Every Saturday night, somewhere in East Lansing, there are red plastic cups half full of beer set up on long tables, waiting for a sober college student to begin a night of throwing ping pong balls and getting wasted.

On Sunday, The New York Times had a front-page article on the popularity of beer pong and similar college drinking games, which investigated why students play these games and what effects they can have. In light of The New York Times' article and the recent East Lansing City Council proposal to add drinking games as an "aggravating factor" which could lead to a noise ordinance, I wanted to know if drinking games besides beer pong are being played in East Lansing.

I stopped by an East Lansing fraternity house to talk to some of the brothers about their favorite drinking games. After walking up three flights of stairs, I came to a bedroom with not only a full bar, but also an old Pepsi vending machine filled with a variety of beer.

Fraternity brother Matt Babcock, a general business administration and pre-law freshman, stuck a quarter into the machine and joked, "Our favorite drinking game is called 'guess what beer you're gonna get.'" He pushed one of the many buttons and a can of Molson Canadian popped out as the brothers yelled "Molson!"

The guys explained to me the rules of beer pong and quarters, but insisted that other drinking games, like "Moose" were just as fun.

According to Babcock, "Moose" involves an empty ice tray, a bowl and a quarter. The object of the game is to bounce the quarter into an alcohol-full bowl, and once it goes in, everyone playing has to say "Moose" and make moose antlers with their hands. The last person to do so must drink the contents of the bowl. With the ice tray, if you bounce into the left side of the tray, you must drink. But if it's on the right side of the tray, you assign drinks to the other players, depending on how far away the slots are. The slot closest to you is worth one drink. The next slot allows you to assign two drinks and so on.

"MSU is behind the times — all they play now is flip cup and beer pong," said Steve Harpold, a packaging senior.

Human biology senior Zach Hansmann isn't old-fashioned in his choice of drinking games. He and his roommate invented a new variation to beer pong — "battleship."

Typically played in warm weather, the game requires a kiddie pool, red and blue plastic cups (reminiscent of the board game), and a 2-inch-thick sheet of Styrofoam. Hansmann cuts holes in it for cups — some "ships" have only two holes, and others, like the aircraft carrier, have space for five cups. Each cup should be filled with about an ounce of beer. Four people on two teams throw ping pong balls from behind a designated line around the pool into each other's ships, with the goal of sinking the other team. If the player makes it into their own cup, they must drink, but if they make it into their opponent's cup, the opponent must drink as the hits are made.

"Everybody loves (battleship)," Hansmann said. "The CATA buses honk and the fire trucks honk."

Hansmann added that this game rarely leads to intoxication.

Rebecca Allen, Olin health educator on alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, said that if students insist on playing drinking games, "they should find some way to slow down the drinking."

"The competition, the camaraderie, that's good stuff, but when you add fast drinking on top of it, that's where it's not good anymore, and that's when it can lead to problems," she said.

Allen said the students she talked to said drinking games are designed to get drunk — and to get drunk fast.

These games are not just being played in the front yards of East Lansing houses, but in basements and even dorm rooms.

I remember Friday nights in the dorms when I could see my neighbors taking their closet doors off the hinges and setting them up on two chairs for a makeshift beer pong table. They'd play for hours. But why are these games so important to some students? Is it just to get wasted?

Apparently not, as my new-found fraternity brother friends said.

"Drinking games are a reason to congregate people, and then (they) realize they're there to hang out with friends," Harpold said. "I enjoy just watching the games and drinking a beer with friends."

Corinne DeVries is a State News staff writer. Reach her at devrie58@msu.edu.