Help me find a game

[Zixinus]

Well, my half-brother is over and may come over again in the next few weeks. He has an EEEpc and so do I. We figured if we could play together, that would be neat.

However, finding a good game for it has been a pain in the ass. Either it's a game we would have to buy or it's so old that it would be difficult to actually connect the computers over our wi-fi.

So, I'm asking other SDNners: what do you guys reccomend for good LAN games?

Criteria:
- Runs on Windows XP fine
- Is fairly simple (ie, no large learning curves)
- Co-op
- Can run on a netbook
- Preferably (but not necessarily) freeware
- Preferably portable

[Stark]

What do you mean by 'coop'? PC coop games (effective ones, anyway) are a recent thing and certainly won't work on a netbook. If you include team-based RTS it's a lot easier.

Which EEEpcs do you have? The older ones would struggle to even play Conquest and I doubt they could handle Defcon. Older Diablo-em-ups should work fine, though. I wonder if Warzone 2100 would work?

[Zixinus]

I have a 904HA. My brother has a newer one, so I guess mine should be measured?

[Stark]

What have you had success running before? You'll probably run into problems with a lot of 3D stuff (although a friend of mine with an older one can play Defcon) but there are plenty of sprite-based RTS and Diablo games. What sort of game are you after, anyway?

[Zixinus]

I never tried running anything big (the "biggest" games I've ran on my netbook is Operation Flashpoint and Outcast), so I don't know.
Come to think of it, I played Serious Sam once on it and Diablo 2, but I hate those games.

As for what I'm after? Well, I already given the details: something not too complicated (hence no RTS) so we don't have to spend (too much) time getting to grips on how to play.

[Norade]

Liero Xtreme can be fun two player.

[2000AD]

For strategy there's the easy answer of Civilization 4, not freeware but old enough that it's cheap, plus there's a boatload of awesome mods out there to cover just about every eventuality, from adding in even more history to make the game longer to focusing on specific time periods in detail, from turning it into a fantasy world to a total conversion set in the Dune universe.
There is a freeware remake of civ (link) that has multiplayer but I've never played it so can't comment on quality.
Civ4 has a very simple learning curve. There's tutorials and a large variety of difficulty options that range from "So easy you can't lose" to "Oh god, the horror, the horror", so you can start at the bottom and work your way up to a comfortable level and that's not even touching all the FAQs, guides and other helpful things on the internet (Civ has a massive fanbase).

If you're into football (soccer) then you can probably find a previous years version of Football Manager / Championship Manager for dirt cheap. Not actually co-op, but not the traditional PvP either. Overall you are in competition against each other (assuming you play in the same league) but it's not exclusive, you're going to be playing against the AI more and if you want to add co-op you can share tactics that work, scouting info, good young players you've found, etc, etc.

Alien Swarm from Valve (on Steam) is free to play and is pure co-op, though not sure if it's playable on your computer. If it can handle it then Left 4 Dead or even better L4D2 are also co-op focused.

Team Fortress 2 just went free-to-play so if you can run it then you should.

[Feil]

You can have really only two of the following at once: a good game, a free game, and a game which fits very specific criteria.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/dr/
This is an okay game. I played it once a number of years ago. I know it has same-screen co-op, not sure if it has internet or LAN play. Like other Ambrosia games, it's shareware, which means you can try it with some of the features locked out for a limited time before you buy a registration key. Unlike other Ambrosia games, it has been ported to Windows. Game is about twenty hours long, score is recorded separately for each player so that you can cooperate competitively, learning curve is minimal (if you've played one vertical scroller, you've played every vertical scroller), and it has virtually no system requirements. $20 US.

[Argosh]

OpenTTD is free to download, multiplayer capable and relatively easy on resources.

10MB free hard disk space (not including the required space for extra files, such as savegames, downloaded extra content and screenshots. 50MB recommended)
8-bit VGA color display (640x480x8) or greater
Windows 95/98 (Windows XP or newer recommended)
Minimum 233MHz Pentium with MMX equivalent or greater (500MHz+ PIII recommended)
64MB RAM (128MB+ recommended)

[Stofsk]

For strategy there's the easy answer of Civilization 4, not freeware but old enough that it's cheap, plus there's a boatload of awesome mods out there to cover just about every eventuality, from adding in even more history to make the game longer to focusing on specific time periods in detail, from turning it into a fantasy world to a total conversion set in the Dune universe

to a total conversion set in the Dune universe

to a total conversion set in the Dune universe

WHY has no one told me about this before now

[2000AD]

WHY has no one told me about this before now

Mod DB download area:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/dune-wars/downloads

Civ Fanatics sub forum:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=358

I didn't really get into it, but according to some people who have it's one of the best Dune adaptations of all time and is up there with Fall From Heaven 2 as the greatest Civ4 mod (or just plain The Greatest Mod). Though I didn't get into it I can see there's been a lot of work put into it, it was a stable game and it did seem to be trying to be as true to the source material as possible while still being a Civ style game (Although I'm not a big Dune fan so take that with a grain of salt).

[doom3607]

Yeah, it is a really good mod. I tried it. The terraforming in particular is awesome, and it gets even better when all the factions just there for the spice declare war on you to prevent you from wrecking their profit margins. Screw you, House Harkonnen! The Fremen want a temperate planet!