BMill, on June 16th 2006, 10:12 AM, said:
I havent played any games in a while, but I've recently moved and I'd love to be able to play a game with my friends and family back home.
What games would you reccomend from the pc/mac compatable list that have low system requirements and are really fun to play. For example: With all of the first person shooters, which would you reccomend for multiplayer? Halo? etc.
This should probably be its own thread if you really want answers (doesn't have much to do with this thread, which is intended just to list the games). Perhaps BattleCat would be so kind as to separate it out?
That said, how low is low? Low system requirements as compared to computers today (so 1.0 GHz range), or even lower than that?
Secondly, are you wanting to play online or LAN or what? Older games aren't going to have quite as good a player base online, whereas if its LAN they might be an excellent idea since they'll support a wide range of hardware.
Despite not knowing these things here's my recommendations:
Halo is indeed a very good multiplayer game, and works really well for small to medium LAN parties (say 6-10). The gameplay is exremely solid, and although it doesn't offer much beyond the standard game types, it executes the standards extremely well. Custom gametypes extend it a bit, too. Personally I'm a fan of Warthogs and rockets, or pistols only.
If you want something a little bit more diverse in the same general requirements range, Unreal Tournament 2004 is probably where it's at. It has a slew of gametypes, and can support small to large LAN parties (say 6-20+). Add to that a fair number of excellent mods, and you've got a lot of options. Different people play different things online, but personally I think of UT2004 as the backbone of multiplayer shooters; you may play other things for a time, but it's the one you come back to because everyone else has it, too. Sort of like Quake III back in the day.
If you mean even lower requirements than that, then Quake III. It doesn't have anywhere near the number of gameplay types of UT2004, but it's still a solid multiplayer game, will run on most anything these days, and just about everyone has it. There's a number of good multiplayer games based on the Q3 engine, too, that you can't really go wrong with. Of them, I'd recommend Jedi Knight 2 (lightsaber combat is way too much fun) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Enemy Territory. RtCW kind of calls out for larger crowds, but the combat is fairly intense.
Good luck finding the perfect game! Hopefully someone else will be able to chime in with more info, particularly about what playing these games online is like; I haven't checked out UT2004's online scene, for instance, and it's been a
long time since I last signed on to a JK2, RtCW, or Q3 server. I have no idea how much Halo is still played, either.