Play it plowed

ROBERT BRICKEN — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 19:35:44 GMT

The ten best videogames to play when drunk
The bar is closed, your friends are unconscious, but you still need a drink — and to be entertained. Movies are too passive; talking is too stupid. The only solution: drunk video gaming.

The bar is closed, your friends are unconscious, but you still need a drink — and to be entertained. Movies are too passive; talking is too stupid. The only solution: drunk video gaming.

Oh, don’t act surprised. Like everything else, booze makes video games better — games can keep you occupied while you chug, you can play with your drinking buddies or by yourself, and games don’t require you to dig through your closet for dice or cards. Here’s 10 of the best games, both current and obnoxiously old, to play with a controller in one hand and a bottle of Cutty Sark in the other.

Guitar Hero
When sloshed, we all inherently believe that — given a guitar and maybe a quick lesson or two — we could be rock stars. Red Octane’s indescribably awesome guitar-video provides the same thing via a guitar shaped controller that lets you hit frets and strum along to songs like “Ziggy Stardust,” the Donnas’ “Take It Off,” “Iron Man” and dozens more. Combine the two (drink and Guitar Hero) and you’re in for a night of inebriated magic. Either alone or with fellow drinkers, drunk Guitar Hero is so much fun that even the tightest drunks will wait patiently for their turn to shred “Ace of Spades.”

Remember, real rock stars are all performing wasted anyways, so boozing should have been a Guitar Hero requirement anyway — plus, a nice buzz makes it hurt less when you try to strum the plastic controller with your teeth. If playing solo doesn’t meet your party needs, two controllers lets two drunkards rock dueling guitars, but look for Guitar Hero II this fall, where the back-up performer can play bass. Remember, a good host let guests choose their instruments — but ladies will choose the guitarist over the bassist every time. (PS2)

Mario Kart
Forget everything that the D.A.R.E. officer told you in fourth grade. Drunk driving is great — assuming you’re an Italian plumber holding a turtle shell of mass destruction, that is. Few boozy experiences can match the pure glory of drunken Nintendo’s Mario Kart: wandering on and off the wacky, trap-laden tracks; firing turtle shells at opponents to stall their karts or collecting stars to become temporarily invincible (it’s a Mario thing); or racing against Nintendo stalwarts Luigi, Toad, and Yoshi. The glory is that Kart works whether racing equally tight friends or battling the bastard/cheating computer opponents. And it makes for a keen drinking game — players take a drink for every place behind first they get (note that losers often stay losers, especially if the drink is whiskey). Hunt down the Nintendo 64 version instead of the more recent GameCube Mario Kart Double Dash for an exponentially better game. (Nintendo 64, GameCube)

Otaku you

ROBERT BRICKEN — Fri, 26 May 2006 13:41:28 GMT

The Five Japanese anime you should be watching now — and the five you will be watching in the future
In the 1980s, while Americans were worrying about losing dominance in the automobile industry, Japan was taking over the animation business.

In the 1980s, while Americans were worrying about losing dominance in the automobile industry, Japan was taking over the animation business. Now, 60 percent of the world’s animation is made in Japan, where it’s a $20 billion industry. The good news is that anime is almost uniformly better than the cartoons you grew up with in the ’80s; and since the Japanese never decided cartoons were just for kids, they’ve made plenty of animation that’s worth your while as a bitter adult. Here are ten of the best anime out there: five you can watch now, five you’ll have to hop a flight to japan to see (at least for now).

Five to watch now

Naruto	If you haven’t heard of Naruto, add the word “yet.” This tale of ninjas in training has the potential to hit Pokemon-big soon, so expect kids to start pelting you with imaginary throwing stars any time now. Screw-up Naruto, sullen Sasuke, and spunky Sakura try to climb the ninja ranks, and end up facing countless bad guys, resulting in awesome ninja fights with crazy powers. Naruto is everything you wished your ’80s action cartoons had been: the characters are basic but endearing, moral lessons are learned, and people literally get riddled with throwing stars. It airs Saturdays on Cartoon Network’s Toonami programming block.
Fullmetal Alchemist	Fullmetal Alchemist is one of those anime that is both metaphor-filled masterpiece and massively entertaining; you’re unlikely to find a better cartoon on the air. Two brothers, Ed and Al Elric, try to resurrect their dead mother with forbidden alchemy. Ed loses an arm and a leg, and Al loses his entire body, but Ed manages to bind Al’s soul to a giant suit of armor. The two set out through an awfully familiar fantasy world to find a way to return their bodies to normal. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and full of plenty of modern political allegory, Fullmetal Alchemist airs Saturdays on Adult Swim.
Samurai 7	If the idea of Akira Kurosawa’s seven samurai fighting giant robots doesn’t pique your interest, seek medical attention. The rest of you: turn to the Independent Film Channel to watch seven re-imagined samurai re-enact scenes and dialogue from the 1954 masterpiece in a sci-fi setting while slashing through hundreds of the giant mecha “bandits” that threaten a pathetic farming village. It’s got all the drama and commentary on class relations of the original, plus a robot Kikuchiyo.
Zatch Bell	At first glance, Zatch Bell looks to be a normal kids’ cartoon. Then it slowly s tarts to dawn on you: is that small boy wearing a dress? He is. Zatch is a mamodo (a kid-friendly term for a demon) who, along with 99 other mamodo, has been sent to Earth to fight; the last mamodo standing will be named king. The catch is that the mamodo need a human to read a spell book to activate their powers, and Zatch is stuck with surly, super-smart Kiyo. So there’s lots of fighting, learning about friendship, and pure Japanese weirdness: Kiyo’s would-be girlfriend is quite mad; Zatch is mercilessly beaten by small girls; and, in the Japanese original, the dress-wearing Zatch sports no underpants. Thankfully, it’s edited for Saturdays on Toonami.
Chrono Crusade	In the roaring ’30s, a nun and a good-hearted demon fight the minions of Satan in New York. It’s one of those plots only the Japanese seem able to realize to full effect (and without cracking up). Plus, it’s worth watching for the peculiarly foreign view of both US history and Catholicism, for nun Rosette not only packs plenty of heat, but also has a special risqué nun habit to aid in her demon slaying. And there’s a wee mite of poignancy: the devil has kidnapped her brother, and Chrono, the kind demon, is inadvertently stealing Rosette’s life as they fight against evil. Watch ’em on Showtime Beyond on Fridays.

Five to watch in the future
These anime are not available in the US at this time (and if you try to buy them online, you’ll get either bootlegs or region 2 DVDs, which won’t play on your standard Yankee DVD player). Just read this as a warning to get ready for them.