I attended RoboCrotch’s LAN on Friday and Saturday. Fun and entertaining, but damn the lack of exciting PC exclusives. The most recent game on the floor was FarCry 2, but that game’s multiplayer component was standard fare at best. A beautiful sight to behold, though.
PC gaming continues to woo me with its 1680 x 1050 pixels worth of gorgeous visuals, but then I see myself sitting on a fold out table staring at a 22″ – 24″ LCD with a headset and a mouse and keyboard. And to that I say:
“Give me back my controller, couch, 50″ screen and 5.1 surround sound please.”
Other games included StarCraft and Crysis, but let’s talk about my appreciation for cooperative games. Left4Dead would have been a brilliant game in a LAN setting. A group of four friends versus hordes of zombies. We didnt’ have that there, but we did have Resistance 2 beta’s splitscreen cooperative mode. It was just me and Forge playing R2, but working together towards a common goal which we both could celebrate greatly outweighed my victories of Far Cry 2 team deathmatch.
Second to Resistance 2 for the title of “My Game of the LAN” was a boardgame called Agricola. A boardgame. Apparently people still play those. I was skeptical at first, but I’m glad I participated in this one. Agricola is time consuming, complex, cumbersome to setup/put back and screams for an electronic version, but it’s strangely compelling. There’s a small chance element, but ultimately, you control your outcome. I’ve only played one game, but I am willing to play more. We just need to somehow allot two hours to play.
In the end, the LAN was alright. I was entertained and that’s all the matters. Everyone left in one piece and the only casualties were egos, two empty beer bottles and an iPhone’s glass screen.
Now if you would excuse me, I am finally going to start Fable 2.
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