Drinking games are normally fun, hopefully creative games that involve you and your friends making each other consume alcohol as a way to get intoxicated.  The Drinking Game is neither fun, nor creative.  In fact, I’m not even sure that it can count as a game.  My roommate downloaded it off of Xbox Live’s Independent Game section a while ago.  We messed around with it for a bit and then tonight I took another look at it and played with an energy drink instead.

After pressing start and deciding how many people will play (2-16 are able), the game starts.  A slot machine will appear and the player who’s turn it is will press the “A” button, and spin the slots.  The three slots will then display some images, either fruit, one beer, two beers, or a German lady holding a lot of beers.  Fruit means nothing, one beer means you have to take one sip, two beers mean you have to take two sips, and the German lady means that everyone has to drink the combined total of that round, instead of just that player(and also counts as one sip).  The player drinks, and then passes the controller to the next player.  Repeat until everybody wins/loses.

The game will eventually achieve the goal of drinking games; you’ll be drunk by the end.  However, it takes quite a long time and is incredibly boring.  After ten turns of a four player game, I was still not halfway though my 16-ounce drink.  These turns were taken very quickly, too, as I found the game incredibly boring and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

Drinking games in general are very hit and miss with people.  It’s fun to drink and its fun to feel like you’re contributing in making your friends become less and less intelligent as the night goes on.  This game, however, offers no fun.  I would rather just enjoy my beer, drink it at a leisurely pace (faster than this game), and have a nice conversation with friends.  I would even rather play beer pong and try to show off at least some physical skill.  Pressing a button and the screen telling me how much to drink is not a game.  Hopefully, I’ll get around to creating one that will actually be fun.

The Drinking Game gets 2 out of 10, as it will accomplish the goal of making you drink alcohol.

I stumbled across Cocktail Paradise last Friday while looking for some good Indie games.  A game about mixing drinks?  Sounds right up my ally. After about two minutes of playing around with the free trial, I decided to buy it.  I hope that if you play it, you will be as delightfully surprised as I was.

Cocktail Paradise is less of a game and more of a book with some pictures that you can flip through on your TV.  However, for the price of one dollar (80 MS points), it is a very nice book.  The bulk of the game are the recipes for various cocktails, divided up into the categories of popular, pre-dinner, post dinner, and long drinks. You can simply scroll through the drinks until you see something that looks particularly good and then view the recipe.

The detailed page of each drink is where the game shines.  Large, high definition pictures make each drink look delicious and wish I could afford to make them.  The ingredients are clearly displayed on one side, while the directions on how to make the drink are on the other.  And if metric isn’t your thing, there is even an option in the menu to convert cl to oz.  In all, there are over 100 drinks that you can gawk at or learn how to create.

For the poor, cheap, or college students, there is an mode where you can enter in what ingredients you already have, and it will tell you what drinks include said ingredients.  Many of the drinks include top dollar alcohol or mixes, which I don’t always have the luxury of having, so this works out nicely.

The Drinking Games mode includes instructions for 20 drinking games, most of which seem fun and interesting.  While some I had heard of (Risk, I Have Never, a few others) many were new.  Indian Wrestling seemed by far the most fun/sadistic.  It includes pouring five shots of vodka and five shots of water, and having someone mix them up when the players are turned around.  Sounds like a fun time to me.

Cocktail Paradise is a great little Xbox 360 “Application.”  It has gorgeous pictures and gets me excited to start mixing drinks that myself and others can enjoy.  The recipes are accurate and the drinking games looks interesting.  For $1.00, you can’t go wrong with this one.

9/10

This game can actually be played with lots of fighting games!  I will most likely be playing it with BlazBlue, as it is my current favorite at the moment.

The rules are simple:
Matches are 2 out of 3.
Take a shot if you get beat by a Super move.
If someone wins 3 matches in a row, they choose who takes a shot.