rock Band is, however, amazing. You don't realize what a difference having a vocalist makes in that game until you've got a buddy drawling Don't Fear the Reaper three bars behind the actual song. Usually, when we get to that point, we don't care all that much about accuracy, and just want a good reason to make ourselves and others look like idiots for an hour.

 

[ironfist86]

RBI Baseball for Nintendo. When you are playing against someone sober who knows how to play, the game becomes 9 innings of strikeouts (the wicked curveball across the plate trick), but when you are tore up, it becomes the slugfest it is meant to be! (and for some reason, the fat outfielders that all run in unison are amazing haha)

 

[dungeonmaster]

I guess Im strange but a few drinks improves my performance, I usually like a few drinks before healing an instance in WOW or playing a few rounds of Counterstrike.
Maybe Im just an alcoholic XD

 

[KungFuMaster]

Big Buckhunter Pro...it's like that girl I dated in '99...great fun, but I was too embarrassed to admit anything during the day. And before you start the hate, we stayed friends. She's married to one of my old supervisors and they have two kids.

 

[mbvmgb]

I guess Im strange but a few drinks improves my performance, I usually like a few drinks before healing an instance in WOW or playing a few rounds of Counterstrike.
Maybe Im just an alcoholic XD

I agree. There's a fine line (a REALLY fine line) but I play primarily twitch-shooters (Q3A and TF2) and a bit of alcohol tends to smooth out my movements and aiming. My best guess is that somehow the alcohol balances out the adrenaline, and even though neither are good for fine motor skills, slower and smoother is better than faster and jittery.

Also, bad medics in tf2 suck more than anything else in the game. If you're drunk, you should be playing something that doesn't actually require aiming or timing like pyro or engineer.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Mario Party and its ilk are the perfect games to play while drinking/drunk, all that mad button tapping and flailing can lead to some brilliantly hilarious moments of failure.

 

[mattaui]

Playing games while drinking does lead to some interesting discussions. First, the very notion of just what drinking is varies from person to person. To one guy, drinking just means he's sipping at a beer or two while he's running instances or shooting people in the face. To another, drinking is really the primary behavior, and the gaming is just secondary. The former situation happens all the time, and likely isn't even noticeable to the others participating, while the second perhaps occurs a bit less frequently and is impossible to ignore if you're trying to game with the drunkard.

I don't concern myself in the slightest with people who choose to get smashed and play a game with themselves, but I take serious exception if they're in a position to impact my enjoyment of a game and waste my time. Whether they're team-killing and being ineffectual in Counterstrke, or worse, part of a WoW raid that I'm in, what they're doing is more akin to the obnoxiousness of someone roaring drunk in public.

 

[Atomicmoo]

Grif Ball Halo 3, A friend invited me to a game of Grif Ball at the time I had no Ideal what it was. But the comments he made to the other team was funny as hell. Also Ironically anyone on his team would win. (We had a 5 person party going) And he kept sing, one line over and over of a song.

Best game drunk I would have to say is Rock band 2 period. I played the guitar totally smashed on expert, and still wonder why my friend can't play the bass very well... Also singing works good to smashed, some how I ended up on the floor with a broken bottle of Smirnoff's.

 

[Atomicmoo]

Did the WOW raiding thing drunk, it takes off the edge of everyone is a moron (Pissed me off so much). I never wiped the raid but I was laughing at the people who did.

 

[TheColdHeart]

I often find before a night out and friends come over the Wii gets powered up and something like Wii sports/party or Smash Bros is loaded up. Usually the game is turned into a drinking game of some variety with the loser/winner doing shots or something. And the longer you play the more competative and drunk you become.

Its a good way to play drinking games without the usual card games.

 

[Lustwane]

Mario Party and its ilk are the perfect games to play while drinking/drunk, all that mad button tapping and flailing can lead to some brilliantly hilarious moments of failure.

Have to second this one, as this game is a few A taps away from playing itself between mini games you have all sorts of downtime between mastrabatory shaking matches and dart throwing.

The down side? Taking 45 minuets to realize your still on the first turn practicing the first minigame you come across.

 

[Jumpman]

I really liked this article. its a unique perspective on a topic I'd never really given any thought to. kudos.

 

[GregoriusH]

I expected the comments section to be filled with a hundred enraged TF2 medics.

I mean... really... there's more to it than just vaguely pointing the gun at whatever team mate happens to be close enough.

 

[Alan Au]

1. I would have to go back and check my sources on this, but the topic came up at a party recently after a drunken round of WarioWare. It was revealed that a developer working on a similar party game (I want to say Microsoft, but again, I'd have to check) had purposely set out to do focus tests in Europe on how players would react after a few beers.

2. One of my fondest gaming memories is of hanging out for Thanksgiving up at a cabin near Mt. Shasta. The food was good, and none of us were particularly interested in watching college football while we burned off our Thanksgiving calories, but I had brought along a Dreamcast and Soul Calibur. I can confirm that Voldo is infinitely amusing when playing while drunk.

3. What ever happened to that quasi-controversial "beer pong" videogame?

4. Games have different ways of representing what happens when a character gets drunk. Some mess with your controls. Some mess with the display. Some mess with your mana/psi/energy (for better or worse). Also, don't drink the Dragon's Breath.

- Alan