For me it was Unreal Tournament. Have been playing several different fps games in the last day or so, and none of them scratch the itch I have, though UT itself (via OldUnreal) comes the closest.
I don’t think the game I want exists, because I want features that exist in multiple separate games.
Oh and one of the ones I tried out was Halo MCC. Didn’t last very long because not only were there long wait times for matchmaking, but I stood absolutely no chance against anyone in those matches. It was embarrassing.
This is an entire genre of videos
Ours was people bringing over their desktops to one person’s house and we played Aliens vs predator on a LAN. When we were done we played risk for the rest of the night.
Was much fun.
AvP when you were the only one who could easily deal with the alien doing ceiling shenanigans was hilarious. Just dropping out of the sky from great heights. This, Using the hitscan heavy machine gun in Soldier of Fortune as a sniper rifle, leaving a grid of the little nuclear bomb trucks in “allies” bases in Red Alert 2 who you knew were gonna backstab you and being an absolute terror with ripper headshots in Unreal Tournament - just absolute golden good times.
Well. For me anyway. Not sure others enjoyed it quite as much.
AvP was a fun LAN game!
It was super fun to be a marine with the smart gun backed into a corner. I’d blow through all my ammo killing everything then a predator would kill me the second I was empty.
Uhm, not Halo.
The peak moments were Friday nights with the gang; pizza ordered; Goldeneye, pyramid level, slaps only, no Oddjob; an ongoing Lego collaboration being worked on for the ones who there weren’t enough controllers for in that round (you’d cycle out that spot); and first-gen Super Smash Brothers waiting on the side.
For me it was all that you said, plus Halo.
We should have a fucking Fediverse game night somewhere.
Nobody plays RTCW anymore…
Ha. I worked at a place in thr 90s where lunch time was Engineering office Quake party.
no game is going to bring back the era of being with your friends in a same physical space to spend hours gaming without a care in the world. the young don’t even have that now.
It’s so sad, it was so magical. I want that for my kids.
We have two laptops and a desktop, and we have three kids, so they get a bit of a LAN party experience playing Mineclonia.
The desktop also has a big screen (34 inch ultra-wide I think) and 4 xbone controllers so we play 4 player games like Overcooked, Stardew Valley, Sackboy, Tux Cart.
Generally we don’t have screens on when their friends come over but perhaps when they are a bit older they might still have a chance for that gaming with friends experience.
Sounds like lots of fun!
Don’t buy them a tablet or smartphone then until they’re almost adults, and limit computer time. I didn’t get my first cell phone until I was 16, didn’t get my first smartphone until 24. They will be okay.
They still won’t get that experience. All their friends will be in their homes playing Fortnite.
Or they’ll get the cops called on them for doing normal kid shit like exploring the woods or even just playing outside, because suburbanites are actually terrified of children doing children things and have been conditioned to hate and fear this.
Halloween is coming soon, time to trick or treat in a church parking lot
Don’t forget that you can’t actually do that on Halloween, because the church doesn’t want to be seen as promoting Halloween.
“Toy Story 5” had it right.
Imagine how insane this statement would sound with no context to a time traveler from like 2001
I’d be excited about there being more Toy Story movies that allegedly have good messages!
Well if that’s the case then it’s on you. You’re the parent, you decide whether or not the kid stays home all day. Like the other person said, arrange play dates. Also, take them places. Play at the park, go jet/water skiing on the lake, go to amusement parks, go camping, hiking, etc. There are endless activities you can do with your kids, many of them only costing you the price of gas or a train/bus ticket.
Yeah for sure! I just meant, merely not buying them phones and tablets isn’t enough. I rather like the idea of getting an old console with a bunch of split screen games and inviting their friends over like the other user suggested.
get two Wii’s with GoldenEye and a crossover cable
Millennial parents could buy some $30 8bitdo controllers (they’re very good dual stick controllers for the price), and then download and set up a series of games that have four player split screen…
…tell their kidso they’re doing a games night and should invite their buddies. Then see what happens.
If you can still hear them at 1 am, it worked. Make sure to provide snacks and cola.
they’re doing a games night and should invite their buddies
As in table top? Pssh, that’s so lame. I kid, I kid.
But I do think it’d be “exclusive” to setup your own kids with a split screen experience, with platforms that seem new and exciting. Just peddle it as “exclusive,” and it’ll sell hotter than hotcakes.
I was thinking more get on the pirate sites (steamrip) after finding out “best split screen PC games”… And there’s some pretty cheap overhead projectors these days. The HAPPRUN H1 for instance is extremely cheap, but still quite bright.
Doom, head-to-head, while talking on the phone.
For me it was Quake II on the Nintendo 64. Didn’t even have a LAN, just a big-ass TV split into quads. It was a skill to watch your own screen but also everybody else’s so you knew where they were in the arena. My buddies always went for the BFG which was effective of course but pretty crude. I secretly spent months playing the single-player campaign and practicing like crazy with the rail gun, which could also take people out with one shot but was very difficult to get a hit with. I got so accurate with it that my buddies accused me of cheating somehow – the ultimate compliment.
And this was around 2003 - 2004, almost a decade after the N64’s heyday. You just don’t need the latest shit to have fun. Give me a stick and a hoop and I’ll be happy.
I’ve spent thousands on gaming and home theater equipment to realize I don’t love TV/movies/gaming, I loved hanging out with my friends.
Ouch, my fucking soul…
Over here on the other side, I minmax’d “buddies” over “home theater equipment” so now whenever I have someone over to watch a movie it’s on my fucking laptop lmao.
No need to brag :p
I made my media collection portable so I can do movie nights at my friends’ houses.
Thankfully, I invested selfishly so I get to enjoy my investment, not forlorn for a game/movie day with the buddies.
Can still have it. I have semi regular Mario Kart and Smash Bros nights. Loads of fun, always stay up until way too late. Finish off with a dumb movie.
You’re only chasing that high because you don’t embrace whimsy
Ah yes, let me just embrace whimsy with all these… friends… that I totally have!
I started the smash bros nights specifically to make friends post college as most of my college friends moved away. One of the guys I met online only once through a TTRPG discord and now he brings the good beer.
Also, whimsy can be everywhere. Step outside and watch a flower dance in the wind. Bam, whimsy. Go visit a cemetery and make up funny stories about what led to inscriptions on the tombstones as you map it for findagrave.com , bam, whimsy. You need zero friends for whimsy, but whimsy has led to many friends in my experience.
Missing the point and moving the goalposts all in one comment! Good job, here’s an award 🥉
I think we’ve found the real reason you’re talking about few friends on a thread about whimsy and fun…
Because you said “It’s easy, just start a LAN party” as if you were assuming everyone already has friends to start a LAN party with?
The thread is about nostalgia, not whimsy. You introduced the latter, and you did so as if it’s predicated upon having friends, and as if someone with no friends is really just failing to embrace whimsy, which frames it as a personal failure and not one that depends on the participation of other beings.
Dude, you’re defending a nostalgia bait “back in my day” post. Yes I called it out. Maybe instead of sitting around here complaining about having no friends you do some introspection and recognize that why you are being called out here for complaining about no friends and being called out in other threads for complaining about not being allowed to approach women have something in common, you.
Now, I set up another LAN party tonight and we’re gonna have fun. We’re going to experience that high the original post is complaining about chasing. You can stew on some response to this post by yourself, or redirect the energy to making friends and go have fun yourself. ciao
It’s clearly shitpost-oriented. Not a genuine “back in my day.” You can’t handle a little bit of self-deprecation so you had to be condescending instead. That’s not embracing whimsy.
And the irony is not lost on me that although you came here preaching about whimsy, you completely failed to recognize the whimsy inherent in posting a fucking spongebob meme as an act of self-deprecating humor. That’s not “complaining about having no friends,” that’s just whimsy; the exact thing you came here preaching about.
But since you clearly felt so strongly about it that you felt the need to stalk my profile to prove a point (i.e., by condescending), I can only infer that you have a habit of making yourself feel better about yourself by putting other people down. Is that whimsy?
And if your interpretation of that other thread was me “complaining about not being allowed to approach women” then you’re completely misreading it based on pre-conceived notions that you walked into it with. I was clearly saying “Yeah, women have expressed that they don’t want to be approached, so the right thing to do is to not approach.” And making self-deprecating jokes in a thread with other guys in the same boat is called “emotional support,” which is exactly what people say men need to start doing for each other. So if you really want to shame people about that, then you’re part of the fucking problem.
Enjoy your LAN party, where I’m sure you’ll spend a significant portion of your time talking down about people who aren’t there to defend themselves, because that’s how you manage to feel good about yourself in a world where suffering is the norm and empathy the exception rather than the rule.
Men need to embrace their sassy side.
The “Aww” at the end got me. Thats great.
z snaps and sips my mimosa
Edit to add: love a good racing horse name
Having 4 or 5 PCs in different rooms at a LAN party is a whole different vibe than multiplayer, shouts coming from all the bedrooms, stuff like that.
That’s why we switched to smash Bros. Not everyone has a laptop or desktop they want to bring but I can pull out a bunch of controllers. It’s so much fun actually seeing someone groan when they miss a super smash.
We all bring our favorite snack and pass bowls around. Case of whatever beers. We’re debating setting up a running leaderboard.
I was an IT guy, had loads of crappy PCs I could scrap together. If you remember Half Life, it would play on a toaster. :) This conversation got me thinking I should setup my kids when I get them for Thanksgiving.
Or grab Halo CE portable from somewhere on the seas. We did that one so much
We played 16 player Halo a bunch in college. 4 TVs, 4 XBoxs, 4 players each, such a blast.
Mid 2000s was peak LAN era. Halo, CS, Starcraft, some guys playing Magic in the corner.
Half Life with my stepson and his friends was our jam. One night those fuckers ambushed me with 3 Powder Puff girls as avatars. I was laughing so hard I got murdered over and over again.
I embrace whimsy all the time, but a lot of people I know, don’t.
Haters gonna hate. Sadly too many people let the haters bring them down.
Now if you’ll excuse me. I’m gonna up the whimsy and go frolic in a field before scheduling our next LAN night.
More people need to just embrace whimsy.
Yes! Go look at sea glass and scream “pank!” If you want to. Life is more fun with whimsy.
I feel like there is a whole generation of millennials who has this feeling about MMOs - always chasing the high they felt playing WoW back in 2004, always on the lookout for the next up-and-coming MMO thinking this surely will be the one, never realising that they’re longing for a moment in time that can never be recaptured, a version of themselves and a place in their life they’ll never re-experience.
This happens to a lot of people in one way or another. Family traditions, vacations to the same place or event, favorite restaurants, and on and on. Once you recognize the pattern it is freeing to be able to say goodbye to the things that can’t be recaptured, remember them lightning in a bottle they were, and move on.
Wouldn’t turn down a halo lan party though.
Are you telling me that WoW Forever isn’t going to do the trick for me in a couple of weeks?
I see this image all the time and understand the intent behind it, but I’m curious to watch the clip in context to understand the nuance of the delivery. Source?
I want to believe… No but for real though, I feel like WoWF might actually work for because of the horizontal progression style. Every time I tried to play again I just didn’t want to be on threadmill but it was mandatory. IF they can actually manage horizontal-ish progression then I can approach the game differently and get a new, different experience which won’t be the flaming hot passion it was in my youth but also might not be all that bad, and more importantly compatible with my current lifestyle.
Or I’ll just fall off (on?) the wagon again and cancel the sub, no Biggie.
Yeah, I think as long as they don’t fall into the retail trap of making it incrementally easier and simpler until the challenge is gone, it’ll be in good shape.
People enjoy the comaraderie of going through a difficult thing together, and gradually removing that also removes that opportunity.
Better pre purchase the deluxe mega edition to be sure
You’re so right. Can’t take any chances.
Thanks to Asheron’s Call, Everquest, and Dark Age of Camelot I was already jaded about MMORPGs by the time WoW came out.
But yes. In this way for me the winter of 99-00 was a magical time.
I stopped chasing it and now I just get baked every weekend after the kids go to bed then sit and cry in my beanbag chair while eating oreos out of a cup of milk with a spoon
this is also the title of my isekai manga.
FWIW in my personal experience stoners make by far the best parents. And that’s without even contrasting them to the boozing and cigarette-smoking parents. I have no personal experience with the fentanyl and meth parents, but I don’t imagine they’re strong contenders.
Have you tried eating Oreos in a beanbag chair while playing Halo with your kids?
It’s pretty much the LAN party experience, but you will probably win more games 😜
too young for FPS games unfortunately.
you’ll grow into it eventually
Battlefield Vietnam
StarCraft Brood war
Supreme commander
Unreal Tournament Edition
Counterstrike 1.6 (I think) These were my 2001 lan party gaming experiences I wish I could reclaim.
Tribes 2 was a staple for mine.
