• Game Time Nation

  111 East 12th Street, 212-228-4260; gametimenation.com

  The French guy who runs Game Time Nation prefers the term gaming lounge, and the lofty hall full of flat-screen Sonys, eighteen Xboxes and PlayStation 2s, comfy couches, video-game launch parties, and Japanese D.J./art nights certainly makes the former Kozmo.com headquarters feel much cooler—and cozier—than the sweaty, cacophonous video arcades many of us grew up in. The games, however, will be pleasingly familiar to anyone who’s ever handled a joystick: You can kill terrorists (in Rainbow Six 3), outrace SUVs and muscle cars (Project Gotham Racing 2), and pretend to be a hot, if digital, Asian girl (Soul Calibur 2). Or if you want a game that won’t interfere with that bag of Doritos at your side, there’s always the Sims.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine