Beer Pong - BPONG 2009 Edition: Fun for a while until you turn homicidal.

All right, I'm bad at real life beer pong.  It's an undeniable truth I've come to live with.  And the same things that frustrate me about the real life game also annoy me about this digital version, well-made as it is.

Beer Pong - BPONG 2009 Edition, by Publisher X, is not fun for me.  I mean, sure, it starts out that way, but twenty minutes into the game, you just want it to end already.  

Don't get me wrong.  The game is designed very well.  There is a single player and multiplayer mode, and the controls are good.  It's a simple game.  You start with a pyramid of cups, each filled with a certain amount of digital beer.  Your job is to toss ping-pong balls into the cups opposite you.  Your opponent does the same.  And each basket they make marks a cup you have to drink.

So it's important to pull ahead from the beginning, because the drunker you get, the harder the game is.

Of course you aren't really drinking with this one, but the "drunk effect" is simulated via a wobbly camera that actually is pretty frustrating (which is the point).

The environment is a nice touch, too.  The beer pong table is in the middle of a bar, and it looks pretty good.  If your ping-pong ball bounces off the table, though, it might bounce right through the 2D wrapping, totally ruining the illusion.  Whatever, it's an iPhone game, and perfection is not expected in the world of beer pong.

Throw balls by flicking your fingers upward, similar to a number of sports games.  This is actually pretty hard, and just when you have the hang of it, your drunkenness starts to mess with gameplay.

For a while it is simple, fun and easy.  Then, as the number of cups diminishes, it just gets hard, frustrating, and time consuming.  I swear, I had to play for a half hour on easy to get through one game the first time.  I know, that just means I suck, but I believe games should be fun regardless of your skill level.  And I was playing on easy.

Of course this was before the update.  Now there is an option to play with the original ten cups, six cups, or three cups.  That should make it a lot more bearable, time wise, but the game is still incredibly simplistic and repetitive (just like the real one).

The level selection basically makes your opponent either more or less skillful.  On easy, the computer was just about as bad as me.  I still lost, though.

A nice little touch is the voice of a girl saying mocking, inappropriate things whenever you miss.  She actually can get kind of annoying, but it's a good idea.  I wish I could change voices and choose my favorite sultry line delivery, but that's probably overkill for this kind of game.

The game is very well made and put together, but I dislike it for the same reasons I hate the real one.  If you like the real game, nab this one.  It's pretty cheap at $1.99...I'd say it's worth $.99.  All the cups are 3D animated, and there are camera moves and spins built in that are pretty to look at, so on a graphical level it offers a pretty cool immersive environment.

If I want to get drunk, though, I'll just shoot whiskey while my friends play the real beer pong.  We'll all end up in the same place, unsure of how we got there.

But Beer Pong - BPONG 2009 Edition HERE.