I love playing videogames, because I've learned that is really all I'm good at and that I'd absolutely fail miserably trying to hold down a steady, regular job. Case in point – Root Beer Tapper. Let's just say that if you were to visit the bar I was dealing drinks out at, don't go in expecting to see any Tom Cruise in Cocktail moves, because instead you'd have glass mugs flying at your head and breaking at your feet. So should you leave a nice tip for the service in this game?

Root Beer Tapper is an old school Midway game back before it was kosher to call it Beer Tapper. Really, Root Beer Tapper? Has that tasty beverage ever been as popular as it seems to be made out here? Do people go in saying, "Hey barkeep…one cold sarsaparilla if you don't mind…and make it a double!" I guess that's all a roundabout way of saying Root Beer Tapper is of the old school persuasion where you had to use nothing more than a control stick, a button, there was no story, and gameplay was rather easy in theory, but jeez didn't it end up frustrating and a pain before all was said and done.

In Root Beer Tapper you play as the lowly barkeep, managing your bar rows, trying to keep all the patrons happy and ultimately getting them out of your bar as quick as you can until nobody else is left in there. You'll easily move up through the rows by flicking the left thumbstick and order your little Mario look-alike to pour a frosty cold one and then whip it down the bar by pressing the A-button twice.

While playing you'll only want to send as many root beer down as there are patrons, because if they are already drinking they won't put theirs down to grab another, and instead it will pass everyone by and fall off the bar and shatter, costing you a life. Your goal is to push them through the bar opening by slinging a root beer towards them that shoves them through; if you let them too close they'll only be pushed so far back. If you fail to push them all the way through, they'll finish their root beer at the bar and send your glass back to you; if you fail to grab the glass as it is heading your way then it will drop and lose you a life again.

As the game moves on you'll have to deal with more and more customers, juggling passing out glasses and catching returning ones, and also running down the bars to pickup tips if one was left for you for bonus points. You'll also have a chance to win bonus points by competing in a minigame after every so many rounds, where you'll have so many cans of root beer out, a masked barren will shake them all up but one, and then you'll have to follow the one that wasn't shook up. If you can follow the mixing up of the root beer and open the one that doesn't explode in your face then lucky you and bonus points to you.

And yeah – that's it really. You have things like the Xbox Live Arcade leader board to show your prowess or lack thereof in the game, but there isn't anything like graphical upgrades or anything else to speak of. For that matter, I popped in my old Xbox copy of Midway's Arcade Treasures and Root Beer Tapper looked just like it did when it was released on that.

If you're a fan of Root Beer Tapper you'll buy the game, but I can't see much of anyone else going crazy for the chance to play a however many years old game. With all these old games coming out offering nothing more than really what they gave back then, it seems like only a matter of time before we get games like Pong. Aren't you just drooling over that possiblitiy?

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