`Sky Pirates': It's all about one-upsmanship

The Three Stooges, Beavis and Butt-head, video games . . .

If the brain trust at GameWorks has its way, that last item will gradually cease to be something females tend to avoid like an Andrew Dice Clay fan club.

Their latest beachhead on a front traditionally dominated by pimply males: "Sky Pirates," a nonviolent, "vertical-reality" game officially unveiled Friday.

No eye patch required. Part video game and part carnival ride, "Sky Pirates" allows four players at a time to sit in chairs that zip 22 feet skyward, corresponding to the on-screen jockeying of hot-air balloons. Players try to position their balloons above the enemy's, then drop and puncture it, sending the offending balloon - and chair - gently back to the bottom. The cost: $4 for about four minutes.

"We have noticed that the girls are playing more," said general manager Todd Mann, who bases his observations on on-site traffic, in the absence of an industry association for outfits like GameWorks. He also credits a few other relatively new games that have departed from the mainstay shoot-em-up formula: "Brave Firefighters," in which players aim hoses (shooting only virtual water) at flames; "18 Wheeler," in which players can fulfill their dream of driving a big rig with the help of a 60-inch interactive screen, but without the scary rest stops; and especially "Dance Dance Revolution," a variation of the old, hand-held "Simon" game, in which players work up a sweat mimicking an on-screen sequence with their feet on a floor pad.

One early mark of success for the far-more kinetic "Sky Pirates": GameWorks staffers insist they haven't had to spread the sawdust during test runs, or, as one put it, "No protein spills." The winner of a promotional marathon of the game said he found it addictive.

"My brain's still a little mush," said Rod Hall, 32, of Bellevue, after the somewhat truncated marathon that organizers thought could go as long as eight days.

Competitors strapped themselves in at 8:30 a.m., and the first one to drop out bailed after 45 minutes. The third caved around 2 p.m., leaving Hall, an insurance adjuster, husband and father of one, on top.

"I was going to probably stay until 9 or 10 the next morning, and then I was going to call my boss and tell him I put that much time into it, and ask him if I could stay," he said. Hall's winnings include a trip to Las Vegas and lots of GameWorks credits. He plans to use the credits to play "Sky Pirates" at the GameWorks there. "After I won, the first thing I said was, `Can I get back on with my wife and play a couple of games?' "