Lan Four – The Cricket Pit – 1998
Another year, another apartment. “A small, cramped basement apartment.” to quote Tyler Durden.
This lan was all over my huge computer desk, and the fourth machine was in the kitchen counter. For some reason, all I remember doing here was playing Quake II Coop, and the Holy Wars mod.
There was a good reason for this…
Somewehere along the way I had met the girly who is now my wife. She was a lawyer at the time, and had coped with law school by playing Doom instead of studying. I thought that was pretty cool.
However, there was a bit of a “skill gulf” between the two of us… so coop it was.
Note to the game industry: if you really want to attract more female players, you need to put coop mode back in. (And add options to remove spiders.)
As for Holy Wars, for those who don’t know, this is a Q2 mod that changes the rules of the game. It is like “kill the guy with the ball” or “Oddball” on Halo. Basically, there is a single halo in the game that must be found and picked up. The player who does this becomes the Saint. The Saint glows brightly, even through walls, so s/he is hard to miss. All other players are marked Sinners. Sinners are allowed to kill the Saint, but penalized (or even booted from the game) if they kill other Sinners. The Saint is allowed to kill anyone.
The great thing about this is, the most skilled player usually gets the halo, so the less skilled players are polarized against him/her. This keeps the n00bs from constantly being killed (and frustrated with the game). It also ensures that there is a challenge for the best player, since everyone is against him/her. Finally, by the law of averages, even the n00best of n00bs will be the one taking off that final HP off the Saint, giving them the satisfaction of actually killing the best player in the group.
Featured Games
Quake II
Starcraft
