Charles Olafare slacks in the lap in luxury with the Game Pad Experience...
If you’re a gamer with a bit of money coming your way this Christmas, or just happen to know one who’s been particularly good this year, then the Game Pad experience is just the gift you’ve been looking for. For £199 the hotel package for gamers allows you to spend a night in the Staybridge Suites, London Stratford City stuffing your face and playing video games.
The Game Pad experience is kind of like going to over to your mate’s house for a night of video games, booze and junk food, and essentially that’s what it is, except this particular friend happens to live on the top floor of a hotel, has three widescreen HD televisions, all the major gaming consoles and a stockpile of beers, wine, snacks and food.
Intrigued as any self respecting slacker would be, I checked out preview of the experience with my pal Matt Bird, a consummate gamer and a guy I’ve split many a Dominos two for Tuesdaywith. It was pretty much like what we spent most of the summer after sixth form and the first year of uni doing: sitting around shooting the breeze, knocking back beers and staring at a TV screen. 
We were slacking off and achieving next to nothing, but this time we were doing it in the lap of luxury with an Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and brand new Wii U all to ourselves. After an hour or so of us getting to grips with the Wii U control pad, some other press people turned up and then it became even more like our dorky and misspent youths. We got drunker to avoid the initial tension and awkwardness of new people, spilled a couple beers and had a few heated debates about the merits of 'Far Cry 3'.
Though the plush hotel room was by no means palatial in size, the beanbags and sofa we were provided with certainly made it comfortable and it wasn’t long until we began to resemble an assembly line of couch potatoes, passing each other plates of nachos, swapping controllers and cracking open more free beers. 
It was all a good laugh really, but there were a few minor issues that a particularly discerning gamer might take issue with,namely that there weren’t enough controllers for two people to play the Wii U and that the televisions hadn’t been set to properly receive a HD signal from each of their respective consoles. That last complaint might seem like its stepping into some dangerously geeky territory, but when you’re paying for the ultimate gaming experience things like that do matter.
Ostensibly, the package is for one person or two people to share, but considering all that’s on offer for the price, it could easily be made to accommodate three or four people. Despite the relatively cosy size of the single person hotel room, I could totally see myself splitting the cost four ways between some pals and arranging some sort of a ‘winner gets to sleep in the king sized bed - loser sleeps on the floor’ situation.
If you want to try out the Game Pad experience for yourself visit www.game.co.uk/gamepad for more details. 
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