RETROspective: LAN Parties
As some of you may know, I don’t play a whole lot of PC games much anymore. Now I tend to prefer sitting and gaming on the couch in a more relaxed position. I also got tired of having to constantly configure and upgrade my computer with the latest and greatest hardware to keep up with the advancements in gaming. Just don’t want to bother keeping up anymore. In truth, I used to be really into that when I was younger, and was actually fun to tinker around and work on my computer. Now, not so much. What I did do recently though to get my own PC was upgrade to a decent video card that a buddy of mine gave me for free. Due to the amount of heat being generated, I also bought a small internal fan and used an l-bracket to jerry-rig it in the computer case, ghetto PC style! Works great and reduced the internal temperature by close to 10 degrees Celsius!
Adding a fan (bottom right) for more cooling
That was kind of fun but in reality, I enjoy just buying a game, plopping the disk in and playing. That’s it. No worries if it’s going to run properly, if I need to mess around with the settings or configurations. I know right away it’s going to run without me doing anything.
Having said that, I recently was invited to a small LAN (local area network) party from a buddy of mine to play some good old Call of Duty 4 on the PC. Not only has it been a long time playing with a mouse and keyboard but it’s been a long time playing COD4. Sure why not right? It’s more just a bunch of guys getting together and wasn’t hardcore or competitive. I was pretty rusty playing a FPS with a keyboard and mouse combo but since I’ve played so much COD4 in the past, I manage to hold my own keeping it respectable. As I’ve said in the past, things like map knowledge, gun and perk setups can make a huge difference in your FPS gaming success.
Call of Duty 4 – the classic
Nowadays, we are all connected via the Internet, Xbox Live, and/or Playstation Network. It’s just easier for us so we don’t have to travel and cart all our equipment to one location. I must admit thought, it was a lot of fun in this kind of environment since it’s more social and you can actually see their reaction to getting beat which never gets old.
Now THIS is a LAN party
This little LAN party took me back and reminded about my very first ever LAN party that I can remember way back in my 1st year university. We were all on 486 machines and to connect our 2 computers, we had to use a serial cable. The game of choice: 1 versus 1 in Doom. That’s right one of the original first person shooters.
One of the original FPS
No router or switches, hell no network cables. Just good old fashion serial cables. Only 2 people could play at a time so the rest watched, laughed, trash talked until their turn. This was my first real taste of multiplayer competition. A taste that still has not gone away to this day.
Yes kids, these are what serial cables look like.
So fellow GamerVets, what’s your best LAN party story? Let us know in the comments!
A nostalgic look back at the games that defined our formative years and influenced the games that we play today.
