Recommend some good online games?
April 23, 2004 2:52 AM

What is the best game to play online these days? And don't say Counterstrike.
posted by Orange Goblin to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (36 answers total)
i'm happy with natural selection .
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:03 AM on April 23, 2004


Battlefield Vietnam is a lot of fun if you can find a good server. Needs some patches to handle lingering lag issues, but otherwise it's one of the best multiplayer games I've played.

The thing is, right now the best gaming is offline - namely, Far Cry. You MUST get Far Cry (and you must have a hell of a system for it). Also, for those wondering: Hitman Contracts plays like a giant expansion pack of Hitman 2 more than anything - some 8 levels out of 13 in it are remakes of old Hitman 1 levels.
posted by Ryvar at 3:07 AM on April 23, 2004


I used to have a lot of fun playing 'Infantry' (sonystation): the graphics 'sux0rz' and there's a lot of obnoxious teenagers speaking hax0rz, but it's surprisingly hard to master, and the teamplay - if you can get into a decent squad - can be, er, awesome. Don't know how the game is doing these days.
posted by NekulturnY at 4:18 AM on April 23, 2004


I'm liking "Call Of Duty". Very basic, highly addictive, and no monthly charges.
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:29 AM on April 23, 2004


Nethack.
posted by ursus_comiter at 5:07 AM on April 23, 2004


I have no idea if it's the best, since it's the only one I play, but this is my evil addiction.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:10 AM on April 23, 2004


Crack Cocaine
posted by kenaman at 5:34 AM on April 23, 2004


I too am liking Call of Duty. HUGE outdoor maps, the biggest I've ever seen in a FPS. Lots of different game styles (mission based or just good ol' death match) and realistic WWII weapons.

The single player experience is worth the cost alone.
posted by bondcliff at 5:53 AM on April 23, 2004


I've been out of the gaming loop for about a year, but I was hardcore into SOF2 for a while. I was playing custom maps with a sniper clan. A whole different experience from the kids-with-rpgs vibe.
posted by jpoulos at 6:45 AM on April 23, 2004


progress quest remains the epitomie of mmorpg's.
posted by the aloha at 6:51 AM on April 23, 2004


Kenamen----Damn you!!!!!
posted by mert at 7:34 AM on April 23, 2004


Can't stop playing Age of Chaos. Sad I am.
posted by bifter at 7:41 AM on April 23, 2004


Kingdom of Loathing
posted by agregoli at 8:01 AM on April 23, 2004


I like Second Life
posted by Capn at 8:03 AM on April 23, 2004


I'm all about Battlefield Vietnam. We should start a clan, d00d!
posted by ph00dz at 8:42 AM on April 23, 2004


I'm still playing Halo, because I am cheap, and don't really pirate warez anymore.
(plus, and I know YMMV, I avoid games where the targets are human
(robots, zombies, weird aliens and demons are OK) but that's probably just me)
posted by milovoo at 9:03 AM on April 23, 2004


Tribes 2 is still incredibly fun (50-person CTF with enormous maps, vehicles) and so old as to be basically free.
posted by Aaorn at 9:05 AM on April 23, 2004


Battlefield Vietnam is lots of fun but it is in bad, bad need of a patch to fix some issues.

And Tribes 2 really is free.
posted by falconred at 9:21 AM on April 23, 2004


Tetrinet. Free, multiplayer tetris.
posted by Gary at 9:21 AM on April 23, 2004


Subspace/Continuum is fun. I mostly play the TrenchWars variation. A key ingredient of both is that they're games that you can play for 10 minutes and then stop.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:31 AM on April 23, 2004


i got back into warcraft 3: frozen throne and i'm probably going to be playing city of heroes when it comes out.

guess what my name will be ;)
posted by Stynxno at 9:46 AM on April 23, 2004


since no one has mentioned it, i have been playing lots of bzflag lately. it is quite fun and addictive. plus it's cross platform!
posted by chrisroberts at 9:49 AM on April 23, 2004


Unreal Tournament 2004 is pretty fun. It's also kinda the only game I've been playing online lately so I don't know that it's the best but there ya go.
posted by DyRE at 9:51 AM on April 23, 2004


Until recently i played Planetside like there was no tomorrow - I have finally managed to kick it. Stay clear of it if you know whats good for you.
posted by FidelDonson at 9:56 AM on April 23, 2004


I've been enjoying the City of Heroes beta, and I only expect it to get better when it goes live for real this weekend.

But yeah, it doesn't get a lot better than NetHack.
posted by majcher at 10:59 AM on April 23, 2004


DESERT COMBAT
posted by Hackworth at 11:47 AM on April 23, 2004


UT2K4 (the demo only) is my one-hour break from reality each night.

On a good server, with some good players, it's a wonderful pitched-battle. Never before have I enjoyed LOSING as much as WINNING.
posted by grum@work at 12:48 PM on April 23, 2004


although it's still in beta Joint Operations:Typhoon Rising has become my favorite (first game I've ever preordered).
posted by m@ at 1:46 PM on April 23, 2004


Battlefield: Vietnam is the best sniping game I have ever played. But I have ethical objections to the game as a whole. Also, I don't have a PC.
posted by shotsy at 4:05 PM on April 23, 2004


I second Unreal Tournament.
posted by adampsyche at 5:08 PM on April 23, 2004


I second Soldier of Fortune 2. Best. FPS. Ever.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:05 PM on April 23, 2004


Rise of Nations, if you're into RTS. Expansion pack next week!
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:23 PM on April 23, 2004


WolfDaddy: I played RoN, and was excited about it for some time, but really, I dunno. In theory it perfects the RTS concept, but in practice it's just not that fun for me. I like the resource model and everything, and the units are fairly easy to manage, but it seems to be only a mild benefit to use actual strategy rather than hurling troops at one another.

By some standards, Age of Kings still has better graphics than any 3D RTS. It's by far my favorite, everything fits together so neatly. I'd say it's aging well, but it isn't even aging. It's still the best out there by far IMO gameplay wise, and due to the fact that the strategy scene doesn't focus on glitz it's not falling behind too severely in that department either.

Maybe RoN has gotten a bit bettetr with the expansion packs and such, but I dunno. Just saying, my submission is AoK for best online game. (Then again, I still play UT with an unopened copy of UT2003 sitting right next to me in a cardboard box with some other miscellaneous stuff ;) )
posted by abcde at 12:00 AM on April 24, 2004


Any of these (besides nethack) available for Linux?
posted by bingo at 7:40 AM on April 24, 2004


abcde, my primary love of RoN is its pacing. You go from hurling rocks to nukes at one another in an hour or less, yet the game to me never feels rushed, or too complicated to manage. AoK always seemed to take MUCH longer to hit the endgame for some reason. I don't dip into multiplayer waters all that often, so perhaps that's why RoN suits me.

And agreed about UT vs its later iterations. :-)
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:25 PM on April 24, 2004


bingo

bzflag that i mentioned earlier runs on windows, linux and mac OS X

just make sure you have opengl installed
posted by chrisroberts at 1:26 PM on April 24, 2004


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