Here's the Right Way to Play Video Games in College

If you're there now, or you've been there recently, you know what college is all about. More house parties than lectures and more bottles of Smirnoff vodka than you care to admit. At least, that's how it goes for the first couple of years, right? Like learning to drive or facing a terrible first fuck, these are the modern rites of passage we must all traverse. Don't lie, you love it.

But while college demands that you at least half act like an adult, part of you wishes you were still 14 for the whole time you're there. An age when your social life equated to nightly marathons of whichever Call of Duty was being slated at the time, and a periodic match of FIFA to determine that, yes, Chelsea was still better than your friend's beloved Leyton Orient.

But these two lives can be reconciled. It just might take some creativity when it comes to the drinking games.

It's 9:30 and only three people have turned up so far, and they're the ones you only invited out of politeness because they did the same to you during freshman orientation. You need something to re-break the ice, as the seemingly bottomless crate of Natty Light in front of you can only do so much, and everyone's bored of playing Ring of Fire already.

Mario Kart 8 drinking game it is, then.

There are multiple versions of this, but the best one is "No Drunk Driving," in which you have to finish a beer and complete a race, but you can't do both simultaneously. Do you take the checkered flag first and save being bloated until your victory lap, or do you down your drink immediately to get the best power-ups by racing after the pack?

Whatever way you approach it: You get drunk quickly, you can fit four players around the TV, and the game's beautiful soundtrack means you don't have to sit through yet another play of "Where Are Ü Now." Plus, you can now boast you managed a podium finish on Rainbow Road while half drunk.

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University isn't all about getting hammered, playing games, and (unsuccessfully) pulling in clubs—there's also some learning to be done.

But on a scale of "thrilling" to "my brain has departed the Earth's atmosphere," most lectures rank around "my face has dissolved into dust and been reconstituted into a wet swamp."

Luckily, because we live in Space Year 2016, laptops exist, paving the way for students around the world to surreptitiously squeeze a match of Hearthstone in. The slower pace means you won't be involuntarily hammering away at the keyboard with your tongue hanging out, so the lecturer won't suspect a thing. Meanwhile, the turn-based structure, coupled with the fact sound isn't required, means you might pick up some of the lecture by osmosis.

So you're fresh off the plane back from Indonesia, you've just bought a new puffer jacket, and your charity shop-worn Air Forces are on fleek. But your friends still won't take you seriously as the hipster you so dearly want to be. You've even tried getting into Twin Peaks and taking what you think was MDMA, but it still won't do. You need something really esoteric, something from out of left field they'll never expect.

How about a gruesomely violent fencing game in which the victor gets eaten by a giant worm dragon thing? No, it's not post-watershed Pokémon—this is Nidhogg.

The process of showing college friends indie games is always the same: initial responses like, "What's this bollocks?" and "Looks shite mate," are soon followed by cheers and cries of laughter. Nidhogg especially, with its immediate simplicity, induces an intense atmosphere I've never experienced in any other party game. Also, its satisfying backstabbing will facilitate your sweet revenge on your roommate for not taking the mountain of recycling out last week.

I think, of all the drinking holes students frequent—pubs, clubs, park benches, particularly tough library sessions—house parties are the most unpredictable. Never mind there are at least 80 people here you don't know (seven of whom are raiding your fridge as we speak). There's also a certain something in the air. Is it… sexual energy? Love? Laughter… no, it's vomit.

It's definitely vomit.

You need a game to distract the guests from the stench. But nobody plays video games at house parties, right?

I once thought like this, too. That was until I went to a house party where, inexplicably, one guy switched on a stray an original Play Station and started speed-running Crash Bandicoot. He soon got over the other guests' sideways glances, and by the end of the evening, he had pretty much the entire street cheering him on, rum being chugged quicker than post-Domino's water but not quite as fast as he was charging through the final boss battle.

When I was at school, all I'd hear from grown-ups is, "It's best time of your life!" Well, adults, it's not—it's crap. School is a seven-year slog of puberty, ill-fitting clothes, and the most ignorant brats you'll meet in your life. They're second only to the most poisonous scum on Earth: students.

Students consume, drink, pollute, drink, destroy, drink, smoke, cheat, drink, lie, sleep, and drink. And for the most part, we love it, but we sometimes feel like slipping under our favorite blanket and blocking out the world and… Wait, I already covered this with the sleeping part, didn't I?

My point is, we do sometimes get fed up of being young adults, and despite what I said about school, we occasionally want to get nostalgic over pissing around in math class before home time. Step up, Life Is Strange.

Chemistry experiments, bullies, tentative flirting with the opposite sex, the ability to rewind time—all of your favorite teenage memories are here. Life Is Strange's obvious headlines are the rewind ability and its branching story line, but its embellished version of school life is delightful to play through, allowing me to finally experience that period of discovering music and smoking weed and hanging out with actual friends that I never got round to in real life.

Listen, stop trying to tell people Pro Evolution Soccer is better; we all know this one's FIFA. Despite claims of stagnation for the most recent edition, FIFA 16, this really is the ultimate college video game, mostly due to its flexibility and accessibility.

FIFA is excellent at easing in new players, affording you and your friends the freedom to use it however you like. You can start an online season with your roommates, if you're in it for the long haul. You can deploy FIFA drinking rules (drink for fouls, offsides, goals conceded—basically anything, with extra points for trick shots) if you're heading out. You can even discuss your deepest worries with your closest friends.

Everybody knows the rules, you can get loads of people playing at once, and—this season at least—your friend can at last prove that Leyton Orient is better than Chelsea.

Follow Oscar Dayus on Twitter.