These days, video games aren't a social experience. Sure you can talk to people online while you play with or against them but a true social experience requires proximity. Usually, you're dealing with people who don't have good microphones that pick up everything but their own voice, or you end up playing against some 6-year-old punk who knows more curse words and ways to tell you to "go #*$& yourself" than Andrew "Dice" Clay.
You had to have a real set of balls to do that back in the salad days of the video game revolution. Long before the days of wireless Internet and the "Cloud," you had to actually go to the person's house if you wanted a chance to achieve digital glory by fragging their sorry ass in a video game. That means if you wanted to brag with a stream of consciousness of curse words, you had to do right in their fat, sorry face. That took guts, especially if drinks were involved in the mix. You were always one kill away in "GoldenEye 007" from knowing what it feels like to break a glass bottle with your skull.
Renfield's Corner is bringing back the glory days of face-to-face gaming with a weekly video game series that lets you eat, drink and frag your friends the way you did when video games didn't act like curse word delivery machines.
Every Tuesday night starting at 9 p.m., the pub on Routh Street will let its patrons compete with each other at their tables and on a massive screen in a series of randomly selected new and old school video games with a generous dose of bar food and drinks thrown into the mix.
Renfields Corner's weekly "Video Game Night" picks a series of games from the modern consoles to the classics like the PlayStation 2, Nintendo 64 and the original Nintendo Entertainment System. You can play them at your table or on their massive 120-inch projection screen so everyone can watch your victory and defeats.
The games are different every week so you'll always find something new to play with your friends or fellow bar patrons, like Grand Theft Auto V for the Xbox One or old favorites such as StarFox 64, NFL Blitz 2000 or the original Tetris for the NES, the way it was always meant to be played. Tonight's selection includes the newest reboot of Mortal Kombat and Rock Band for the Xbox 360, NHL 2015 for the Xbox One, Mario Kart 64 for the Nintendo 64 and Dr. Mario for the original NES.
You're also not just competing with your own table or your group of game loving friends. You're also competing for the chance to be the ultimate game wizard each night. Renfields selects a couple of games for each "Video Game Night" that will serve as a weekly gaming tournament. This week, players can sign up to compete in Mortal Kombat and Mario Kart 64 for the chance to rub it in everyone's face that they would totally kick that little kid's ass from The Wizard if he dared to question their gaming abilities.
