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Multiplayer Games For Christmas Lull at the Office?

Posted by Cliff on from the fun-for-the-holidays dept.

smallstepforman asks: "Christmas is almost here, and most companies will be running a skeleton staff during the holiday period. Since there will only be 8 people in the entire building where I work, you can guess what we'll all be doing - multiplayer LAN gaming. The team leader (who will be the acting manager for the holiday period) is asking about good games to play during this period. Most of the machines on the LAN are P3@733 with integrated i810 video cards, while some older machines (P2@45) have a Voodoo 3. Which multiplayer games can Slashdot readers recommend? The games need to be easy to pick up, and not require a lot of hard disk space. Free/shareware games or demos should be considered due to legal issues."

17 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. heh by TheDarkRogue · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quake I
    -Small [we all run it off of mini cds]
    -Can run on anything from a p75 up
    -There are things to make it nicer [GLQuake}
    -Simple
    -Tons of mods avalible [TF]

    --
    (Score:0, Interesting)
    1. Re:heh by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Works fine if your network runs Win9x, but Quake runs awful on WinNT/Win2k/WinXP machines. GL Quake is nice, *IF* you have a decent video card, but since most work machines tend to come with POS ATI 128-something or other, that really isn't an option.

      Pick a simple game, like Tetrinet2/Tetrinet - first you'll get everyone in the office hooked (it's tetris... at least you can try to win some office chick time!). This runs on practically any machine that runs Win32 code, horribly addictive, and easily alt-tabbable...

  2. fps by chewedtoothpick · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My best hint is to avoid anything RTS or time consuming. Some of the best ones that you can get away with at work are the older games that can easily be ALT-TAB'd out of when the big boss (not your team leader) comes around. FPS' are probably the best bet. Try Unreal Tournament. You can still get it at most major stores like Best Buy etc... and it does have a spawn version built-in for situations like yours. It is also able to run on the systems that you describe quite well, but the size can be a problem... the spawn version is around 300mb I believe.

    Just my 6 cents.

    --
    Erutangis ym si siht.
    1. Re:fps by ReverendRyan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Whatever happened to the "BOSS" key? Back in the old (DOOM/Wolfenstein) days, F10 dumped one to the prompt w/o asking in case the boss comes by. A quick CLS and all the evidence is gone. Even if you Alt-Tab, theres still the taskbar icon. Also, on many games, alt-tabing causes the texturemaps to get messed up, so when you reenter the game, everything looks funny.

  3. Liquid War by Pilferer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Give Liquid War a try...

    http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar/

    It's pretty unique.
    Here's some screenshots.

  4. Worms Armageddon / Worms World Party by Fritzed · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is practically no way that you can't become addicted to these games. Worms Armageddon isn't totally 2K/XP compatible but there is a patch for that on their website. Have Fun, Fritz

    --
    Spooooon!!!!!
  5. Soldat by taion · · Score: 4, Informative

    For some bloody, visceral shooting action, I'd suggest Soldat, which is very similar to Quake/Counter-Strike, except it's a 2D sidescroller. The chaos is immense, and it's easily one of the best side-scrolling 2D action games I've played. It supports multiplayer quite well, and is free (as in beer). It should run fine on your hardware, as well.

    --

    ----------
    Floccinaucinihilipilification - the action or habit of judging something to be worthless
  6. Cube by D.A.+Zollinger · · Score: 5, Informative

    One word, Cube.

    It is free (ZLIB software licence - similar to BSD), runs on win32, linux, linuxppc, and can be played in both server and single player mode. FPS style of play, using OpenGL and SDL, it is smooth, fun, and looks great! We need more opensource games like this.

    Most importantly of all, cleanup is simple, just delete the directory you unzipped the archive to, and it is all gone.

    Enjoy!

    --
    I haven't lost my mind!
    It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
  7. FreeCiv by mvdwege · · Score: 3, Informative

    What about FreeCiv? Perhaps it scores low on the easy-to-pickup scale, but I imagine anyone has played some Civilisation version before.

    Bonus is that as a turn based game it can be easily paused when necessary, and it is heaps of fun.

    Mart
    --
    "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
  8. Try a multiplayer tank game! by PurpleFloyd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Try something like Scorched Earth 2000. It's a Java based cross-platform network-multiplayer version of the classic tanks-lob-shells game. Even better, it's GPL (no worries about legal stuff!).

    Tank games require a combination of skill and luck that tends to reward skilled play, while still remaining accesible to newbies if that's a concern. Someone can learn to play decently in 5 minutes, rather than the 40-50 frustrating hours it takes to become decent at Quake/UT/Counterstrike/FPS-of-the-month.

    Note that there's an ad banner, but that's just HTML, so it can be removed without any real hassle.

    --

    That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
    1. Re:Try a multiplayer tank game! by Deagol · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Me and my fellow dorm residents pissed away a couple of months back in 1990 when I introduced them to the old DOS version of Scorched Earth. It toppled Lemmings as the most addictive game in the housing unit I was in (Terry Courts, Purdue -- anyone?).

      To find a networked version brings tears to my eye.

      --
      Method of processing duck feet
  9. Microsoft Hearts. by dotgod · · Score: 3, Funny

    What? It supports network mutiplayer games too, ya know.

  10. Re:How thoughtful you are by hitzroth · · Score: 3, Funny

    Um, yeah. I'm sure that the company would really approve of them getting paid for sitting there drooling on themselves. Which is what they'd be doing most of the time, otherwise. Nine of one, three quarters dozen of the other.

    --
    In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
    --VonNeumann
  11. This One's Great! by jimmyCarter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's called "Do Some Fucking Work". Way to power up this economy in time of need. ;)

    I've actually always loved working the week between xmas and NYE. There's virtually nobody in the office, so interruptions are kept to a minimum and the hours are slightly more flexible.

    --

    -- jimmycarter
  12. FreeCiv by haplo21112 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Free...
    Multiplayer...
    Lightwieght....
    Did I meantion its free...
    Better yet its civilization, can kill hours(days) easily...

    Just my plug for my favorite time waster

    --
    Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
  13. Worms 2. Definitely Worms 2. by nbvb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You _need_ this game.

    Runs fine on a Pentium-100 (Yes, I know, I've tried), and is an absolute _BLAST_!

    We played this thing over the network, and it was probably the most fun network game I've ever played.

    You'll be hooked, I promise. Just be careful the first time you order a napalm strike; JUDGE THE WIND. :)

    "The first of many!"

    --NBVB

  14. Xblast by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ever played bomberman? xblast is a bit like it.

    People running around mazes laying/kicking bombs. There's a bit of a learning curve due to the variety of different rules given different maps, but most people get the hang of it after a short while.

    Has some bugs but pretty good fun.

    --