Most people that have gone out to a bar or sports bar have probably seen them. They're those weird little blue things with all the buttons and weird fandoogles. Plus they got the cool 1980's style green screen. They're the NTN Playmaker machines that let you and your friends play against each other in a battle to the death to see who answer the most trivia questions. So how can you not be throughly intrigued when you walk into a sports bar and see one?

Heh. If you don't know what these are then let me explain. Each person who is playing gets one of these NTN Playmaker things. With it, they put in their nickname. Once everyone is ready, a TV screen somewhere around you will have trivia questions that everyone must answer. They're all multiple choice and the faster you answer, the more points you get. At the end the person with the most points wins. So, sorry there is no death in this game like I said above. Though you could hit someone over the head with one and do some damage - they are pretty dense.

Anyways, my buddies and I have got into the habit of playing them when ever we go to a place that has them. We'll walk in, pick up a few Playmaker machines, order some drinks, and start playing/drinking away. I guess it helps us avoid the chatty chit-chat that most of us don't want to do anyways. So we'll continue to play until a) we get tired, b) we get bored, or c) we get too drunk to understand any of the questions.

There are plenty of breaks during the game, so you can do some idol conversation, or drink, or eat, or order more drinks, or go to the bathroom when nature calls. Another cool thing about this game is that it connects to a nation-wide network, so you can see high scores from people around you, or in your city area, or in the entire country. If you get a high enough score you could be immortalized and have your name and score shown off to a majority of drunk people across the U.S. Oh the fame!

In the end I realized my buddies and I like to do stuff when we go out drinking. We don't just want to sit there and drink and talk. So we go to places that have pool tables, or darts, or ping-pong tables. But sometimes on a Saturday night those places can get too explensive or too crowded. So we'll hit up another place that has these cool little NTN Playmaker games. So the next time you're in a bar and see one, try it out with a few friends. It's free to play and pretty damn fun. Oh, and while playing if you happen to see a high score from someone called 'Bender', be extremely shocked that I somehow reaches the perfect mixture between drinking and intelligence.