Lan Party

Pictured are Craig Love, Suzanne Love, Aaron Peterson, Josh Paul and Jim Faggard. Players not pictured are Curtis Love, Scott Miller and Dillon Mendenhall.

It was party time at our house this week. We had a computer game party called a Local Area Network, or LAN for short. Our computer friends came over with their computers and we connected them all together to play games. They come with all sizes of computers from large desk top models down to lap tops.

All ages from teenagers to parents come over to play. Most players are guys, but occasionally one of the girls join in too. The rest of the girls hang out in another room, watching a movie or making snacks for the group. A lot of times parties have from 12 to 15 players, but this week we only had eight.

One of the favorite games to play is “Battlefield 1942,” published by EA games. This is a World War II simulation where the players compete with each other using the various weapons and equipment available at that time in history. The game is rendered in 3-D which makes for very realistic and almost TV-like quality. It takes a fairly up-to-date computer to play these games. They generally require 512 MB ram memory and a 64 MB video card.

One of the fun aspects of “Battlefield 1942” is that it is open to being modified. The game mechanics and operation stay the same but the time period, soldiers and weapons can all be changed. The original game must be purchased, but most modifications are free. All you have to do is download them from the internet. The modified games, usually called mods, are numerous and represent historical periods from the Middle Ages to WWII to current Middle East conflicts. There is even a Star Wars-like mod called “Galactic Conquest.”

Each mod includes a number of maps, each map having various objectives that must be captured. At a LAN party there are plenty of maps to last us all night. People come and go when they want, most arriving around 6 or 7 p.m. and leaving around midnight. The real hard core players stay until 3 or 4 a.m. The more players we have the better the game play.

Some of the maps can accommodate computer players, usually called computer robots. That way, even if there are only four or five human players, it is still possible to have as many as 40 or 50 total players on the map. While the computer is never as good a player as a real person, it is still entertaining to have a reasonable number on each side. In fact, sometimes we play a version of the game called “Comp Stomp” where all the human players are on one side and the other side is made up entirely of computer robots. The object then is to see who can rack up the highest score of robots eliminated.

We also play a game called “Battlefield Vietnam.” This is a follow up game to “Battlefield 1942” also published by EA games and is about the Vietnam conflict. The game mechanics work about the same as the original game but there are many added variations. One interesting addition is the helicopter, which was not around in WWII. They are fun to fly and with a little practice can be very devastating to the opposite side. There are also many mods available to play, one of the favorites being “Dice City.” This mod pits the police against the gang in a modern city, sort of a computer style “Cops and Robbers.”

The games reflect times of historical battles to science fiction to life on the streets. The games spark many discussions about why conflicts happen and what we can learn from them. It gives added prospective to history that some just read about.