If there’s something that I’ve really missed over the years in my life as a gamer, it would be the LAN experience. Whether it was with consoles or PCs, my friends and I would constantly get together for crazy nights of shooting, trash talking, Diablo-ing and Warcraft-ing. The spread of online gaming in the console realm has sort of put the LAN experience in the backseat, but it doesn’t make it any less fun.
I found this out firsthand this weekend as several of us got together the night before my brother’s wedding. To celebrate his last night of sweet, sweet freedom, we pulled several XBox 360s out with monitors and TVs and played Gear of War 3 until late in the evening. As fun as Horde mode can be online, it kicks up a notch when all of you are in the same room, freaking out at one another during the boss waves and screaming for your life. Good times.
The whole night was a great reminder of those times of old. Even though we play together constantly online, being in the same room was such an awesome experience, and one that I want to have again soon. In a lot of ways, the LAN extravaganza is so representative of what gaming can be in terms of community and creating stories together. There’s nothing quite like it.
So what about you guys? When’s the last time you had an awesome LAN experience? What games did you play? What games are on your wishlist for a fun LAN party? Go!
My friends from school and I would get together every 6 months or so and go absolutely nuts on Halo 2. Unfortunately it hasnt happened in a while but when it did, we came up with some crazy victory conditions. Like free-for-all rocket-ball matches where the winning time was 20mins, on the smallest maps. Each match would take like 3 hours. Chaos, blissful chaos.
N/A
Although I DO plan to change that now that I have friends who would dig that kind of thing. Ahh university life, how you spoil me. We’ve already agreed upon playing CS:GO together when it comes out (I’m the noob for THAT one considering everyone else has 1.6 or Source experience) as well as some other games old and new. Mebbe link up some consoles some night? This post has given me some good ideas. Thanks Eddy!
The last time I went to a LAN was about 3 years ago at the recording studio where I was going to school (my teacher invited me since I was a gamer). We moved all the desks and setup a circle of 6 or 7 of us and started sharing games we could all play. Started off with HL2 Deathmatch and went on to Farcry and then, of course, Quake III Arena.
It was the first time I LAN’d with people who weren’t my longtime gamer friends and we all had a really awesome time. I wish less people grew out of PC gaming, it’s expensive and a pain to move everything, but man were those nights awesome…
My Friends and I have one every 6 months. Its getting infrequent due to Internet being quicker now.
I really love how we played Modern Warfare 2 LAN, then Starcraft 2, TF2, Age of Empires, and so on.
We just found a lot of extension cables. Ran around locating a good router and started battling against each other. Those were the days. I remembered this one time when somebody even went and bought 30 Gallons of Code Red Mountain Dew and a 2 Costco Cartons of Red Bull. That was a wild night with all that.
Pc Gaming is awesome but the price tag that comes along it may be a pain sometime. Plus Microsoft is being a real jerk with some Xbox Exclusives such as Gears of War. At least Halo 1 and 2 got ported to PC.
I’ve been dying to do a LAN party sometime soon because the last time I did (back when Halo 3 first came out) was just so damn fun. It’s amazing how the fun level is brought up a notch just by being in the same room as one another.
Don’t know if this counts, but I do a lot of triple split-screening on l4d2 on my pc. That was a month ago.
Although a lan party now is as close to happening at my place than ever, since my brother and I now have 2 powerful separate PCs.
Such great childhood memories. Diablo 1&2, Team Fortress 2, and Age of Empires 2.
I know everyone says LAN is dead, but some of my fondest memories are staring at a glowing LCD monitor with a huge blue cord getting out from behind into my neighbor’s computer.
Oh, man. I might have brought this up a few times on here, but my friend used to host Halo 3 LAN parties. We’d hit up a grocery store and buy all kinds of junk food, and I’d bring over a tv and we’d hook up some 360s. We had a custom gamemode we always played called MAG 01, where the running speed was turned up to max, one shot killed, and the only weapon was a magnum. We played on maps with a lot of space and we’d watch the replays afterward. Those were some of my best gaming memories, hands down.
Boy, I can’t even recall the date I had my last one. I think it was back when MW2 came out, at least eight of us got together in my house with a bunch of soda, wings, chips, and pizza.
12 hours later we were all crowded in front of the bathroom, still trying to play while we waited.