I need small-scale PC MP games

Scottish Ninja · Post by **Scottish Ninja** » 2007-12-13 09:49pm

We're planning a third video game tournament at my school for next January (the last was Saturday) and although Halo's been the main event, we're trying to bring up the number of people bringing in their computers, as right now there's little incentive to do so. I came up with an idea to have some small tournaments with prizes that'll pretty much cover entry fee and food, about $10 or so, but we need games that people can play here.

So what games can you recommend? They need to be low-cost or free, relatively easy to learn, and of course fun.

Some ideas we had already:

DEFCON (and we're a little biased too)
SWINE

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-12-13 10:23pm

I always loved playing Quake 3 at LAN parties. It's fast paced and will run on hardware considered positively ancient at this point. Alternatively, there's also Unreal Tournament.

(The comedy answer is the PC port of Halo.)

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2007-12-13 10:25pm

Call of Duty: united offensive...

Base assault.

As long there's enough players...it is damn fun.

Think of it as a WW2 titan battle.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-12-13 10:33pm

If you can get ahold of it, Tribes 2. The AI is solid, and its solid fun if UT2k4 is a little heavy on the requirements.

Also, I might suggest Spaceward Ho! (which you can get here), its a fun little turn based game where you build these silly little spaceships and conquer the galaxy. Be careful though, there is a limited amount of metal floating around! To play it multiplayer you need to share the save game file in a shared folder - other players then start the game from the same shared save game file. Its poor and klunky, but the game is immense fun as long as you don't have someone who takes forever with their turn (which can also be made into good fun

).

If that isn't your style, play Xtrek! Or netrek, as they call it these days. You'll need a BSD or linux machine to run a server, but you can most likely use one of the handful of public servers available. Xtrek is a whole boatload of fun, despite its age. You fly and shooting torpedoes, managing your fuel, and bombing then conquering worlds. Its very fun.

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2007-12-13 10:34pm

Uraniun235 wrote:(The comedy answer is the PC port of Halo.)

Which, according to Nielsen, is more popular than Counter-Strike among PC gamers. And people wonder why the TV ratings aren't taken seriously.

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2007-12-13 10:39pm

Tribes 2 was released free a while back (2004), your probably safe grabbing it from http://www.fileplanet.com/140246/140000 ... -Full-Game and using a keygen (Since FP ran out of keys about 12 hours after release

). Depending on how much your school admin is worrying about that sort of thing.

Edit, Tribes2 was taken down, but 1 is still there.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-12-13 11:27pm

Apparently Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is still extremely popular (it regularly ranks in the top 5 most played games on Xfire, below WoW, CoD2 and 4, and Counterstrike). I used to play it and it's an absolute blast to just blaze around for whatever period of time, and best of all, it's free to download.

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2007-12-13 11:31pm

Xisiqomelir wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:(The comedy answer is the PC port of Halo.)
Which, according to Nielsen, is more popular than Counter-Strike among PC gamers. And people wonder why the TV ratings aren't taken seriously.

So they are responsible for cancelling alot of decent shows? Screw them.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2007-12-14 12:29am

One of the funnest lan games, AFAIC, is Worms Armageddon or Worms World Party. Both are basically the same game (I can't name the differences off hand). The only problem is that they are a little slower paced than FPS or RTS games. If you have more than 4 players in a match, it can get really tedious waiting for your turn.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-14 12:48am

Unless your players are good, in which case it's blisteringly fast, punishing, and totally inaccessible to new players.

People who know what they're doing in Worms utterly rape casual players.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-12-14 01:08am

Stark wrote:Unless your players are good, in which case it's blisteringly fast, punishing, and totally inaccessible to new players.

People who know what they're doing in Worms utterly rape casual players.

Isn't... isn't that the way it is for most games? I guess it depends on widely you define the divide between "people who know what they're doing" and "casual players", but still.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2007-12-14 01:09am

Yeah, I forgot about that. It's been at least a year and a half since I last played (I don't think we played it at the McLeod House LAN back in March).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-14 01:11am

Uraniun235 wrote: Isn't... isn't that the way it is for most games? I guess it depends on widely you define the divide between "people who know what they're doing" and "casual players", but still.

Well I'm saying it's a comedy party game, right? People play to have fun. And some people play so much and have such an understanding of the different weapons they are on a whole different level and unbeatable by the regular party game crowd, thus it's not a fun party game with them there, is what I'm saying. Unlike other party gmes where there's no real skill to it and it's just a larf.

In Defcon you can just lie and cheat and beat anyone.

General Deathdealer · Post by **General Deathdealer** » 2007-12-14 06:29am

I know it's an old game, but you can always go with the classic Starcraft.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-12-14 07:29am

The ultimate -- Liero.

Don't accept imitations: get the original, even if it means installing dosbox. Fits on a floppy too.

General Deathdealer · Post by **General Deathdealer** » 2007-12-14 07:44am

Another good one is Scorched Earth 3D. The 3D version makes you have to determine hight, distance, and direction.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2007-12-14 12:04pm

SOLDAT

I'm disappointed that it hasn't been mentioned already.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-12-14 12:57pm

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Apparently Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is still extremely popular (it regularly ranks in the top 5 most played games on Xfire, below WoW, CoD2 and 4, and Counterstrike). I used to play it and it's an absolute blast to just blaze around for whatever period of time, and best of all, it's free to download.

The true combat elite mode for it is very good too.

Also, it's cross platform which is nice for us Linux users.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-12-14 03:30pm

XaLEv wrote:SOLDAT

I'm disappointed that it hasn't been mentioned already.

Fucking Liero knockoffs

Besides, real life weapons suck. I hate how some games put names of real weapons then claim realism... that shit only works for gritty FPS games, not a sidescroller.

Post by **weemadando** » 2007-12-14 03:32pm

Original Ghost Recon on PC - you can even get it for free now, and if not you can get a massive bundle of it + the two expansions for $20AUD, or probably $10USD nowadays.

Lots of nice small maps if you want team DM or for much more fun run through time challenges on one of the firefight 100 challenges (you'll need the party pack mod to create firefight 100).

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-12-14 05:42pm

brianeyci wrote:Fucking Liero knockoffs

Besides, real life weapons suck. I hate how some games put names of real weapons then claim realism... that shit only works for gritty FPS games, not a sidescroller.

Wait, what? Are you dissing on Soldat? Get out.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-14 06:37pm

Hey, I hate Soldat, but I hate Liero *more*. And that whole 'oh noes they used teh real namez they obviosuly claim teh realizum in their 2d rocket-boosting shooter' thing is bunk.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2007-12-14 07:20pm

Battle for Wesnoth is a decent free TRPG with a multiplayer component. Nexuiz is also free and is a pretty good deathmatch FPS.

FA Xerrik · Post by **FA Xerrik** » 2007-12-14 09:41pm

I'll nominate WC3 also, if only for DotA. Getting RoC and the expansion together is really cheap last time I checked, if people don't already have it. DotA gives you lots of replayability plus great in-game support for just the sort of tourney you're talking about.

The_Saint · Post by **The_Saint** » 2007-12-15 09:57pm

1nsane Racing.. if you can get a hold of that it's always a lan favourite, especially for those who aren't too keen on fps