Light LAN-game suggestions?

[Murska]

I'd like some suggestions for games to take to my gaming group at school:

The situation is as follows:

I have a group of players the size of which varies, but is usually 3-5 players and at most nine. Requirements for the games include being fun, working on the less-than-perfect school computers(Could roughly say that Faces of War works on minimum settings but is laggy, for instance. Men of War, no go.), the games being over rather fast, prefarably 20 minutes or less and being able to bring the game to school on a 8gb memory stick and move it onto the computer getting it working in a reasonable amount of time, since the school computers delete the games after each day. Downloading it from the internet at school doesn't work.

A list of games tried and liked include, but aren't limited to:

Battle for Wesnoth
Ghost Recon
Soldiers - Heroes of World War 2
LieroX
Defcon
Age of Empires 2
Warcraft 3

[Domochevsky]

Duke Nukem 3D? Quake? :smallbiggrin:

[MrPig]

I was going to suggest Heroes of Might and Magic 3, but with up to 8 players (maximum the game supports) a single game might take you a good week. Then again, the game does support saveing/loading multiplayer games.

[Eloel]

You're missing Worms. That's never a good sign.
Also, Soldat.

I had a similar situation. I ended up having
Age of Empires 2
Civilization (can't remember version)
Worms Armageddon
Warcraft 3 (mostly for DotA)
Quake 3 Arena
Soldat

[Inhuman Bot]

Counter Strike and Halo 1 were extremely fun at a LAN party my brother and our friends had earlier in the summer, along with Starcraft 1.

[Rockphed]

If you can get copies, Homeworld and Homeworld 2 will probably work, though I'm not quite sure what graphics systems you would need. If homeworld 2 doesn't work, Homeworld probably does; Homeworld is about 12 years old now...

[Murska]

Soldat and Starcraft 1 both had the same problem: I've played both games a ton and am reasonably good at them while my friends haven't played them at all. Result: Either I don't play or nobody really has much fun.

Worms is one I'll need to try.

Our group is rather strategy/tactics minded: Ghost Recon is fun but we're not much for most FPSs. However, suggest them anyway. Who knows, we might like them.

[Makensha]

If you can get copies, Homeworld and Homeworld 2 will probably work, though I'm not quite sure what graphics systems you would need. If homeworld 2 doesn't work, Homeworld probably does; Homeworld is about 12 years old now...

Do you feel old?

Anyway, most games you can install on your flash drive and keep the save file there, so you don't have to actually install anything, you just need to bear longer in game loading times at your computer has to take it from the flash drive.

[Poil]

Aliens versus Predator 1&2 (the second game is slower paced but lets you facehug people in multiplayer)

[Domochevsky]

Oh yeah, i second the Worms Armageddon motion. A blast at every lan party. :smallsmile:

(Needs a patch to work on XP systems, though)

[Murska]

Do you feel old?

Anyway, most games you can install on your flash drive and keep the save file there, so you don't have to actually install anything, you just need to bear longer in game loading times at your computer has to take it from the flash drive.

Yes, that's what we've been doing. The game, however, cannot exceed 8gb and would prefarably be much less so I can fit more than one.

[MoelVermillion]

Grab the original Half-Life/Counter-Strike and throw on some mods. When working on the old WON engine version you can have 6 players on one CD-Key when lanning and being from 1998 the game naturally is not a strain to run. If you're willing to search around you can find some great mods too.

If you're going to go this path I reccomend for mods:
- Sven Co-Op (A multiplayer co-operative mod the players team up to fight monsters from the single player game, very fun and not doesn't take itself too seriously.)

- Natural Selection (You need a few players for this but its a hybrid first person shooter/RTS where aliens and marines fight for control of a map, you build buildings, research upgrades and do many of the other classic RTS things. Needs a few players and quite complex but well wroth the experience if you can get in to it.)

-The Specialists (At first glance this is a standard death match game for the PC but what sets it apart from its competition is its loving embrace of over the top Matrix style action movies. Slowing time, kicking guns out of each others hands and back flipping off walls are just some of the stunts that this mod allows you to do to spice up your death match experience.

There are some other good mods too but those are the three I find get the most play/praise from my LAN group when ever we play.

[Ilena]

Age of wonders and age of wonders 2? takes awhile to play but saved on a flash, shouldnt be a problem, COULD have up to 12 players depending on the map.

[Cespenar]

Do you know of the Warlock and Pudge Wars custom scenarios on Warcraft III? They essentially are fast-paced action games with unique and very interesting mechanics. Excellent LAN material.

[Rockphed]

Do you feel old?

Anyway, most games you can install on your flash drive and keep the save file there, so you don't have to actually install anything, you just need to bear longer in game loading times at your computer has to take it from the flash drive.

Old? Not a chance. I just happen to like games that came out 12 years ago and are still better than anything but their sequels. Also, better than their sequels. Also, in true Sierra fashion, impossible to beat without insane luck, skill, or the strategy guide. In my case, it took all three.

[Triaxx]

Total Annihilation. RTS, old, and has no-CD exe's out there so you can simply play it from the memory sticks.

With CC and the skirmish maps installed it's roughly 242mb in size. Players vary from 2 to 10.

Fallout Tactics has multiplayer, but I have no experience with it because there's no one to play against. It's a tad smaller than 2 GB

Sacred is a good one, but it's kind of a huge game at 3.20 GB.

The original Call of Duty is a bit over a Gig, and seems to want a CD, but the games are quick and kind of fun.

[Roel]

What operation system (OS) do you use (i.e. windows xp, win7 etc)

Bare in mind some of those old games don't run - or run poorly - on newer OS's. Especially LAN functionality tends to work poorly when trying to run a pre XP game on a new OS.

[Murska]

3,2gb is nothing bad. Anything goes as long as it's under 8.

Anyway, the things have XPs. And there are actually rather few games that you absolutely cannot get to work on a newer system in any case.

Total Annihilation sounds fun, but I don't know how long a game would take. I haven't played Sacred in multiplayer myself, though I have played SP.

[Triaxx]

TA games have to determining factors for length. First is skill of players. The better the players the longer the game goes. The second is map size. There are small skirmish maps like The Pass, designed for two but supporting four, all the way up to 32x32 Two Continents by default, with elbow room for 10 players and a very long game, to the 64x64 Epic Africa downloadable map, which takes very long to a new level.

Sacred multi is fun for two reasons. It supports groups of up to 10 players, and in co-operative mode you can save the game to continue later. There's also an XP bonus depending on the number of additional players in the group and within a couple of screens. Best of all it's pretty stable. Be sure you get Underworld, and the 2.28 patch, because that's the No-CD version of the game. Will save you a lot of headache.

And before the evil sherriff lands on my head, that's the official Ascaron Entertainment patch.

[Trixie]

Anyway, most games you can install on your flash drive and keep the save file there, so you don't have to actually install anything, you just need to bear longer in game loading times at your computer has to take it from the flash drive.

Actually, it'll be faster unless it's really slow Flash, IIRC.


Soldat and Starcraft 1 both had the same problem: I've played both games a ton and am reasonably good at them while my friends haven't played them at all. Result: Either I don't play or nobody really has much fun.

Holding back? :P Trying units/races/strategies you've never used? :P Playing 2 vs 2 vs 1 (you)? :P

[Murska]

Holding back is no fun. In Starcraft, I can offrace 1v3 and win, and in more than that against me it ends up in either them all rushing me at once or me having time to rush a few of them out of the game and then grind down the rest.

In Soldat, we can play teammatch or something with many people against me, but in the end since the score goes by frags they end up losing even worse. CTF might be more fair, but still, the game just doesn't really work that way.

[Enguhl]

Stronghold Crusader (NOT EXTREME!), my friends and I actually used to load it up on flash drives at school to play. Length of game really depends on players and play styles.
A good rush can end the game in 5 minutes, but if everyone likes to play at a reasonable pace it can last an hour or two.

[Triaxx]

Usually we have a gentlemans agreement about rushes. Mostly it's that there are no rushes in the first five minutes. On the other hand, since it's not a hard rule, a rush is proceeded by an attack force of ten or so units. So that the receiver knows a rush is on the way. This only applies inside the first 5 minutes though. Any time after that the rush is free to stomp into your base unannounced.

[742]

what about getting your friends to learn starcraft?

[Dispozition]

CSS and CS1.6 are what we used to lan during classes where nothing was learned. That or playing pokemon/golden sun on emulators.

Most of the Valve games are good, HL deathmatch, CS, TF2, DoD...Unless you don't want FPS...Then Warcraft III is a good one.

Oh, Quake Arena for a blast to the past, and a hell of a lot of fun.

[Triaxx]

what about getting your friends to learn starcraft?

Or getting them to learn a good game. :smallwink:

[toasty]

DotA might work if you can guarantee 10 people. 4v4 works pretty well too, actually. 3v3, not so much.

Counter Strike Source or Counter Strike is good fun, as are really any older FPS games. Other than that, I'd suggest TA as someone has said and maybe Heroes of Might and Magic III or IV. I really like Heroes of Might and Magi IV.

[FoeHammer]

Tremulous? (http://tremulous.net/files/) Fast paced alien vs. space marine type combat. Plays best in very big or very small groups.

If you can get your hands on some joysticks, Freespace 2, probably my favorite game of all time, is lots of fun on LAN, and despite being old, was recently given a graphics/gameplay update by the people over on the Hard Light (http://www.hard-light.net) boards. You do need to buy (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/freespace_2/) a copy to get the improved version to work though.

[Inhuman Bot]

Or getting them to learn a good game. :smallwink:

S**T IT'S ON!

Really, I would like to know what you consider a good game, if Starcraft isn't. :smalltongue:

[Triaxx]

Total Annihilation. More units to start with, more strategies to work. A much longer campaign. I managed to finish two StarCraft missions in the time I spent on one Total Annihilation mission. (Until I hit ARM mission 5, where I was stuck for nearly a year and a half.)

Greater unit control. StarCraft is limited to 12 units at a time, while Total Annihilation can handle selecting all of them. Whether the number be 100, 250, 500, 1500, or 5000. Plus the fact that the Multiplayer Maps are large enough to be able to field those 5000 units effectively.

Naval units. Scout ships, Transports, Submarines, and Battleships.

Nukes which can be stopped by methods other than: Scramble to find tiny red dot, and then hope to find cloaked unit before nuke arrives.

Massive stalemate breaking artillery pieces that require rapid neutralization. Airforces actually capable of reaching the enemy faster than simply walking. Airforces which have to be shot down by air forces.

Resources which don't just suddenly dry up, but are no less contested because of it.

Actual planning skill rather than pure click speed being the deciding factor. Which means that pure practice will only take you so far.

All that said, I don't mean to say that Starcraft is bad. It's okay, but only okay.

[Gamerlord]

@Triaxx: Fallout tactics multiplayer? Pretty OK, but keep it is important to watch how many points players can use to make a character. Lolery begins the moment you let a guy use 999999 points to create a super mutant grenade-throwing abomination. Or has over 100 C4.

[Murska]

Please don't debate SC vs. TA here. Both are RTS games but that's where the similarities end. Both also have hard-core fans (I'm on SC side) so bringing it up usually results in a giant debate that degenerates into a flamewar.

[Dogmantra]

I've never played Starcraft, so luckily I can't contribute to the debate, but I will say TA is fantastic. Just watch out about downloading new units. Some are brilliant, some... not so much.

[deuxhero]

Being a single player guy, I can't really say more than Jedi Academy and Diablo (2)

[Triaxx]

@Murska: I have to agree, SC is more of a tactical game than a strategy game, but I'll agree not to argue.

@Gamerlord: Love some 'nade spam muties.

@Dogmantra: The big reason I mostly stick to the Cavedog units myself.

Or play World Domination.

[Kane]

Command and Conquer: Renegade.

On of my guiltier pleasures. However, the multiplayer is undeniably good.

[Rockphed]

Command and Conquer: Renegade.

On of my guiltier pleasures. However, the multiplayer is undeniably good.

I'm not sure what happened to my copy of that game. How much would a copy cost these days?

[banthesun]

Your school's computers seem a fair bit better than the ones we worked with at school (not to mention the security sounding pretty lax), but one of our favourite games was Netacka (http://students.mimuw.edu.pl/~pm262952/netacka/), a network version of Zatacka, aka Achtung die Kurve!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Zatacka is kind of like a multiplayer version of Snake, useful in that you can have up to six people playing from one computer. The massive cluster of people around the computer was fun in itself! Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achtung,_die_Kurve!) wikipedia explaining it better.

Netacka lets you play on different computers, so it's not as crowded. If you've got commercial games on the computers you can probably find something better though.

[Murska]

Sadly, Renegade has been tried and didn't work. :smallfrown:

However, Tremulous was a hit. :smallbiggrin:

[Triaxx]

Why was Renegade a no-go? Compatibility? Or just not a hit? If it's the latter we might have more recommendations.

Of course if it's the former we'll also have more recommendations.

[Murska]

I don't actually know. One of my friends had tried it and just said it didn't work on the machines. Being unable to install anything on them limits the amount of troubleshooting we can do, anyway.

[Rockphed]

I remember when I first got it my graphics card couldn't stand the heat. Twas very sad.

[Triaxx]

Now that gives us a clearer picture of what won't work. It'd be easiest with rough system specs, but we can work without.

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds: It's essentially an Age of Empires 2 mod, but it's awesome and only 800MB.

Dungeon Siege might run as well, and it clocks in at 1.52MB.

Have you considered laying out for a few more JumpDrives, so you don't have to install, you can just plug in and play straight from the drives? Definitely save the hassle of re-installing at the start of each session. Plus you could preload with a selection of games until you hit a limit (for saves), in case you want to play something else part way through.

[Murska]

It's not like we install the games each time. We just move 'em from the sticks to the computer and then pass the sticks around so everyone gets the game. Doesn't take long, even with large games.

Anyway, for examples of games that work but that we haven't gotten around to playing much for various reasons: Battlefield 2, Rome - Total War.

[Eldariel]

SWAT 4 is pretty nice, should fit and might just run.

[Triaxx]

That's what I meant about reinstalling. I guess there's no time saved then. Just an idle thought.

I just thought of the Icewind Dale series, BG games designed for multiplayer. And both together are only 1.7GB or so.

[Pahvimato]

Stalking Murska is always a good thing. By doing it you find threads like this.



A list of games tried and liked include, but aren't limited to:
Battle for Wesnoth
Ghost Recon
Soldiers - Heroes of World War 2
LieroX
Defcon
Age of Empires 2
Warcraft 3

Holding back is no fun. In Starcraft, I can offrace 1v3 and win, and in more than that against me it ends up in either them all rushing me at once or me having time to rush a few of them out of the game and then grind down the rest.

Boasting much? I like how you didn't mention why Age of Empires 2, for example, isn't being played anymore. Because you got pwned. That's why.


Tremulous? (http://tremulous.net/files/) Fast paced alien vs. space marine type combat. Plays best in very big or very small groups.
Agree with Murska, this was a hit. One of the problems with the games is, that I and Murska have played a lot more of games than the others, which means we will ''learn'' the new games much faster. Tremulous has the same problem, I can play it already, Murska can play it, others not so well. They are learning though!

Maybe we will make them play them more so they will learn and it will be more fun...

Great suggestions, keep them coming! :smallsmile:

(I know this doesn't really add anything, my intention at first was to bump this thread but then got this sudden urge to write this thing)