LAN of Old Machines Needs Games

February 19, 2007 5:10 PM

Hope me find an older game with co-operative multi-player. I am looking for older technology games (video cards at least 2 years old) that allow LAN players to team up and fight AI opponents. FPS preferably, but RTS or other game suggestions are welcome. Please don't recommend RPG's this is for casual play without time investment.

If you want to tell me where to buy them and download them online I would give you a gold star.*




*gold star will be glued to my monitor. I will be the only one who sees the gold star

posted by Megafly to computers & internet (22 comments total)

My favorite RTS to play against computers were C&C Generals and Warcraft III
posted by mphuie at 5:13 PM on February 19, 2007

I play cooperative counter-strike:source on my machine - it's got a Ti4200 about 4 years old, possibly older.
posted by aberrant at 5:30 PM on February 19, 2007

There are so many.

FPS:

1. counter strike


2. Quake


3. Unreal Tournament


4. Doom

RTS:

• Warcraft!


• Starcraft!


• Dune II!

Clearly you don't want to get the latest versions of this stuff. I think you still need pretty beefy hardware to run Doom 3, but the earlier versions should run on "legacy" hardware no problem. Finally, way older games (like Dune and Doom) are in the "public domain", sorta (?), in that you can download 'em for free. Finally, Quake 1 has been open sourced and while (afaik) you can't get the original levels without paying you can download the free levels.

HTH and happy playing.


argh, on preview, afaik none of the FPS games have coop against AI mode, but all of the RTS games do.
posted by aeighty at 5:34 PM on February 19, 2007

I suggest Serious Sam. Its from 2001 so it should run well on your hardware. Its an FPS that i played co-op with 2 friends in a setting similar to yours. A simple game, where the learning is mostly about the best ways to kill each of the many different funny characters you face. Its best feature is a co-op play mode where you all have endless respawn so you can have long play sessions with little or no repetition. I fondly remember a pink bull-like monster that would charge against the players and send us flying in the air when it hit. Please send it my regards.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 5:42 PM on February 19, 2007

You can play Quake 3 on old hardware, and I think it's available free and perhaps legally. I'm not sure how the co-op is.
posted by grobstein at 5:58 PM on February 19, 2007

quake had mods that would let you play coop, either single player style or dm style.
posted by Iax at 6:21 PM on February 19, 2007

someone also created a mod for Half-Life 1 that let you play it through with coop. that was fun.
posted by Iax at 6:22 PM on February 19, 2007

And Rune had good coop too, I cant remember if it was a mod or built in a patch. But it was some fun viking themed coop.
posted by Iax at 6:22 PM on February 19, 2007

My favorite multiplayer FPS game from back in the day was Rainbow Six (including all of the various sequels). Since it was less, "run around shooting everything that moves," and more, "collaborate on and execute a plan," it was always a lot of fun to play as a team with friends.
posted by jal0021 at 6:25 PM on February 19, 2007

Sven coop was the Half Life coop mod. It was funner to play the specially made coop maps than the singleplayer maps.

I second Serious Sam.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 6:42 PM on February 19, 2007

Third Serious Sam, second Sven Co-op. Battlefield 1942 is a riot, if you can get 8+ people in one room, and the computers are new enough -- mine's 5 years old, with a new video card added 3 years ago (9600XT) and it works well, but I was playing it at lower visual settings on a geforce2 mx before that.

I'd stay clear of Quake3, there really isn't a co-op. You might be able to get one of the Doom (like, oldschool DOS Doom I/II, not III) ports for Windows running, which could be fun.
posted by Alterscape at 8:49 PM on February 19, 2007

Oh, and Total Annihilation/Spring, if you set up the server for humans vs. computers. It's a pretty complex, but fun, RTS game.
posted by Alterscape at 8:52 PM on February 19, 2007

As I posted here there's a computer version of the Axis and Allies board game. If you can find the Iron Blitz edition, it allows you to play custom scenarios, which is great if you don't have 5 people (one drawback, the AI isn't great)
posted by chndrcks at 8:55 PM on February 19, 2007

Operation Flashpoint had nice co-op play. Few years old. Probably super cheap. Should run fine on two-year old equipment.

Cool mission editor, too.
posted by notyou at 9:36 PM on February 19, 2007

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is freakin' awesome. and it's free.
posted by gnutron at 10:54 PM on February 19, 2007

Starcraft on The Hunters map it's awesome in co-op and one of the favourites of me and my lan-friends. The more you're fast (and furious) the more cpu players you can sustain. The key is controlling the center of the map, not so easy because cpu players tend to rush when you're still starting everything and there are many of them.

Diablo II is another of my favourite (full disclosure: I'm a Blizzard fanboy). I still keep my high level paladin for the occasional pvp against my friends.

And if you are a soccer fan don't forget that Pro Evolution Soccer / Winning Eleven it's even better in 2vs2. You just need a multitap (cheap on the Ps2) and four joypads.

Co-op in the last two years it's returning in games (especially on Xbox 360) after years of absence. So the microsoft console it's the almost perfect co-op machine: Gears of War, R6: Vegas and (soon) Ikaruga. Assault Heroes is not too bad either (even if it's difficult to find co-op players on xbox live).
posted by darkripper at 2:43 AM on February 20, 2007

Total Annhilation the best RTS I've ever played.
posted by bigmusic at 3:26 AM on February 20, 2007

Rainbow 6, of course. Rogue Spear especially, with Raven Shield.

Cheap, pretty,co-op or versus, tough AI, lots of mods, lots of gear to choose from, easily findable save-games so you can get the maps w/o doing the single player.

If you should go this route, get AIM Arena and play it 2 player, on max difficulty w/ max terrorists. Tiny map, hard as heck, but super duper fun.

I still play this game to this day.
posted by TomMelee at 8:54 AM on February 20, 2007

Seconding Starcraft - great multi-player game
posted by taliaferro at 9:23 AM on February 20, 2007

Quake III does have capture the flag and team deathmatch modes, so yes there is cooperative play if you can get it going. There are still plenty of open servers out there to join and frag, but be aware that any that do not have the punkbuster enabled will be full of people doing impossible things just because they can get away with it.

Spent plenty of time playing Starcraft and Diablo with friends. Starcraft/Warcraft have less time investment to get a good game going, with the Diablo series you'll need to spend time leveling up before you can do very much of anything.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:39 AM on February 20, 2007

with the Diablo series you'll need to spend time leveling up before you can do very much of anything.

I disagree. The most fun we used to have with Diablo was playing it "hardcore" -- you started a new character every time, you were not allowed to buy any equipment other than the lowest-quality starting weapon (depending on how hardcore you want to be, you can allow players to buy potions or not), and if you died, you had to start over again. The beginning of the game is quite challenging when played this way... you end up using almost every scrap of equipment you find, rather than sticking with one or two nice items.
posted by vorfeed at 10:16 AM on February 20, 2007

I'm suprized no one has said Duke Nukem yet.. so let me say it...Duke Nukem.
posted by dirtylittlemonkey at 3:03 PM on February 20, 2007