Beer Pong Video Game Taps Teen Market

There are certain phrases that should be bookended by inverted commas, "Professional Psychic" being one of them. We'd previously thought "Beer Pong Industry", was another, until we ran afoul of one of the makers of a portable Beer Pong table, a slapped-together contrivance we took great delight in mocking until they gave us a stern reprimand. Don't be fooled by their insouciance, as much like the Freemasons, they mean business.

Beer pong, for the uninitiated, un-phased by all the innuendo-laden pics we've posted here, is like billiards if you had to drink a cup of beer every time your opponent sunk a shot, and risked sending pavement pizza all over the felt, and frankly, completely marring the game's inherent gentility (Snooker, that is, not 9-ball, where in less reputable taverns, someone sporting an eye-patch and a denim vest will hustle you out of a week's pay)

Played on a table tennis-like surface with plastic cups, Beer Pong involves sinking a plastic ball into one of your opponents' cups, forcing them to remove the cup from the table after the contents are consumed (typically mass-produced swill that Belgians wouldn't serve to their alcoholic dogs, but any beverage of your choice will do).

The first team that rids the other of their cups, as they get increasingly into them, is the winner, if by 'winner' you mean the team that doesn't immediately strip down to their skivvies, put their head through a glass door or otherwise make their parents resent forking over hard-earned mutual fund dollars so no-goodnick fruits of their loins could get the 'whole college experience'.

JV Games of Las Vegas, like the makers of Grand Theft Auto [click here] have stirred up a giant goulash soup of controversy with their new Beer Pong game for the Nintendo Wii (a game console that allows you to mimic popular sports, without having to go outdoors or have any discernible skill).

After objections from various state law-makers to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, JV Games has had to alter the name of the yet-to-be-released game, Beer Pong, (rated suitable for post tween future booze-hounds), to Pong Toss and is eliminating all references to alcohol, except for, it should be noted, 'Toss', or, for that matter 'Pong'.
Now, we can see the entire beer pong industry quaking in their soiled boots, as instead of drunken participants having to track down a custom table with a bikini-clad woman on it resembling the woman here (everything IS indeed bigger in Texas) for over $200, they can just play virtually, without having to clean up any spills that aren't internally generated.

For anyone who is interested in pursuing this further, the good folks at 'Webtender' have a handy list of Drinking Games (and are not responsible for any related stomach pumpings), which they'll no doubt update once Pong Toss takes the gaming and heavy college drinking worlds by storm.

Of course, detractors of the Grand Theft Auto series will tell you that while the video game is fun and all, nothing can compare with the thrill of actually staging a carjacking or committing vehicular homicide, and the same is no doubt true with Beer Pong, or Flip Cup as it's known to the guys staging the largest tournament of its kind ever in the US in October.

The Flip Cup Guys contacted us about the event, which will take place on October 11, 2008 at the M1-5 Bar and Lounge in New York City and will feature 64 six-player teams and, presumably, an army of mops at the ready. That they also mention "open beer bar specials" means that there is a possibility of a Shark Guy showing up.

Check it out and get yourself registered early at: www.FlipCupGuys.com!

Drink & Drive Your Way Through Grand Theft Auto!

Researching our book, we chronicled four separate, er, pastoral DUI incidences in which suspects slowly trundled away from authorities on lawn mowers or tractors at speeds that wouldn't test the warranty fine-print of even the cheapest, Chinese-made pacemakers. Most recently, a Michigan man with a bellyful of wine braved a snowstorm on his John Deere, and was busted en route to a nearby store.

Today's focus though, is on a related scourge afflicting rural and urban culture alike-- violent video games, in particular the popular series Grand Theft Auto.

Since youth culture emerged like so much acne, many a finger has been pointed at everything from the bikini and drag racing, to the broad chest of the guy who kicks sand in your face at the beach, and lately Facebook as the cause of whatever prevailing social ill. Now, the very latest calamity befalling youth culture appears to be the deviant, action adventure, role-playing game.
[Editor's Note: We acknowledge, given the age of a typical gamer is somewhere in the early 30s-- many of the same demographic having recently hung up their skateboards due to chronic lower back problems-- the term 'youth' might be a bit of a misnomer.]

The latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto video game series has many critics wondering how many more banana peels line that already slippery slope toward social upheaval.

Its maker, Rockstar Games---rather than showing greater social awareness and allowing users to jack up more green-friendly modes of transport like diesel buses or perhaps a bicycle---is instead allowing gamers to engage in, well, degenerate 'rock star'-like shenanigans. These include driving drunk, going to a strip club, flying a helicopter and fleeing from the cops--in short, recreating Motley Crue's 1987 world tour, ideally, during the course of one game.

According to Canadian Press, one of the game's characters, an Eastern European thug named 'Niko Bellic', has already become an icon to millions of viewers who've watched official trailers over 40 million times online. As Bellic, you can engage in a relatively benign mission, such as whacking a rival laid up in hospital, in addition to the usual fair: killing innocent bystanders, cops, hookers, etc as a latter-day couch-bound, cheese-doodle noshing Travis Bickle. The game, available for the first time on both Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, also contains 'sex secret scenes', which aren't too secret anymore (Sorry).

Rockstar's vice president notes, rather un-ironically: "We felt we owed it to the [fans] to have a game that was really amazing and really pushed the limit. It would've been foolish to rush something out and disrespectful to the audience."