LAN Party

by | Apr 21, 2009 | Culture, Friends and Family, Games

So, next weekend, all the ladies in our church are going to a women’s retreat until Saturday night. That means just one thing. LAN Party!

I’ve got a good sized group of guys coming over Friday afternoon for some gaming and we don’t plan on stopping until the girls get back the next day.

So far we’ve got PC’s, a couple monitors, 3 Xbox 360’s with 2+ controllers each, multiple TVs, a couple cases of beer and the pizza place on speed dial.

I’d like to some how take it to the next level, maybe set up a sound system with some techno going, or bring in some lights. I’d also like to borrow a projector from the office and maybe do some 120″ wall-gaming.

Ideally I think I’m going to need to find one more Xbox 360, one more copy of Halo 3 and CoD 5 and perhaps 2 copies of Left 4 Dead. That would give us an even number of everything across the board. Problem is the guy with the 4th Xbox will out of town and all three of those games are still $50 or more retail. So, renting becomes an option, at least until I realized there really isn’t a place to rent current-gen video game systems. I think both Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stopped the practice a long time ago and I don’t know what other options are out there.

So, now I’m looking around to see if any of our other friends in the area that have 360’s would let me borrow them, or if they would like to come, but if they come then I’d need to add another TV and another copy of the games.

It’s really kind of aggravating that there are so few multiplayer Xbox 360 games that support heavy LAN play. Halo 3 is only game that I can find that supports non-Xbox Live account multiplayer, meaning more than one person per console. With Halo 3 you can have up to four players, per console, with a maximum of four consoles (for a grand total of 16 person LAN play). Every other game that supports LAN play, is one person per console only. So, you can play Call of Duty or Gears of War with four other people, but you need 4 Xboxes, 4 TVs and 4 copies of the game. If everyone had the same taste in games maybe this wouldn’t be a problem but I’ve got guys who like WWII shooters but not zombies, zombies but not Nazis, Madden but not shooters, we’re all over the place.

Anyway, we’ll figure it out. I’m sure, even if we have to trade off every other round, that we’ll have a good time.

I’ve got two 1000ft boxes of Cat5 cable and I’m busy running long stretches of it across the house. I’ve got a 24-port switch and a 6 port to back it up in case it doesn’t work. This is going to be a good one.

I’m slowly trying to get all these guys, who have never really gamed before, into the sport. So far they all seem to enjoy it. My goal is that by this time next year, I’m planning a 30+ person LAN throw-down. I can’t wait.

Matt out.