Good LAN Party Game suggestions ?

TraderSteve

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I'm looking at hosting a LAN party and was looking for some good games that have lower system requirements, LAN support and preferably Free (or cheap) for a group of say 8-12 people.

So far I'm thinking of:

Starcraft 1 (I can install spawn copies)
Track Mania Nations Forever
OpenArena (IE: Quake 3 Arena)

Other Suggestions ?
 
Back in the day Descent was awesome to play...had a lot of fun with that one. Also at least one of my friends BEGS me to set up a Mechwarrior game, but I never really played it and I think it would have a big learning curve over something like Q3 where people can pick it up fairly quick.

Could also go old school and network Doom, just have to make sure IPX is installed.
 
You already have OpenArena there, so I would only add Warzone 2100.
 
Doom and Heretic. I always loved turning people into chickens in Heretic.
I also like Unreal Tournament, the first version, later versions were ok, but I think they dulled the rifled headshots down. I love the Shock Rifle, and the Instagib shots..
 
Back in the day Descent was awesome to play...had a lot of fun with that one. Also at least one of my friends BEGS me to set up a Mechwarrior game, but I never really played it and I think it would have a big learning curve over something like Q3 where people can pick it up fairly quick.

Could also go old school and network Doom, just have to make sure IPX is installed.

I played Decent with the VR helmet. I couldn't get anyone else to play the game as they got motion sickness.
 
Seriously I wish it was 10 years ago and I was at my friends house with my LAN gaming rig hopped up on code red and playing Starcraft till the sun came up.
 
Anything other than a first person shooter or a driving game is going to have too high of a learning curve for the unfamiliar to have fun with it.

The difference between someone who has never played Starcraft, someone who has played single player Starcraft and someone who is familiar with multiplayer is fairly wide indeed.

I will throw my vote in for Team Fortress 2, it is free now, the requirements are relatively low and it is very friendly to new players.
 
Doom and Heretic. I always loved turning people into chickens in Heretic.
I also like Unreal Tournament, the first version, later versions were ok, but I think they dulled the rifled headshots down. I love the Shock Rifle, and the Instagib shots..

Heretic 2 has a little known Coop mode. DM isnt bad also...
 
I didn't even think about learning curves when I mentioned Warzone, but honestly any game will have a learning curve.

What I mean is, sure a newcomer can point and shoot in Quake, but they will be dominated severely by anyone who has been playing it since its first release. And let's be honest, getting owned hard doesn't stay fun for more than five minutes.
 
An expert at any game will defeat a new player, however strategy games are so complex at even their most basic level that a new player usually needs to run through a couple hours of the single player game before they are even familiar with the controls and the basic game.

The basic controls learning curve is much lower in a shooter, and if you pick team fortress 2 the unfamiliar players don't even need to learn how to aim (Pyro, engineer and medic are all great for people who can't aim).

Of course you can also pick an obscure shooter, (I like Shattered Horizon) and then no one is going to have an advantage due to being a pro at that particular game.



You have to watch out on the really old stuff, some of it doesn't run right on 64 bit operating systems and plenty of your guests will probably have those.
 
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Anything other than a first person shooter or a driving game is going to have too high of a learning curve for the unfamiliar to have fun with it.

The difference between someone who has never played Starcraft, someone who has played single player Starcraft and someone who is familiar with multiplayer is fairly wide indeed.

I will throw my vote in for Team Fortress 2, it is free now, the requirements are relatively low and it is very friendly to new players.

What he said.

I used to play AoE 2 and it's a great multiplayer game -- a fabulous multiplayer game but no way in hell is anyone going to learn to play it multiplayer in one session.
 
Also, the Steam summer sale will be coming probably next week. Inevitably several dozen titles with good multiplayer will go on sale for $2.50 each. Pick two or 3 of them and buy a bunch of gift copies, charge enough entry fee to your game to cover your purchases and gift them to your players when they arrive.
 
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