Lan Game Reccomendations

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

A mate is coming around on saturday and I thought it might be a good idea to play some Lan games as we'll have the house to ourselves and he's been seriously stressed from his thesis.
My main machine is running Vista and is capable of playing pretty much any game. The problem machine is a laptop which runs a GeForce Go 8400 GT and has a T7100 processor. That said it's good enough to run Half Life 2 maxed out.

At the moment I have Half Life 2, Company of Hereoes, Farcry, Serious Sam I & II, Z: Steel Soldiers, Halo, Battlefield II. I'm not sure if these run on Vista and even if they have Lan options.

What games would you reccomend I pick up that would run on the laptop and are reasonably cheap.

Overheal

That laptop isnt too poorly off, and I can tell you first hand on similar specs (slightly faster CPU, slightly slower GPU) that it can run Crysis under vista. Not very well, but certainly playable. So I wouldnt count it out.

Sins of a Solar Empire is a great LAN game, depending on the scale you want it can take anywhere from 1 to 12 hours to complete one match. Can buy it online in $ for a very reasonable $30 I think it is, over at sinsofasolarempire.com. From there you just install it through impulse (kinda like steam) but you do not have to be online or running impulse or anything to play, short answer being they have made the game (deliberately) very very LAN friendly. The new expansion for $10 adds a ton of new content as well, mostly geared towards turtle tactics.

Also this HAWX game, that could be hoot-worthy. Will run smoothly on the laptop I promise. But mouse and keyboard, bah. Dogfighting though... and you can also do co-op campaign.

If Dawn of War II can run on the laptop (which, it can) then CoH will be no problem. Battlefield II is a stretch of the imagination - I found it just doesnt run great for whatever reason. But he's on a GT card, not a GS, so he might be able to work it. edit: wait no, that was my old desktop computer running some fx5 card and a 1 core. nevermind. Should work grand.

Out of your current list of games he wont have any trouble running them.

ProjectColossus

First thing that comes to mind would be Left 4 Dead, should run well on the laptop.

No harm in breaking out some older titles either, Unreal 2004, Red Alert 2 etc. Or Unreal 3 and Red Alert 3 if they'll run OK, I'm not sure to be honest.

Kintarō Hattori

Thanks for the great reccomendations guys, I'll certainly look into those. I should also mention that it'd be ideal if the game supported bots of some sort.

AlmightyCushion

The unreal tournaments are good so are the call of duty games. Try alien versus predator as well. We used to have some great nights with that.

uberpixie

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Thanks for the great reccomendations guys, I'll certainly look into those. I should also mention that it'd be ideal if the game supported bots of some sort.

Def give Dawn of war 2 a shot: the campaign in the game has a co-op mode which is by far much better fun than playing it single player.

Left 4 dead would def get the nod from me too: its a blast to play co-op.

other than that apart from whats suggested: maybe some good old diablo 2 with the expansion pack. Good fun and will run on anything as its so old!

Overheal

Dow2 bots are sickeningly stupid when I last checked, but that was during the late beta.

SeantheMan

SWAT 4 and UT2004 are excellent coop LAN games

kaimera

+1 for SWAT.

Half-life - sven co-op mod is probably one of the best co-op/lan games ever.

One of the C&C games.

cherryghost

age of empires :pac:

the_syco

cherryghost wrote: »

age of empires :pac:

AoE2 ftw! Runs on anything. Only slows when 50+ elephants are running through on your base...

Sabre0001

Agree with Age of Empires. Could get some good old-school racing action with Midtown Madness (square circut with loads of laps can be a good laugh - Ford Mustang - basically everyone tries to run each other off / into pillars ). Worms games. Theme Hospital is supposed to have a really cool multiplayer.

Half-Life - Some great free mods out there too (may have been released for HL2 too) - Rocket Crowbar, Pirates Vikings & Knights...

Old games but if you can get them to run on Vista it would be worth it.

the_syco

Flat Out. Great laugh, and the mini games are fun. Should be in a bargin bin for a tenner at this stage, in HMV, etc.

L31mr0d

is it just the 2 of yous?

Gears of War coop is fun on the PC. Even the versus is good, although you really need at least 4.

On top of that: UT04 (again with 2 it probably wouldn't be that good)

For 2 people HL1 Deathmatch is very good, with some small maps.

Also, a great game we used to play at lans when the mortals needed to get food and use the toilet was the Richochet mod of Half life. Tron inspired and actually pretty fun, especially with the power ups.Used to play it loads in the compsoc at college with a mate when we'd be waiting for more people to show up to play CS

Oh and Quake 3, you can't go wrong with having Quake 3 to fall back on. We usually play games after work on friday using the work lan and more times than not we'll always come back to Quake 3, even though most of the PCs here could run CS:S or better.

Sabre0001

Three free games for you:
TeeWars (some maps suitable for 1v1 DM)
Soldat
Trackmania

Ponster

Yes, you can always fall backl on Quake 3.

Battlefield II has a LAN option but needs a download to add clever AI bots.

AlmightyCushion

L31mr0d wrote: »

Oh and Quake 3, you can't go wrong with having Quake 3 to fall back on. We usually play games after work on friday using the work lan and more times than not we'll always come back to Quake 3, even though most of the PCs here could run CS:S or better.

Don't forget to download different bots for quake 3. Nothing better than running around the place blowing the shít out of a dozen clippys.

Pyr0

+1 on Soldat ! Brilliant game !

PogMoThoin

+1 for SWAT 4, I'm hoping someone continues this franchise as its one of my favorite multiplayer games ever.

F.E.A.R. is great and F.E.A.R. Combat which is the multiplayer is completely free, You'll need to find small maps for it as the main maps are huge. I've regularly played this 1v1 against my young fella, we've got 3 good small killbox type maps (including dd-sensation, an amazing one with a glass floor). Maps here

Kintarō Hattori

L31mr0d wrote: »

is it just the 2 of yous?

Gears of War coop is fun on the PC. Even the versus is good, although you really need at least 4.

On top of that: UT04 (again with 2 it probably wouldn't be that good)

For 2 people HL1 Deathmatch is very good, with some small maps.

Also, a great game we used to play at lans when the mortals needed to get food and use the toilet was the Richochet mod of Half life. Tron inspired and actually pretty fun, especially with the power ups.Used to play it loads in the compsoc at college with a mate when we'd be waiting for more people to show up to play CS

Oh and Quake 3, you can't go wrong with having Quake 3 to fall back on. We usually play games after work on friday using the work lan and more times than not we'll always come back to Quake 3, even though most of the PCs here could run CS:S or better.

Grand so, Q3 I'll try and get my hands on. Half Life I'll install at some point. It will unfortunately be just the two of us.

AnCapaillMor

Battlefield 1942 with the desert conflict mod, last game i can remember with good bots and allowed up to 40+ of them.

Jazzy

Starcraft.... clearly

esskay

Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 is great for 2 people, you can do co-op story mode (max 2 people) or terrorist hunts (max 4 people). Faster pace than SWAT and the bots on realistic setting are mean as hell.

Company of heroes is great also. Its better than DOW2 imo. There are loads of maps you can download for it too from here.

If you happen to have Dawn Of War : Dark Crusade there is a fantastic mod for it available here. Loads of new troops/vehicles/upgrades and a restructured tech tree. If you don't have DOW : DC you can buy it through Steam for €9.99

Left4Dead is another sweet game, €29.99 on Steam. Teamplay is essential to getting anywhere in L4D. If you wander off on you own prepare to be vomited on, choked or have your guts ripped out

Have fun,

Esskay.