Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 185

Halo Reach Hands-On, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Frozen Synapse, Chaos Rings, Gettysburg: Scourge of War, Our Fondest Multiplayer Memories & Play Dates, Your Emails and more!

This week we reminisce about our favorite multiplayer games of old and plan to resurrect a few in the coming weeks! If you want to submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563.

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined. You can also submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563!

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

"Small Comfort" - Apoplexia (Benoit Casey) - www.cerebrimusic.com - 0:33:21
"All That She Remembers" - Apoplexia (Benoit Casey) - www.cerebrimusic.com - 0:58:45

Comments

Half-way through listening and this is already my favorite podcast ever.

Memories:
RA2 in Q2 stole so many hours of my life, but there really was nothing better.

LAN parties in the basement on the ping pong table:
Age of Empires
Warcraft II
Duke Nukem 3D
Quake II

Good times, good times.

EDIT: Dogfight on the Apple II. So sweet.

For me, mostly LAN during those formative years:
Starcraft (LAN)
Unreal Tournament (LAN)
Worms II (hot seat)
CounterStrike (online with teammates in LAN)
Age of Empires II (mostly online)
Need for Speed 2 and 3 (LAN)
Serious Sam (coop!)
and even hot seat Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

There were a number of other games, but those are the most memorable, early and formative multiplayer experiences, I think. There was some earlier ones like this versus worms-clone w/ shooting on a Mac (that I modded, hah -- game was a blast), but I only really started getting truly into PC gaming around '98. I had some fun early games with Atari 2600 and NES, too. (Combat was my first multiplayer experience)

The best classic multiplayer for me?

MULE
Doom
Combat
Magic Carpet 2
ToeJam & Earl

Good calls on Subspace, BF1942 and original UT.

My multiplayer years were mostly during university - I was a comp sci student, and was lumped together on a floor with many other geeks..... so gaming was a constant. The biggies were:

Atomic Bomberman
Quake 2
Duke Nukem 3D
Worms 2

Earlier in life I played a lot of NES/SNES games multiplayer with friends and siblings.... things like:

Contra
Madden 94 (sooo much of this)
Super Street Fighter 2
NHL (whichever was newest)
Mario Kart

I also remember doing some dial-up multiplayer with Doom and Rise of the Triad. =)

These days I don't do a lot of multiplayer..... it's just too hard to arrange a time that is convenient for me and the people I want to play with, and I have no desire to play with the random douchebags that populate the wilds of the Internet.

BF1942 was an amazing game. I'm not sure the more recent BF games can really match it for pure fun, they started to take things a bit too seriously. Makes me laugh that "What's the key for parachute?" is still the first question everyone asks in a BF game

According to the stats server I played over 200 hours on tracked servers alone.

Had none of you guys never dumped copious amounts of time into Goldeneye on the N64? I was surprised there was no mention of it when you were talking about local console multiplayer.

I never even had a Nintendo 64, and was primarily a PC Gamer at that point, but even I played tons of 4 player deathmatch at friends places with Goldeneye.

kashwashwa wrote:

I never even had a Nintendo 64, and was primarily a PC Gamer at that point, but even I played tons of 4 player deathmatch at friends places with Goldeneye.

I played a lot of Goldeneye with friends for a while, but it died for me the day Starcraft came out. And Half-Life came out that same year, which eventually led to TFC and Counter-Strike. Consoles essentially received zero attention from me for years starting at the release of those two games on the PC.

In all reality, Halo lasted a heck of a lot longer for my friends, with our group gathering as many as the full 16 players supported for system link matches. We did a couple of those a month for a long long time.

I was given a SNES when I was in the 6th grade. I didn't own any console after that until the Playstation 2 released in late 2000. And even that was almost purely a singleplayer machine for me. Not until the Xbox came out and Halo gained popularity did console multiplayer start to make a comeback for me.

Let me be clear about this: what up?

I never really started lanning until college in 1998. Before then, in highschool, I was the only one of my friends who was into PC games. We never got into console games that much outside of some late night, pass-the-controller Resident Evil.

Tribes! I played so many hours of Tribes back in the day. Tribes 2 didn't hold my interest as long though. I would totally be up for a night of either.

Quake: First week of college we got the whole dorm floor playing. Only two of us were "hardcore" though and most people gave up after he and i had triple the points of everyone else combined.

Later in college, we started lanning Dungeon Siege coop and UT2003.

I never did a lot of multiplayer on the comp; most of my multiplayer memories are of Halo on the Xbox. Used to have 10-12 friends who would get together weekly to play that. On the PC side I would be up for some Joint Ops; I came across my disk the other day looking through some unpacked boxes.

Jedi Academy has the better multiplayer; definitely go with that. More combat styles, more Force powers, better character customization. I'm so all over that and I still have the original disc, which hopefully I can install on Windows 7.

Counter strike on my freshman floor.
Best moment was a 40 bottle streaking across the hall as a cry of "You damn scout whore" was heard above the shattering of glass. Ah to be a freshman.

4-player matches on the N64 were a big thing with my friends, even after Starcraft and co. on the PC. We poured a ton of hours into Goldeneye, and then moved onto Perfect Dark. We would also liter in some Turok 2, F-Zero X and a couple other games here and there. F-Zero was more fun for me, since it was my game / N64 and for some reason I had that game dialed in. I loved the Slim Line course and Big Hand. Of course, we only ever finished about 25% of the races on Big Hand becuase of all the no rails portions.

in the area of console co-op games...

Anyone remember "Sunset Riders" for the SNES?

I remember my brother and I playing that in the arcade somewhere and we loved it so much that we ended up ordering it over the phone from Konami.

soooooo much fun.

Re: Games set in New York City [size=6](<Old El Paso salsa ad>New York City?!</Old El Paso salsa ad>)[/size]

Wikipedia wrote:

Crysis 2 is set in New York City, which has since been evacuated due to alien infestation. . . . Crytek wanted to avoid making another game set in a jungle environment, as were Far Cry and Crysis; New York City has been dubbed an "urban jungle".

Sorry.

Gravey wrote:

Re: Games set in New York City [size=6](<Old El Paso salsa ad>New York City?!</Old El Paso salsa ad>)[/size]

Wikipedia wrote:

Crysis 2 is set in New York City, which has since been evacuated due to alien infestation. . . . Crytek wanted to avoid making another game set in a jungle environment, as were Far Cry and Crysis; New York City has been dubbed an "urban jungle".

Sorry.

Get a rope!

I think getting a "Multiplayer Night" going every week would be pretty awesome. Rotate out games every week.

Also, I now have unending hate for Elysium because he was one of those assholes. The bloodlust-loving ogre-smashing bastards! I got my ass kicked at Warcraft 2 for years until I realized that bloodlust was just overpowered. Every time I hear that bloodlust noise I get a little twitchy in my right eye.

I remember playing FreeSpace 2 multiplayer back in the day. It was just such a novelty to have a multiplayer flight game, even if swarm missiles caused everyone to lag out of the game on their 56k connections.

If you play CS, Spiderman Sean must make an appearance.

Final Fight SUCKS? What is WRONG WITH YOU!? I'm gonna go to iTunes and rate you 1/5 stars!

Spiderman wouldn't sneak. Spiderman would just go!

Combat, WHAT UP!

I used to play the first Red Alert through direct modem connection with my buddy. Remember that pre-Internet craziness? When you used to have to call up your friend, get him to start the game and set it to receive, and then hang up the phone and have your computer DIAL HIS PHONE NUMBER to connect?

Druidpeak wrote:

If you play CS, Spiderman Sean must make an appearance.

Elysium wrote:

Spiderman wouldn't sneak. Spiderman would just go!

I remember that!

Halo has and always will hold the title of my favorite moments over anything else. But it wasn't intel goldeneye before I ever played a game with others.

Goldeneye
Smash Brothers
Perfect Dark
Smash Brothers Melee
Halo
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
World of Warcraft
Starcraft

Certis: Thank you so much for mentioning Far Cry 2 for the guy asking about settings. I just finished that game 2 days ago and it immeditately popped to mind as soon as the grand canyon and a sniper rifle were mentioned. I'd also like to add Just Cause 2 has a nice setting / mix but is not nearly as intriguing as stepping into Far Cry 2 for the first time. And how did Bioshock not get a name drop in there?

Re: Multiplayer games with easy access - Quake Live, which is free to play Quake 3 via web browsers with a built in friends list. Not sure if it was really that 'formative' to anyone, though.

Battletoads...

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Certis: Thank you so much for mentioning Far Cry 2 for the guy asking about settings. I just finished that game 2 days ago and it immeditately popped to mind as soon as the grand canyon and a sniper rifle were mentioned. I'd also like to add Just Cause 2 has a nice setting / mix but is not nearly as intriguing as stepping into Far Cry 2 for the first time. And how did Bioshock not get a name drop in there?

Re: Multiplayer games with easy access - Quake Live, which is free to play Quake 3 via web browsers with a built in friends list. Not sure if it was really that 'formative' to anyone, though.

Will second Quake Live. Very easy to get into and loads of fun. Doesn't require a beefy pc to run either and you can play it on your work PC!

We NEED a community allegiance night, it's free now: http://www.freeallegiance.org/

I love the game but the regulars on the current system are just a little too hardcore for my personal tastes, a game with the GWJ community would be great, we can take in turns playing the commander and everyone gets to crack out the joysticks and have some good old fashioned space war fun!

Rob, you'll back me up right?

I remember loving Midtown Madness on PC, only multiplayer driving game I really got into and good ol' Total Annihilation :D. Bought a Xbox just for Midtown Madness 3 and XBL.