Nintendo’s Wii revolutionized how games are played. Its motion-sensitive controller put players in the front row, waggling a stick around like an uncooked lump of salami, looking foolish and playing subpar video games for kitsch—and therefore temporary—value.
Anyway, since you can lob that white stick around and play tennis n’ stuff, Nintendo made the next logical step: Beer Pong.
Right? That’s what you were thinking too, right?
Naturally, Nintendo’s Beer Pong came under intense scrutiny from tight-assed politicians and anti-booze advocacy groups all over the place. They changed the name from Beer Pong to Pong Toss, because that makes a boatload of difference.
In an unintentionally hilarious example of bad journalism, CBS Channel 4 out of Columbus, Ohio, posts this wonderful headline: Video Game Under Scrutiny For Resemblance To Beer Pong. Uh, it’s not a resemblance, idiots; the game was called Beer Pong. It is Beer Pong. Pay attention. Furthermore, the first 3.5 paragraphs of the article have nothing to do with the videogame.
Aside from being a Wii game, there is one huge problem with Pong Toss. First, the joy of Beer Pong is … wait for it … drinking beer. Playing the same game on a television screen using a videogame console? Not as fun. I suppose you could drink the beer sitting next to you upon scoring a shot and thereby avoid the messiness inherent in tossing objects into full glasses of liquid, but doesn’t that remove most if not all of the fun? I can’t imagine hitting up a kegger only to be greeted with a 52″ HDTV connected to a Wii, surrounded by hairy apes saying, “Pick up a controller; let’s play some Beer Pong!” I’d leave. Immediately. Because that’s dorky.
Despite the hullabaloo, it appears Pong Toss will still be published and sold. I eagerly anticipate its sales numbers. In fact, I want access to databases showing exactly whom buys this game. I want to talk to each and every single buyer of this game and explain to them that college is over and it’s time to get a job.
A double dose of the upcoming releases, covering this week and last! What to look out for this (two week period)!
* The Orange Box is a compilation of 5 games, including Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes One and Two (each of which are seperate games from the original Half-Life 2), Team Fortress 2, and Portal. All of these games are of the utmost quality, and this is one hell of a deal for FPS fans. The Half-Life series’s narrative campaign sees three installments here, but Episode Two is the main draw, as it is the newest, and the versions of the other two games are re-releases.
Team Fortress 2 is a team-based multiplayer-only killfest where players choose from one of nine character classes to join the fray as, and has been getting rave reviews. Capping the collection off is Portal, an intriguing puzzle game played from the first person perspective using a gun-like device that can create wormholes. The player navigates three-dimensional puzzles by designating entrances and exits to these wormholes, and using them as insta-warps to transport himself to places otherwise unreachable. Quite hard to explain; it is best if it is seen in motion.
* Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is an interesting melding of a typical fantasy roleplaying game quest with a puzzle game in the vein of Bejeweled. The puzzles serve as the means of battling enemies that appear in the quest, and as you go along, your character gains experience, gold, and spells and abilities to influence the outcome of the puzzle battles along the way.
* Playstation 3 RPG fans will want to check out Folklore, and PSP owners will finally get their hands on the long-awaited remake of 1997’s strategy masterpiece Final Fantasy Tactics, which sports an all-new and surprisingly archaic period-English translation, along with stylish animated cutscenes.
* Are you a fan of early ’90s Neo-Geo 2D Fighters? Well, the place to be this week is on the Wii’s Virtual Console, which sees Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and World Heroes all in one place, and for much less than the hundreds of dollars the home verstions of those games used to cost!
Full list of games for each console after the jump. MORE »
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