St. Patrick’s Day Special: Top 10 Games To Drink To

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day we thought we would put together a list of games that are either incredibly fun to play while drinking or turn into an outright drinking game.  We’ve numbered this list, because that’s what you do with list, plus we know we won’t be able to count to ten by the end of the day anyway and thought we should make use of our mental faculty while we can.  Admittedly, numbering the top five was exceedingly difficult, but without further ado, lets start with number ten:

Bowling is something you do while drinking anyway, and lets face it, if the country club hadn’t kicked you out after “the incident,” tennis and golf would be too. Wii Sports is a natural fit with drinking, just remember you’re not on an actual tennis court and try to not smack your friend upside the head while swinging for the ball. Or do just that, we really don’t care, just don’t spill the beer.

Super Mario Brothers is really the only single-player game to make the list, but the classic is just so much fun at a small get together how could we not include it.  (And yes, I know two people can technically play, but it’s not a true multiplayer)  Drinking game possibilities abound as well in this one, every time you die, every time you get a mushroom, every time that damn princess is in another castle…

It may seem an odd fit, but GTA IV makes it on the list for good reason.  If you thinking driving is difficult when you are drunk in the game, try being drunk in the game while drunk in real life.  You might as well just lay down on the street in a pool of your own blood now because you are going through that windshield.  Whether just trading off the controller or playing online with friends, the game can be an absolute blast after a few drinks.  Again the game offers plenty of opportunities to bring on the drinks as well with what on paper sounds like some of the most disturbing drinking games on the list, such as a drink for every pedestrian you run over. Get creative.

This classic for the N64, honestly hasn’t aged all that well, but that almost adds to the fun.  The controls are kind of difficult to master after years of COD and Halo, and the fighting is bound to be erratic and wild.  The amazing variety of game types also adds plenty of opportunities for drinking games; one-shot kills in golden gun just says drink doesn’t it?

We don’t mean the most recent version, although we’re sure it is fun; nothing compares to the SNES version of this classic basketball arcade game.  The drinking possibilities are endless, whether just having everyone take a drink with each score or shots for whenever the other player sinks an “on fire” shot, NBA Jam is fun and easy to play; making it a perfect game for when you start to loose those finer motor controls.

I have to recommend the N64 versions of this game, in particular Mario Party 2 and 3.  The mini games offer countless ways to turn it into a drinking game, and you can have even more fun by taking as many drinks as numbers you roll on the die and throwing in shots for when you get a star and so on.  Mario Party is also another game though that no drinking game needs to be implemented, as it can also just be a fun time to play with friends while already having a few beers.

I personally suggest either Rock Band 3 or if your friends are fans The Beatles Rock Band for this one.  This is another game where you could turn it into a drinking game, but really it is just fun to get anywhere from one to a dozen friends together and jam on some plastic instruments.  Pro tip: all that strumming can interrupt your drinking for several minutes at a time, to solve this issue consider investing in “beer-helmets” for the drummer, guitar and bass players.  Hands free drinking means uninterrupted strumming and drinking at the same time.  Thank me later.

This one is an outright drinking game, and best played on the N64 version of the game.  You and three friends set the life count to whatever number you want, but I recommend 10.  With each knock out you take a shot, and continue till there is only one person standing.  If you want to be extra mean, the first person out takes four shots, the 2^nd three shots and so on.  Dangerous if mixed with tequila, but a damn good time when played with a schnapps or something more manageable.

The 2^nd Harmonix offering to make our list and the newest title as well, Dance Central was so obviously meant to be played while drinking that we are honestly amazed that the game didn’t come with a six-pack or at least a beer cozy.  Drinking and dancing go together like St. Patrick’s Day and bad decisions.  Embrace your drunkenness and dance like your Xbox isn’t watching.

I once had a roommate try to get some girls back to our house after the bar by proudly mentioning that we could play some Mario Kart; sadly that didn’t work but the game is fun to play while intoxicated none-the-less.  Something about them Mario brothers makes us want to drink as Mario has made our list in some form a total of four times.  While any version works, I personally prefer Mario Kart 64 (Noticing a trend of N64 games and drinking on this list).  The act of getting drunk and playing Mario Kart is often referred to as “Drunk Driving” amongst my friends, and playing the classic arcade racer with three friends is just a good time.  It is incredibly easy to turn battle mode into a drinking game (drink when hit, shot when out, first one out has to take an extra shot, etc.), but the game is also just a lot of fun with a few beers and a few friends.

Honorable Mentions:

The following games were considered, but ultimately felt like they were lacking much of the same party aspect that the rest of the list did, and quite frankly were quite similar and uninspired.

Halo/Call of Duty

Several drinking games were suggested for both games, but pretty much everything revolved around taking a shot every time you died.  The main reasons we didn’t include these games is that for one, there are already way to many intoxicated people playing these games anyway, and two, being intoxicated doesn’t improve the game experience much (in fact your slower reaction times often just means more time spent waiting to spawn).  The most interesting suggestion in regards to Halo was to take a shot every time you got a head shot on a grunt, but we recommend that if you try that you either don’t aim for the head or just change that to drinks as we often averaged about 90 grunt headshots in a round of gruntpocalypse.

So there you have it!  Have fun, but most importantly remember to drink responsibly and remember the only good drunk driving is in Mario Kart (or GTA IV) so stay on the couch if you’ve had to many. Disagree with our list or have a game you prefer?  Let us know below!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from CBR!

The original artwork used for the post image was made by California artist Bob Dob.