Root Beer Tapper Hands-On Preview

Root Beer Tapper is one of several retro titles that THQ is releasing from Midway's archive on BREW and J2ME, and this one retains the flavor of the original coin-op. You control a bartender who must pour and serve root beer to four different customers by sliding glasses down the bar. The game ends if the approaching patrons reach the bartender before their root beer hits them.

Graphically it's as strong as the original version, but the controls were a little sensitive, which made it easy to mistakenly move up and down instead of doing the pumping-beer motion. It wasn't bad, considering we played the pre-alpha version. The final game will be out in September.