Feelin' Froggish? Leap over to Brightleaf's new gaming cafe

Are you sick and tired of sleepless nights, work piling up in a dank dorm room, while you develop blisters because you haven't put your Xbox controller down in six hours?

Neither am I. But now, thanks to the good folks over at Millennium Records in Brightleaf Square, gamephiles throughout the greater Duke community have another option when looking to get their arcading fix. This new addition is Game Frog Café, a clever twist on the internet café idea which seems to be appearing in nearly every major city. Instead of checking your e-mail and sipping a latte however, Game Frog allows visitors to tackle cooperative missions on Ghost Recon with your friends in California or throw Hail Marys to your buddy who's in Costa Rica for the semester.

What Game Frog offers are four systems worth of quality video gaming: Gamecube, Xbox, Playstation 2, and the PC, all on state-of-the-art equipment. From two massive TVs to plush beanbag chairs to the high-powered gaming computer consoles, Game Frog offers the best of the best from the world of video games. For an hourly fee players can choose from a wall of titles, including all the newest and hottest, and play on their own, on the internet or against networked players within Game Frog.

To add a new dimension to some of the more popular games, the café has organized weekly tournaments, allowing gamers to match wits in Halo and Madden 2004 for the time-being with more on the way. But if your tastes are a little more old-school in style, Game Frog will soon be offering special nights of Super Nintendo, Genesis, and other throwback system gaming bliss. And just to make sure that you don't keel over when you hit the midway point of your $50, 16-hour bonanza, there are plenty of refreshments ranging from Red Bull to Starbucks Double Shot.

The bottom line here is that Game Frog, celebrating its Grand Opening this Saturday, delivers up exactly what they advertise: a high quality, gamer friendly atmosphere, paired with good service and a wide selection of games. Game Frog offers the opportunity to experience this growing trend to those without the money or time to invest in their own online gaming systems. Beyond that, the new venture offers a place, outside the solitary confinement of dorm rooms and basements, for real enthusiasts to come together and talk games. While the novelty of a game café will provide many with a new place to fritter away precious studying hours, sadly, Game Frog will never truly flourish until it can replicate that strung out, dirty underwear-wearing, phone call-ignoring, all night quest to conquer the next level.