Hey there, some friends and I are throwing down a little 8-man LAN party over at my hous this week, and we're trying todecide on the list of games. Traditionally, we've played CS 1.6, Quake 3 Arena, Warcraft 3 custom maps, AoC and (curiously fun) Rise of Nations.
This time, we're looking to change the line-up a litlle bit, maybe add some fun sports/racing games, or whatever the hell provides the most fun out of a bunch of not-so-state-of-the-art computers. I largely considered BW and SC2, but only 3 of us actually have ever played them, so I0m guessing it'd be a bit imba XD
So, what are your suggestions? Which games would you add/remove/change to make an awesome lan party? Thanks! I'll let you know how this went when we're done.
I'm pretty old school and have been out of touch with the video game scene for quite awhile (don't even own sc2 haha!). I think the key to a good Lan experience tho, is that the games be simple enough for those unfamiliar, that they won't be too alienated and lost. Simple FPS games like UT/quake/CStrike are good ones to suggest. You just click and shoot! The C&C series (Red Alert2) was a good lan game too, because of the crazy imba weapons and lols. Funny shit! Games with huge interfaces and/or big learning curves would be best to avoid introducing to newcomers.
At the same time, introducing something fresh to your guests that they've never seen before would be a fun surprise! Keeping in line with "fresh" but not alien, a good mod to an already well known game, would be a nice "party favor". One such simple but mod that comes to mind is Planar Erratus. Great SC mod for a party and a few chuckles before heading off to the main events! Would definitely be something nobody had ever seen before.
I thought the free remake available on steam was really boring, but the original is still amazing (UT2k4 mod, but not an FPS).
Its the best co-op survival/mission game ever pretty much.
I think capped at 4 players, but can just run 2x4 then ! Theres like 3 campaigns available for download as well (they are better/harder than the two that comes with the mod).
You play normal Quake (3 Arena), but in teams of two. One guy is playing with his head in a paper bag not seeing anything and the other one tells him where to go and aim :D Playing for more than 10 minutes is not advised because you'll end up losing your voice
I thought the free remake available on steam was really boring, but the original is still amazing (UT2k4 mod, but not an FPS).
Its the best co-op survival/mission game ever pretty much.
I think capped at 4 players, but can just run 2x4 then ! Theres like 3 campaigns available for download as well (they are better/harder than the two that comes with the mod).
I thought the remake was pretty decent. Unbalanced... but decent.
If you have a copy of Freespace 2 (if not you can get one from Good old games - gog.com for 10$ I think) install FSOpen (http://www.fsoinstaller.com/downloads.html click «download the .exe installer»).
You might want to download the open installer prior to the lan so you can copy it over to the other computers using a thumbdrive or something seeing as it's a few gigs in size.
Install across all the machines. Then using the launcher select «MediaVPs_3612». Then you'll have to follow the instructions here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=63609.0 This will make everything shiny . If the computers can't handle it, you might want to revert to the basic «multi» mod which will let you play the game as it was initially designed.
I know it looks like a lot of work, but this is quite possibly the best space combat sim of all time. OF ALL TIME! The best part is that since FS2's launch in 1999 it's been continually updated and improved by the hard-light community and the game looks great even by today's standards.
Here's a video in case you need convincing: (Watch in HD!)
Battlefield 2 is a pretty fun lan game in my experience, also Counter Strike and Dota. Most of the lans I go to are just a bunch of casual friends, they aren't normally competitive players so Starcraft is avoided.
Trackmania Always good for lans..: trackmania dl Also Raynor Party and Star Battle from Sc2 custom games.. (use guest keys if not everyone has the game) And for cars crashing into each other Flat Out 2..
If you like rise of nations i would recommend Rise of legends... kinds of a sequel but a really nice one at that... Another classic age of empires 2, me and my friends always play that when we have a lan.
Another one that might be a bit lame is Max Payne, i know there isn't a multiplayer to it but usually we just choose the smallest level we can find and play a speed competition, basically you complete a level as fast as possible and shout out as loud as you can when you are finished and then try again. This isnt something to do when your mind is still working, after two days of constant gameing this really is a good activity.
One more to play also quite lame one is cycling manager preferably the first game because it is quite bad and very very random but if you get caught up in it you might find yourself going through the entire tour de france.