Take A Byte XII

We're having a LAN party, and you're all invited!

For the last few days a number of us have been indulging in some LAN goodness in my garage. However, our attempts to geek out on some fun games have been severely hampered by Electronics Arts. In particular, the cause of our misery was Battlefield 2.

Battlefield 2 is a great game. Its core gameplay is absurdly fun and addictive – you can spend hours trying to capture and recapture outposts off of the enemy. This is assuming, of course, that you can actually get the game to run – yes, this wonderful title is yet another case of buggy products being rushed to store shelves before they’re finished.

Our first few games actually ran well, aside from a number of crashes. We started running into problems when we thought, ‘hey, let’s try and stop these crashes from happening by downloading the latest patch’. This turned out to be a big mistake – as soon as the patch started installing, it came up with an error message. Not to worry – we’ll just try it again. After a few more attempts, though, it became clear that the patch just didn’t want to work. To make matters worse, the little bit of the patch that had managed to get installed had stuffed up the entire Battlefield program, meaning it was now irreparably broken and had to be totally reinstalled.

Eventually we got it to work, but not before many hours had passed and much hair had been pulled out. It’s a real shame that Battlefield 2 was rushed out like this, and that the patches that have been released are so inexplicably crippling. The situation is exactly the same for the first expansion – it suffers from a number of fairly sizable bugs that really hamper the fun.

Still, after all of this, we managed to have a good time blowing each other up or having knife fights. And that’s the beauty of LAN parties – absolutely owning against all of your friends, who are conveniently close enough to hear your terrible smack talk as you take them down. The logistics of setting up a few computers in the same room is a nightmare compared to sitting around a TV with your favourite console, but let’s face it – PC games are just so much better than console ones. Okay, right now I can think of at least a dozen exceptions, but for sheer multiplayer goodness, you can’t beat a good LAN game of Unreal Tournament 2004 or Battle for Middle Earth.

Of course, the whole setup of a LAN party is, as I mentioned, rather annoying. You definitely need at least one car driving between several houses, picking up everyone’s computers. Then you need a good location – I’m lucky to have this cool, spacious garage, but in the past we’ve tried setting up our computers in kitchens, around hallways, and once in a very hot and sunny lounge. Seriously, sunshine is the enemy of those who want to play games until their eyes bleed. Then you have to deal with whoever else lives in the place you’re trying to colonise, whether it be parents or irate flatmates who don’t want a whole lot of geeks camped in their house for a number of days.

Another thing to remember – caffeine is your friend. Drink a lot of coffee or soft drink and you’ll have no trouble staying up past dawn, happily fragging your friends for the umpteenth time. The same goes for food – it’s not really a proper LAN party without empty pizza boxes all over the place. Having said that, though, I did start craving after some fresh fruit, just for a change.

LAN parties are great fun, assuming you can get over the logistical problems and actually get the games to work well (I’m looking at YOU Battlefield 2). It might be a lot of effort, but if you pull it off right, it’s well worth it.