My Experience at a LAN Party

With the holiday season coming to an end, it’s about time that I update my blog. I was checking into the Steam holiday sale to get more trading cards, and I noticed I had not opened a Steam guide while in game. The last time I even launched a game through Steam was back in August at a LAN party. It was the first time I brought my own computer to that kind of event, and I figure I should share my experience with it.

Late on a Saturday night, I packed my car with supplies including my laptop, my laptop stand, keyboard and mouse, and some snacks. I arrived at the clubhouse to find my friends already set up and waiting to play some multiplayer death matches. Thanks to the summer sale I had purchased Unreal Tournament 2004, so after plugging in my power cord and Ethernet cable I added the game to the Steam library. One or two of the players present was downloading a patch, but thankfully the Steam copy already had everything applied. When I entered the game, I was treated to a golden age multiplayer shooter. I could run and jump around the arena, switching weapons as I tried as hard as I could not to let my health go to zero. No iron sights or weapon carry limit were to be found while I was toggling the alt fire on and off and getting killed. Surprisingly enough I got a killing spree going in one of the matches, but I bowed out of the matches when the objective switched to capture the flag with instagib weapons on. It was a better multiplayer experience than I had the last time I played Call of Duty, at the very least.

Later in the night I started running into technical problems. I was playing on my Dell laptop running Windows 7, and I had an Intel graphics chip instead of a proper graphics card. Oh sure, I could run VVVVVV just fine, but the Unreal 3 engine games really taxed my system. I had already tried out Bioshock Infinite on my machine, so I knew the latest games would only work on low graphics settings with low frame rates. Cooperative play in Borderlands 2 was a nonstarter, as I watched my peer run the game just fine on my PC while my laptop struggled to render anything for me to pay enough attention to my surroundings. While I was downloading that game, I began Psychonauts, which recognized that I had a gamepad plugged into but did not replace the button prompts to let me know which buttons were which. I even tried out the original Bioshock and Half-life thinking my laptop bought in 2010 could run games from three or more years ago. Both games ran smoothly for a bit before the full screen windows freaked out, prompting me to take a break.

The night went pretty quickly, possibly ending the festivities prematurely. A bunch of my friends went to sleep in the adjacent commons area in the clubhouse, and I eventually joined them using my sweatshirt as a makeshift pillow. By the time the sun rose, some of the participants had packed up their machines and left, so we opted to eat breakfast instead of play more multiplayer. I learned that my laptop did not have much trouble with Source engine games, so I played some Half Life 2 and Portal 2 single player. I finished my time at the party with some Portal 2 coop, which mostly consisted of my partner guiding me through the obstacles, but it was still fun to do.

Because I did not grow up with a Windows machine, I didn’t follow trends in computer gaming and was devoted to Nintendo consoles. One of these days I need to build my own PC machine so I can take advantage of playing all of the PC games I missed over the years and try out new ones that aren’t too taxing on hardware. Until then, I look forward to the next LAN party. I might even bring a console with me for some exclusive multiplayer gaming.