The LAN Party
TPC Presentation in Review

By Andrew Hayes

First, many thanks to those that organized, contributed, and attended the TPC's first foray into non-productive computing.

The many questions and comments put forward by the members showed that multiplayer gaming (online or LAN) is of some interest to many of you, and we hope that we were able to shed a little light on some of the mysteries that exist around this serious time-wasting phenomenon.

During our preliminary discussions we had all agreed that 2 hours is not enough time to cover every aspect of multiplayer gaming, so it was decided to concentrate on the FPS (First Person Shooter) games, as the majority of LAN parties are based on this gaming genre.

We intend to take a closer look at multiplayer RTS (Real Time Strategy) games and RPG's (Role Playing Games) in the future, as well as some of the non-violent, sports- or fun- related multiplayer games that are available.

I think we covered FPS quite well this time round, and although we had to sort out a few hardware and game configuration problems, we still had everything up and running well enough for Sam to show MOHAA (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault), myself to show Aquanox, and for Sajjad to show Max Payne.

The opening cinematic for MOHAA just has to be seen to be believed!



We then started up the multiplayer gaming session of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and although it took a little while to get somebody into the chairs apart from the presenters, we soon had a good crowd of interested onlookers around each machine, and Mike took the opportunity to make the break and show Baldur's Gate 2 on his laptop, for those more interested in RPGs than FPSs.



To get an idea of what to expect when you head to a LAN party (Games wise. Beer and pizza is a given.), I suggest you take a look at the nominees for "GameSpot's Best of 2001" in the areas of Multiplayer Action, Multiplayer Role-Playing, and Multiplayer Strategy:

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/bestof_2001/index.html

Unfortunately, a growing number of MRPG and MRTS are designed to be played online via a game server run by the game developers, with a fixed monthly fee, and are not really applicable to a LAN party where games like Diablo 2, Command and Conquer Red Alert 2, or Civilization III are the usual favorites.

This is something that will be covered in future LAN gaming presentations, and you might also want to keep an eye on the TPC games newsgroup:

http://www.tokyopc.org/cgi-bin/webnews/newsgroup?G=tpc.games

That is the likely avenue for announcements of LAN party venues that will hopefully start to happen now that we have stirred up some interest.

Many thanks to The Royal & Sunalliance's
"The London Assurance"    http://www.royal-direct.co.jp
for the provision of not only five 17" Sony monitors (see picture below), but several Pentium class PCs, which were auctioned or donated to worthy causes after February's meeting.

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