Games We Play

We play several different games at my LAN parties and online. I prefer objective-based games. I find deathmatch painfully boring. So we tend to play games that have some sort of objective to them other than just racking up kills. We also tend to prefer playing cooperatively instead of against each other, and we typically stick with family-friendly games. Listed here are our current favorites in alphabetical order.

Age of Empires 3 (AOE3) is the latest RTS in the Age of Empires line. At our first LAN party in July 2000, we played AOE2, and we were hooked. AOE3 has a similar feel to AOE2, but is based in the U.S. during colonization. It has a wild west feel to it. It also adds the concept of a home city across the pond that can provide you with supplies and such. Your home city can be upgraded by using experience points earned while playing. Experience points are used to purchase "cards", which can provide you with better supplies and upgrades in the game. While AOE3 didn't capture us the way AOE2 did, and is certainly not as good as Rise of Nations, it is still a fun game. The Warchiefs expansion makes it possible to play as various Native American tribes, where previously the Native Americans were bit players. The Asian Dynasties expansion lets you play as the Japanese, Chinese and Indians (from India).
We started playing AOE3 at the October 2005 LAN party.

Minimum Requirements:
1.4 GHz CPU
256 MB RAM
2 GB hard drive space for install
64 MB video card that supports Hardware Transform and Lighting

Battlefield 2 (BF2) is a first-person shooter (FPS). It is based in the near future. Players can be the United States, the Chinese, or the Middle East Coalition. Players use modern weapons, and can control over 30 different vehicles. Each team starts with a number of tickets. Each time a player is eliminated, their team loses a ticket. But that is not the main point. On the map there are several control points. You take a control point for your team by standing next to the control point. Your flag appears on the control point when you take it. If both teams are near the flag, it will appear white since neither team controls it. When your team controls a flag, the opposing team can lose tickets. This varies depending on the rules of the map. Sometimes any control point causes the opposing team to lose tickets. Sometimes your team has to control ALL the control points in order for the opposing team to lose tickets. The goal is to be the last team with remaining tickets, or have the highest number of tickets when the time runs out. Battlefield 2 adds a new dimension to gameplay over BF1942 by adding the commander. The commander gets an overview screen of the whole battlefield, which allows them to give orders to soldiers, do radar recon of an area, or drop air strikes on an area.
In May 2006, they finally added bots to the multiplayer, which breathed new life into this game.
In March 2008, we started playing with the Nations at War mod, which again breathed new life into the game. NAW adds a ton of new weapons, vehicles (including some fun, non-military vehicles), and lots of maps. They also removed a lot of the irritations from BF2 in the process. For instance, my highly-trained soldier can now run for more than 10 seconds without collapsing in a heap like an athsmatic. That makes going without a vehicle more reasonable. Then there is the grappling hook. Way cool.
We started playing BF2 at the July 2005 party.

Recommended Requirements:
Windows XP
2.4 GHz CPU
1 GB RAM (runs 20% faster with 2 GB)
2.3 GB hard drive space for install
128 MB graphics card (256 MB recommended), ATI Radeon 9800 or better, nVidia GeForce FX 5600 Ultra or better

Matthew's Notes: For Nations at War, I recommend at least a 2.4GHz dual-core processor, and a GeForce 8600GTS or better. You should get a 3DMark06 CPU score of 2,000 or better. 1.5GB RAM is a minimum in order to avoid disk swapping. NAW is very CPU-dependent, and it also appreciates a pretty fast graphics card. My Athlon 64 3400+ 2.4 GHz single-core CPU with a GeForce 8800GTS (very fast PCIe card) can't manage a solid 60 FPS with even the lowest settings. My Pentium 4 3.2 GHz with a Radeon HD3850 (fastest AGP card available) couldn't manage a solid 60 FPS at the lowest settings either. However, my Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 GHz dual-core CPU with a GeForce 7800GT (my slowest PCIe card) plays NAW at a solid 60 FPS with the highest settings. That means a midrange 2005 graphics card can play NAW at the highest settings as long as you have a nice CPU. That's different than the norm, which is why I mention it in such detail.

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (CZ) is a first-person shooter (FPS). Counter-Strike has been the number-one online game for a number of years. Condition Zero adds to the Counter-Strike formula by adding bots to play with, by adding personality to the hostages, and by adding slightly improved graphics.

In the game there are two teams: terrorists (Ts) and counter-terrorists (CTs). There are three types of maps: bomb defuse, hostage rescue and VIP assassination.

In bomb defuse, a random member of the Ts has a bomb that must be taken to a designated bomb site in the map. The bomb must be planted, which takes several seconds. Then the bomb takes 30 seconds to detonate. If the bomb detonates, the Ts win. The Ts can also win by eliminating all the CTs. The CTs can win by eliminating all the Ts before the bomb is planted, by defusing the bomb after it is planted, or if the bomb does not go off before time runs out. The Ts can still win if their bomb detonates even if all the Ts are eliminated. If the Ts carrying the bomb is eliminated, the bomb is dropped. Another one of the Ts can pick up the bomb and continue.

In VIP assassination, one player is randomly chosen as the VIP, and must escape to a designated rescue point. The VIP only has a pistol, but has twice the normal armor. It's up to the CTs to protect the VIP from assassination and get him to the rescue point. The CTs win if the VIP escapes or the Ts are all eliminated. The Ts win if the VIP is eliminated or runs out of time before escaping.

In hostage rescue, the CTs must find the hostages on the map and take them to a designated hostage rescue point. The CTs can win by rescuing all the hostages or by eliminating the Ts. The Ts can win by eliminating all the CTs, or if the CTs run out of time before they can rescue the hostages.

In the early versions of CS, there was another map type: terrorist escape. The bots don't know how to escape, so we don't play that map type.

CS has an incentive for accomplishing objectives. For everything good you do (rescuing a hostage, your team winning, etc.), you get money that can be used to buy better weapons and accessories for the next round. If you are not killed, you bring all your stuff to the next round, but not the next map. When the map is changed, everyone starts with a small amount of money to get started. Doing bad things (like eliminating a team member or shooting a hostage) causes you to lose money.

We play a variety of maps for CS that I have found from various places. I prefer maps where the objective has at least two ways to access it. That way it is harder to create a choke-point. We also play with team damage turned on, which makes the gameplay more difficult.

CZ is the primary game we play online. We started playing Counter-Strike at my Thanksgiving 2000 LAN party, pretty much when 1.3 first came out. We started playing Condition Zero at my May 2004 party. We usually play with humans vs. bots on normal skill level, but with bots outnumbering humans 2 to 1, or 1 to 1 on hard.

Recommended System Requirements:
Pentium 3 or Athlon 800 MHz
128 MB RAM
32 MB 3D Accelerator card (OpenGL or Direct 3D)
3 GB hard drive space for full install and extra maps

Counter-Strike:Source is a first-person shooter (FPS). It is Counter-Strike 1.6 upgraded with the Source engine, so it has much nicer graphics, and it has realistic physics. The fancy graphics and physics don't really add anything to the gameplay, but it sure looks nice, especially compared to the aging graphics of the original game. It also has much smarter bots compared to Condition Zero, so we tend to play with a 1 human to 2 bots ratio on easy. Sadly, it lacks the hostage personalities and intelligience of Condition Zero. The hostages will no longer react to what is going on or try to run away from the terrorists. They also can barely maneuver through the map. There is no riot shield, either. Gameplay-wise, this is just CS 1.6 for Source.
We started playing CSS at the May 2005 LAN party.

Recommended System Requirements:
2.4 GHz Processor
1 GB RAM
DirectX 9 capable graphics card

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a first-person shooter (FPS). It has the same multiple-objective gameplay as Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, but it is based in the Quake universe. The guy who created the FritzBot for WolfET was hired to make the bots for ETQW, so the bots are excellent. ETQW also includes vehicles and realistic physics. A major improvement over WolfET is that waypoints are shown as icons on your screen along with the distance to the objective. You don't have to look at the map like you did in WolfET. This makes it easier for people who don't know the maps.
We started playing ETQW at the October 2007 LAN party.

Minimum System Requirements:
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz or Athlon XP 2700+ for XP, 3 GHz/3000+ for Vista
1 GB RAM for XP, 1.5 GB RAM for Vista
128MB nVIDIA Geforce 5700 or better, ATI Radeon 9700 or better
Matthew's Notes: On a 1 GB system, you will have to HEAVILY optimize your system to get ETQW to run well. They claim a minimum requirement of 512 MB RAM, but according to the Windows Task Manager, it takes 1.3 GB RAM to run. You will get better performance if you have at least 1.5 GB RAM in your system.

FlatOut 2 is a fun racing game. It has the racing elements of the classic Need For Speed games (before they went all gangsta and decided to clone the dark and disturbing Midnight Club series), including street, rally and track racing, but also has destruction derby and the hilarious stunt modes, including such things as Ring of Fire, where you try to launch your driver out of your car through several rings of fire, and then land in a pool at the end. Good times! We added the Flatout Joint Community Mod at the May 2008 LAN party. It adds tons of cars and tracks to the game.
We started playing FO2 at the December 2006 LAN party.

Recommended System Requirements:
2 GHz Processor
512 MB RAM
3 GB hard drive space
64 MB graphics card, GeForce 5 series or better, Radeon 9600 pro or better

Left4Dead (L4D) is an awesome team-based horror-themed first person shooter where teamwork is key to survival. The 4 humans must work together to make their way through the map to the safe house. If someone goes off on their own, they will absolutely die. There are regular zombies, which only have their hands and feet as weapons, but can be deadly in large packs. But then there are five boss infected. The Smoker can shoot out his long tongue and pull humans to him where they will be beaten to death. The human is trapped and helpless unless a teammate rescues him. The Boomer will vomit on a human, which attracts large hordes of regular zombies on them. If shot, the Boomer explodes the vomit around him. The Hunter can leap large distances, and can pounce on humans, who are helpless unless rescued by a teammate. The Tank is large and hard to kill. His powerful arms will throw back humans when they are hit, causing massive damage, and leaving them helpless for a time. The Witch is harmless unless startled, and then will pounce on whomever startled her and rip them to pieces. Humans can also play as the infected, although not as the Witch. When playing as infected, you can respawn after 15 seconds, at which time you are spawned as a random infected boss. If humans are killed, they are out for the round. The game is randomized, which keeps it interesting. Items will be placed differently, and sometimes your route can change. The bosses show up in different places each time. The game changes the situation based on how you are doing.
We started playing L4D at the December 2008 LAN party.

System Requirements:
3 GHz Processor (2.4 GHz dual-core recommended)
1 GB RAM
7.5 GB hard drive space
128 MB SM2-capable graphics card, Radeon 9800 Pro or better, GeForce 6600 or better (SM3-capable, GeForce 7600 or Radeon X1600 or better recommended)

Rise of Legends (ROL) is a futuristic/fantasy RTS from the people that brought us Rise of Nations. It plays similarly to RON, but with many new twists. The gameplay has you building cities to expand your territory, and the cities can be expanded in many ways. There are three civilizations to choose from: Vinci, which are powered by steam and clockwork, the Cuotl, which use stone and metal and a mysterious power, and the Alin, which use magic. Each civilization is quite different, but they are all very balanced.
We started playing ROL at the May 2006 LAN party.

Recommended System Requirements:
1.4 GHz CPU
256 MB RAM
4.5 GB hard drive space for install
64 MB graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (nVidia GeForce and ATI Radeon)

Rise of Nations (RON) is considered an evolution of the Age of Empires series. It's a lot more like AOE than Age of Mythology is. In fact, it feels like a combination of Empire Earth, AOE, AOM and The Settlers (an RTS game from long ago). There are 18 civilizations to choose from (much like AOE). There are 8 epochs from Ancient Age to Modern Age (and it includes nukes, much like Empire Earth, but they can thankfully be disabled). Unlike AOM, it incorporates the idea of having borders around your territory (like Settlers). Building cities near borders expands your borders. You can only build in your territory (no more building a castle in the enemy's territory and sending a stream of special units like in the AOE games). Any buildings built around a city are considered part of that city, and special bonuses can be achieved by doing so. If you take an enemy city, all the other buildings around it become yours as well, although the city has to be assimilated first (which takes a couple of minutes), in which time the enemy can win the city back. In the standard game mode, if you take an enemy's capital city and assimilate it, they instantly lose, which significantly reduces the game time (no more sending nomads around the map to rebuild civilizations and delay the inevitable). Instead of relics, RON has rare resources that are located at fixed points on the map that you have to control. Also, resources (farms, wood, ore, oil) never deplete, so there is less micromanagement, although there is a limited amount of resources that you can gather per location. For instance, you can only have 5 farms per city, and the number of loggers and miners you can place on a forest or mine is limited to the amount of trees or ore available there. But once they are in place, you can leave your villagers there for the duration of the game, and they will keep on working. There is no gold to mine. All money is acquired from caravans between your cities and by controlling rare resources. The amount of gold earned depends on the size of your cities. All of these things make for fairly quick and fun games. RON also has some interesting variations in the multiplayer modes. Besides the normal conquest modes, they have a mode where the goal is to reach Modern Age before anyone else, and another mode where one person is in a later age and has a fortified city, where the other players are barbarians stuck in an early age, but everyone gangs up on the fortified city.
The Thrones and Patriots expansion adds 6 more nations, and more units, wonders, and government types. RON is basically the epitome of RTS gaming. We have not yet found any RTS that holds a candle to RON.
We started playing RON at the 2/04 LAN party.

Recommended System Requirements:
1 GHz CPU
256 MB RAM
1 GB hard drive space for install
3D Accelerator with 32 MB RAM

Trackmania Nations Forever (TMNF) is an over-the-top stunt racing game. It's the sequel to Trackmania Nations and United. Tracks have jumps, loops, and other crazy stunts in them. Rather than everyone racing the track at one time, everyone does a time trial at the same time. You can see the other cars, but you can't run into them. Everyone competes to get the lowest time on the track. You have 5 minutes to get your best time. Sometimes you need most of that time just to cross the finish line successfully! You can reset as often as you want without penalty. This provides a non-confrontational competitive environment that is a pleasant change of pace. Trackmania Nations Forever has the graphic quality of United, but still only includes the stadium tracks. However, there are lots of new things in the stadium tracks, and lots of new tracks. The stadium tracks are arguably the most fun track type in Trackmania United anyway. The game can be downloaded free from the Trackmania web site, or downloaded for free in Steam.
We started playing TMNF at the 5/08 LAN party.

Minimum System Requirements:
Athlon XP 1600+ or P4 1.6 GHz CPU
512 MB RAM
750 MB hard drive space for install
3D Accelerator with 16 MB RAM
Matthew's Notes: I was able to play TMNF at 60fps when using the lowest possible settings on my 2.8 GHz P4 with Radeon 9800 Pro. Anything less than that, and you will not be able to achieve 60fps. The P4 3.2 GHz system with 6600GT lets me play the system at 60fps with fairly low settings and 4xAA and 8xAF.

Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is the fourth in the Unreal Tournament series. It is based on the new Unreal Engine 3, so the graphics and physics are much better than in Unreal Tournament 2004. It only has the following game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Duel, Unreal Warfare and Vehicle Capture the Flag. It does not have the following modes: Onslaught (which was my favorite), Bombing Run, Double Domination and Assault (another favorite). Unreal Warfare is the new game mode. It kind of combines the gameplay of Assault, Onslaught and Domination, and increases the scale. The map sizes are said to be about three times larger than an Onslaught map in UT2K4. This mode also includes resource management, in that you have to capture tarydium mines to get more resources, which let you build vehicles and things faster.
We started playing UT3 at the 12/07 LAN party.

Minimum System Requirements:
2 GHz CPU (2.4 GHz dual-core recommended)
512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
8 GB free hard drive space
GeForce 6200 or Radeon 9600 video card (GeForce 7800GTX or Radeon X1300 recommended)

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (Wolf:ET) is a FREE download. It was going to be an expansion for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but Activision changed their minds and decided to give it away instead. It is a WWII-based FPS where teams are on Axis or Allies. You can choose from five classes of people: soldier, medic, engineer, field ops and covert ops. The soldier can hold the most ammo and carry the best guns. The medic can give out health packs and revive dead players (if they don't respawn first). The engineer can build, fix and destroy things. The field ops can give out ammo packs and call down air strikes and artillery strikes. The covert ops can take the clothes off of dead enemies to disguise himself, and he can detect land mines. The levels have multiple objectives that have to be achieved in a time limit (usually 20-30 minutes). Both sides have many objectives, but often it is one side defending from the other's attacks. The FritzBot mod enables us to play against bots, and the bots are very intelligent, although perhaps a bit too accurate with their aim.
We started playing Wolf:ET at the 6/03 LAN party.

Minimum System Requirements:
600 MHz CPU
512 MB RAM
800 MB Hard Drive space
3D Accelerator card with 32 MB RAM
ATI Radeon, nVidia GeForce, Matrox Parhelia

We have played several other games at past LAN parties, but for one reason or another, we have stopped playing them.