Game on

DON’T HATE THE PLAYER ...or the game. Liebrary receives top honors from bookworms.

It’s another week of gray skies, and you can barely summon enough energy to get out of bed, let alone get out of the house and socialize. So, don’t. Stay home and inoculate yourself against the onset of cabin fever with a healthy dose of board-game fun. TOC staffers rolled the dice on your behalf and tested out six group games to find out which ones will keep you entertained well into spring.

Fact or crap

Game
Players: 3 or more. $21 at Cut Rate Toys, 5409 W Devon Ave at Central Ave (773-763-5740).

How to Play
Draw cards and read aloud a statement about history, science or pop culture. Each player decides if that statement is “fact” or “crap.” It’s over when all the tokens are gone and the player with the most wins.

Fun factor
TOC designer ks rives and associate features editor Cecilia Wong were hoping for something that would whip their guests into a fun frenzy, but all they managed to muster was apathy. “By the end we had lost interest in the competitive aspect completely,” rives said. “We didn’t even count our tokens to see who had won.”

Ease of use
Having few rules may sound like a good thing, but the lack of structure turned out to be this game’s biggest flaw.

Drinking game potential
Sip whenever you guess incorrectly or whenever the reader can’t pronounce a word on the card. When all the tokens are gone, chug the rest of your drink in celebration! Why? Your misery is finally over.

End-game verdict
Fact or crap: “This game is a spirited competition of wits that is sure to excite and delight all players.” Crap. Total and utter crap.

Name that tune 80’s edition

Game
Players: 3 or more. $35 at Go The Game Store, 700 E Grand Ave on Navy Pier (312-464-0554)

How to Play
Use your ’80s-music-trivia knowledge to answer questions on cards and on the interactive DVD. The last two players standing enter a “Name that Tune Challenge Round” to win the game.

Fun factor
Editorial intern Kevin Aeh and his buds were shocked at the production quality of the early MTV years: “The music-video clips are terrible,”Aeh said. “And by that I mean awesome. Most of them look like they were shot by an amateur porn director with his home- video camera.”

Ease of use
Obscure trivia and little-known names keep things challenging for those in the know, but quickly frustrate players just looking for a little mirth and music. For instance: “Irene T. Escalera is the real name of which singer?” Answer? Who cares?*

Drinking game potential
Throw one back whenever you get a question about Madonna, the Police or Freddie Mercury. You’ll be drunker than Vince Neil in no time.

End-game verdict
Too light on the video-vamp eye-candy for our taste, this trivia game should nevertheless garner a few laughs and “remember when” moments.

Liebrary

Game
Players: 3–6. $48, available at www.liebrary.com.

How to Play
The “liebrarian” reads aloud the title of a book and a brief plot synopsis, and players write down a convincing first line of that book, to be read aloud to the group by the liebrarian. The more players you fool into thinking yours is right, the more points you score.

Fun factor
Bookworms and Cliff’s Notes collectors alike can get a kick out of creating their own opening lines. As senior editor Lauren Viera and her friends discovered, when you don’t know the real answer, you might as well go for broke. Honestly, Moby Dick could have been a lot sexier if it began the way Eat Out/Drink Up writer David Tamarkin suggested: “Semester at sea fucking rules!’ said Señor Ahab.”

Ease of use
Clear, concise directions make this intellectual game simple to play.

Drinking game potential
Everyone knows that the best writers have drinking problems, so a few swigs might very well be the key to victory. Why not take a shot any time a work by a dead white male comes up?

End-game verdict
Lit freaks and word geeks, your mothership has arrived.

Scene it? squabble

Game
Players: 2 or more. $50 at Gamer’s Paradise, 2828 N Clark St between Diversey Pkwy and Surf St (773-549-1833).

How to Play
Men and women compete to see who knows more about pop culture. A roll of the dice determines if you will answer a “male” or a “female” question. Get it right, and move around the board to the “Honey Do” challenge round to win the game.

Fun factor
Rife with stereotypes—one of the female pawns is a tiny frying pan—this game is bound to get your guests a little hot under the collar. Check Out writer Jenn Thompson discovered that the male players seemed to be more hesitant to get in the game, but eventually they came around.

Ease of use
The game strives for multigenerational play by including trivia from The Brady Bunch, Murphy Brown and obscure John Wayne movies, but those questions fall flat with players younger than 35.

Drinking game potential
Anytime the guys answer a “girly” question correctly, the ladies have to take a drink and vice versa. But be prepared for consequences, says Thompson: “The alcohol amps up the sexual tension by about ten notches.”

End-game verdict
If you can stomach stereotypical Mars-Venus characterizations, let the gender roles roll.

E! pop!-a-razzi

Game
Players: 2 or more. $30 at Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com).

How to Play
Pop the plastic dome to roll the dice, then answer celebrity trivia using the interactive DVD. The first player to earn 101 points for correctly answered questions wins.

Fun factor
This game claims to be “spicy, surprising and shocking,” but assistant photo editor Martha Williams and her friends found it dim, dull, and dead on arrival. “The so-called juicy secrets about celebrities were not juicy at all,” complained one player.

Ease of use
Lousy production quality made this game bomb. “The DVD clips were obviously thrown together in less than a day,” one of Williams’s compatriots said. Another quipped, “It looks like this is a project that they gave to some E! intern to keep them busy.”

Drinking game potential
The tales of Tinseltown give you plenty of excuses to get tipsy. Just drink every time you see a pair of fake ta-tas on the screen, and make a toast to any celebrity who used to be hot until she went on the nose candy–and–Red Bull diet plan.

End-game verdict
The lack of a time limit makes this game drag on longer than Fran Drescher’s career. As one player put it: “I would rather play Chutes and Ladders.”