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Good Games for LAN Parties?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I'm trying to figure out what games are good for LAN parties and especially what games don't require a CD after installation or at least allow multi-player games with only one CD. I'd like to have friends over to play over a LAN without everyone needing to own the same game. Starcraft will let you do this but I couldn't find much info about other games so I thought I'd turn to Slashdot. Which games do you like for LAN parties and why, and especially which games allow a group of people to play if only one owns the CD?"
Many moons ago I seem to remember playing quake 1 at a lan party - no cd required except to do the install.
IMHO its still good, honest, fast, frag-tastic fun.
Sure the later additions looked nicer, but they required a CD and really didnt add that much extra in terms of deathmatches.
On the non-fragging front many of the rts games support multiplayer spawning e.g. a very limited install, this does have some downsides but - hey it lets you have a game
Like paintball but without the mess/bruises.
How can you go wrong?
You can play LAN games with one key and you can just copy over the network the directory once you have a proper install complete. The game is immense fun with 8-12 people and you can guarantee no cheating (unlike online). Since it's like a Q2 engine game, it runs fast on most machines and has a built in communication software (Roger Wilco or Battlecomm like). Then again, if you don't like waiting after you get killed, there's always Quake 3 (and Team Arena).
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
CnC aviable for DOS/95 (orginal series)1-4 players.
CnC2 Red Alert 2-8 players 95+.
A little harder to learn than a 3d shooter, much less than Civ.
Doesn't require much more than a really fast 486 (orginal Dos mode) or P100+ (95+ mode).
You can play teams, one on one, and all for one. Goal based games, Capture the Flag'ish, best as a basic battle game.
Games can run from 30min to several hours depending on size of map/resources. Buy the box set WorldWide Warfar @local store it comes with many CDs.
Several people have mentioned counterstrike and day of defeat, both of which are Half-Life mods. About 10 or 12 of us get together once a month for a LAN party and we have found the HL and its mods are best. Once you install HL, you do not need the CD to play multiplayer.
There are many great multiplayer mods available: Team Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic (which recreates Quake 1 deathmatch), FireArms, Day of Defeat, Global Warfare, Counterstrike, etc. The first two on the list come with the latest HL patch and the rest are freely available for download.
Planet Half-Life has an extensive list of mods.
Justin Ingersoll
Maybe I'm a freak, but I don't really like FPS or RTS games. For LAN party goodness, I'd have to recommend driving games as my weapon of choice. Check out the Carmageddon series in particular -- it's like really fast, angry bumper cars.
--saint
I play practically nothing else at Lan's now. Get a rocket arena server up and going (this may take some time, do this the day before), or for a more inclusive game play jailbreak.
:)
Jailbreak is definately easier to set up and has some unique properties: The score of the team is the score of the middle ranking player in the team - this encourages genuine teamplay rather than individual heroics; The game also presents numerous opportunities for the lamer players to be heroes by rescuing their more gung-ho mates from jail.
Once you're in to rocket arena though, point of no return
There's also some mileage in bringing a PS2 along for something more chilled out. SSX and beer, for instance.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
For HL mods at lan parties, I'm a big fan of Science and Industry. Lots of fun there, plus it has just the right ridiculous sillyness to it. :)
Heretic II is also excellent with a good local group.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
Or try Armagetron.