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PC Gaming Suggestions for Console-like Fun?
jayminer writes "We are a relatively newly married young couple who enjoy spending our spare time at home. We don't own a console but have a gaming laptop with DVI output to play games on our TV. My wife is also a CS major so she's computer literate enough. She does not like strategy games, MMORG or any other role-playing game. Apart from "Find the Sausage" jokes, we need quality gaming advice, preferably games which we can play with a single laptop connected to a single large screen, with two gamepads, a console-like experience. What are your suggestions?"
Just buy a console.
If you are wanting to play on your television opposed to a monitor, you probably have a pretty nice TV. Chances are your laptop cannot run at a resolution where you would even enjoy this experience.
The 360 and the Wii cost less than the original NES did if you count in inflation. Do some research in game libraries and pick one. Well worth the investment.
In terms of games, Guitar Hero is addicting.
Get a couple of USB dance pads and try out Stepmania, a free DDR clone.
Or get a Wii. Tons of simple flash games through the browser. Fun and simple.
Get some old-school console emulators and play some of the great classics.
I'm sure that what constitutes a "classic" will vary here on /., but I prefer some of the older Super NES games... Tetris Attack is awesome.
You didn't hear that from me, though...
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
"Not only do I have a girlfriend, but we're MARRIED, and she wants to play video games with me! Oh, did I mention she loves Linux?"
Don't mean to be presumptuous, but I would recommend you spend your spare time outside of your house exploring the world. You will have plenty of time to stay in the house if/when you decide to have children.
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The best game to play is "HIDE the sausage"!
Gametap.com. I like that. Go to walmart and buy a controller adapter for usb and you can both play games, old and new, arcade and console, from your laptop.
a head designer was the guy who coined the term mmorpg. it is in fact the first (graphical, sorry mudders) example of an mmorpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_(computer_game)
its like the original asteroids, without the asteroids, and instead a maze of a bunch of other ships (random people from around the world)
i think a lot of slashdotters messed with it 10 years ago, and forgot about it
however, i recently rediscovered it (its free now) and was surprised to find a lot of zones still heavily populated. each zone has a different variation on the basic ship types and their abilities. you can waste 5 minutes or half an hour on it, to great effect
nothing like meeting a guy in a tank from finland, dodging his mine, blowing him away, while a guy from china materializes out of cloak and shoots you in the back. its cheap and easy mmorpg fun without the massive time commitment something like WoW demands
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In all seriousness, the total hardware cost of two gamepads, a TV out connector and a laptop graphics card needed to run the latest games will more than likely overrun the cost of just buying a PS2 or a Wii, Your spouse's tastes scream console gaming. No strategy games or RPGs? What does that leave? FPSes? Good luck finding a co-op FPS title.
For Co-op play, console is King. There are a myriad of two player titles out there to cater for all tastes, and co-op is something that even gets included in some one player titles, owing to its popularity.
PCs are not designed for what you're looking for. Consoles are, and they are cheaper, faster, easier and offer a better selection of titles. Just buy the damn Wii.
May the Maths Be with you!
Jesus, if you've got to resort to games this early on in marriage, that's not a good sign.
Sexual deviance, man! That's what you need to try; your "find the sausage" game sounds like a good start. You're married, it's ok to do that now!
throw new NoSignatureException();
This is Slashdot, so I'm going to guess "all of it".
What did I win?
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Here's a site showing the best atari games ever complete with the awesome box covers. So real gems in there, many you probably never heard of. Get an emulator and enjoy the nostalgia.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I recommend members of the general public relax and be cool. You're more likely to be hit by an asteroid than sued for sharing SNES roms.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Most MythTV distributions include a MAME emulator, as well as a SNES emulator, and support for several others you can optionally download, install and configure in their menus.
The nice thing about this is, it gives you a good excuse to dedicate an entire PC to your TV set, since it works as a very capable DVR, gives you a set-top web browser, and other goodies.
The downside? At least from all the knoppmyth distros I've used, I've always had some hassle getting MAME working well with it. (EG. You can purchase wireless gamepad type controllers from Logitech that use USB dongles and are detected just fine in Linux. But you'll have to do some creative stuff with the xmame config file so you have all their buttons assigned in a sensible manner. If you don't assign one to simulate dropping coins in, for example, you'll never be able to get a new game to start from your controller.)
Which isn't very reassuring if the ROM in question is Asteroids...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
and you never cited any to the contrary. Do you have any evidence that a rom nintendo claimed copyright on doesn't actually belong to them or are you just trolling?
We can all sit around and spout theories all day, but since you proposed this line of thought why don't you provide some actual leg work?