Best Online PC Games?

[digitalpress]

So the DP store's internet gaming center is now open, and I've got some popular PC online games in place (CounterStrike, HALO, Battlefield, America's Army and Diablo II) but looking for more. The perfect world games would be those that support both internet and LAN play and well, are really good games too.

I've already got World of Warcraft on my target list but I'm admittedly behind the times in the world of PC gaming, so I'm looking for your suggestions! Tell me what games spring to mind or those that you've played and would work best in this new area of the store.

Thanks all!

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Call of Duty 2
Starwars Battlefront 2
Warhammer: Dawn of War (an RTS)
Half-Life 2 DM (I see that you've got CS there, I think valve has some kind of 'game center' system in place, so you could check into that)
Civ. 4 and Age of Empires 3 for some strategy RTS gamers you may have
If you get WoW, you might also want to get Evercrack 2 in there.


Hmm, I guess thats good for now

EDIT:
My local gaming LAN is called 'Digital Ops' and thats basically where I got all of those ideas from. It's a great place, and if you want to email them I bet you could get some great advice about just about everything. They've been open for almost 9 years, so they've got it down to a science. One of the best things is that they've got all of their 'Bottom Stations' hooked up so you can talk with any of the 8 players. It's a blast to get a bunch of people in there on CS:S or Warhammer and be able to talk without holding down a button and getting crappy sound. Website... http://www.digitalops.com/ Josh is, basically, the owner of the place and is a really friendly guy, so I'm sure he'd be willing to help you out.

[unwinddesign]

Definately Age of Mythology or Age of Empires III. Both fantastic multiplayer games. They are also good "short game" strategy titles, meaning that they won't take 5 hours per game. Not to say you can't have your epic 2 hour grind it out wars, but the game is much faster than, say, Civ 4.

Oh, and Unreal Tournament 2004 is a must. Just a must.

[Joker T]

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 Deathmatch are both alot of fun, in fact HL and HL 2 have some fun multiplayer mods.

Hl Mods:
Action Half-Life
Frontline Force
Day of Defeat

HL 2 Mods:
Goldeneye Source
Battlegrounds 2

Other games...

Quake 2
Quake 3
Neverwinter Nights
Dungeon Seige
Warcraft 3

[hydr0x]

the original Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 are still worth playing, plus the HL Mod Day of Defeat when it comes to fps

for other genres you might try the Civilization games or some stuff like the original Command & Conquer games and so on, probably try Z or Total Annihilation too

[diskoboy]

I second the nomination for Civilization 4 and WoW.

How 'bout Quake 4, Guild Wars, Neverwinter Nights, City of Heroes/Villians, or F.E.A.R? And even the obvious EQ2 or Everquest 1 with all the add-ons?

Auto Assault sounds interesting... Theres supposed to be a free beta test weekend coming up. Maybe you should check it out!

[calthaer]

I second Neverwinter Nights. Dungeon Siege is very "meh" - but it does have multiplayer coop. The Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale games also have multiplayer coop.

The original Half-Life also has an extremely cool (and free) mod called Natural Selection. It's online play; LAN requires one of the PCs to act as a server I think (I've never fooled with it?). It is by far the most fun online game I've ever played. Team-based as well - you could have a group go into a game as a team and combat another team.

I mean, it also depends on what gameplay style you're looking for...Freedom Force had some online "danger room" sort of multiplayer, Heroes of Might & Magic was LAN-capable, I believe. Just about every PC game around has SOME sort of multiplayer component. It all depends on what sort of gameplay you want going on - a turn-based game over the LAN might seem fairly dull to passers-by.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

In all my years I've never seen someone play a turn-based game at a LAN. Its not a social type of game, and it just isnt that... fun.

[keiblerfan69]

Unreal Tournament 2004
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Maybe some Doom 1 or 2 just for some old school FPS fun.

[InsaneDavid]

One word - Continuum (http://beginners.subspace.net/).

It's like a really advanced version of Asteroids, but with dozens of people on the same board.

[Flack]

GHOST RECON

That is all, please return to your discussion of games that are not as good as Ghost Recon please thank you drive thru.

[poe]

I don't know how well you could set up a WoW or Guild Wars (or any MMO) client on terminals that readily accessible, especially considering that in the cases of WoW and Guild Wars, any character made would be tied to the account itself (Guild Wars also limits you to 4 characters per account), therefore making any given character available to anyone logging into that account (theirs or not). It would effectively keep anyone from building a consistent character on your terminals which would be theirs alone. I don't know if there's some kind of enterprise client for such a setup, but you'd really need something like that for a good experience for regular players.

[InsaneDavid]

I don't know how well you could set up a WoW or Guild Wars (or any MMO) client on terminals that readily accessible, especially considering that in the cases of WoW and Guild Wars, any character made would be tied to the account itself (Guild Wars also limits you to 4 characters per account), therefore making any given character available to anyone logging into that account (theirs or not). It would effectively keep anyone from building a consistent character on your terminals which would be theirs alone. I don't know if there's some kind of enterprise client for such a setup, but you'd really need something like that for a good experience for regular players.

That's what I was thinking, which is why Continuum is the ultimate massively multiplayer online game. :D (the version you want to download is the one directly linked on the quick start page) Going to go play right now in fact.

[calthaer]

Yeah, but if he had WoW or another MMOG client set-up on them without saving the account info, it would allow players to have LAN-parties there or do raids or something like that.

Oh, and System Shock 2 has the best multiplayer cooperative mode of all time, I believe. If you build it, Ed Oscuro and Soulblazer and I might have to come and finish the game some day at the place.

[Trebuken]

Old but fun;

Duke Nukem...

Later,
Trebuken

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh, and System Shock 2 has the best multiplayer cooperative mode of all time, I believe. If you build it, Ed Oscuro and Soulblazer and I might have to come and finish the game some day at the place.
LOL I would try to make it, though!

For PC games, I'm going to have to agree with these recommendations: Half-Life 2 + selected mods), Unreal Tournament 2K4 + new releases in the Unreal series soon as they get here, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory!

Add one: Resident Evil 4, PC! I don't know what the online features will be, but apparently there will be something. Keep an eye on it.

Possibly DOOM/Quake games (I don't play these as much as I used to, and DOOM III's multiplayer mode didn't keep me too long). Haven't played Quake IV and Enemy Territory is just around the corner. For original Quake, just go with Deathmatch Classic on Half-Life 1. Quake III was freakin' beautiful back in 1999; now it looks ugly (at least to me).

Prey is coming, and should be amazing.

HL2 mods/Steam products:

Day of Defeat: Source is probably a must if you're going to offer Source engine games, but I'm not quite sure what I think of it yet. Requires a separate purchase, though your licensing would be different.

Dystopia - futuristic FUN, now with CYBERSPACE

Zombie Panic: Not here yet for HL2. Will be good.

Hidden: Source - The art could be up to higher standards, and the map designs aren't terribly inspiring, but this is a good multiplayer game.

Dodgeball:Source - was up to Alpha 6 last I checked. Very good, lots of fun.

Goldeneye: Source - pretty, but feels strange...too shiny, among other things. The dev team didn't put crosshairs in, but then neglected to make the guns auto-track your target O_O

Half-Life sports a good deathmatch mode. Now, some other HL1 mods:

Deathmatch Classic - it's Quake, for Half-Life 1! It's free, get it.

Holy Wars - ! ...even though the mod is dead and buried, the team having moved onto other things years ago.

poe: You should be able to log into your WoW character from anywhere. Minimal downloading required, I think.

Speaking of WoW...Eve Online?

I don't know if The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will have any online stuff, but that seems a natural choice.

Final thought: Hmm, a Heretic II server would be awesome...but Windows XP can't run it, last I checked...

[Joker T]

People seem to be reccomending the Unreal 2k which are a ton of fun games but I think the classic Unreal Tournament beats it.

[poe]

poe: You should be able to log into your WoW character from anywhere. Minimal downloading required, I think.

True, but what I'm referring to is the fact that ONLY people with their own accounts could have exclusive characters running there. Other than calthaer's suggest for a LAN party-style gathering (which most people use Ventrillo for online voice-chat in place of) I don't see a good way to make use of the client, since everyone using store accounts would have access to the entire pool of characters, no private access options, and no options to 'take the character home'.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Two general things from what people have said in here.

Continuum is somehow associated with SubSpace, and I used to play that ALLLL the time 'back in the day' so I'll have to give it a go. And Goldeneye Source is probably the best idea I've ever heard, and I can't wait till it gets further along in development.

[Avatard]

Warcraft 2 and Diablo. Still really fun and takes up hardly any memory.

[Ed Oscuro]

poe: You should be able to log into your WoW character from anywhere. Minimal downloading required, I think.

True, but what I'm referring to is the fact that ONLY people with their own accounts could have exclusive characters running there.
That's a problem how? People have to go on the road sometimes, I'm sure some might take advantage of the ability to check out their WoW character while they're at the store.

[jajaja]

I play Medal of Honor (with Spearhead and Breakthrough expansions) online everyday so to say. Definitly one of the best online games I've ever played.

[poe]

poe: You should be able to log into your WoW character from anywhere. Minimal downloading required, I think.

True, but what I'm referring to is the fact that ONLY people with their own accounts could have exclusive characters running there.
That's a problem how? People have to go on the road sometimes, I'm sure some might take advantage of the ability to check out their WoW character while they're at the store.

If the idea is to give people who already play the game at home a public place to play together, then everything's fine. Same if you'd just be looking to demo MMOs.
If it's an attempt to give people who lack the hardware a place to have the standard MMO experience, it's not going to work well, because the software in that situation would prevent customers from having a persistent character that nobody else could touch. How would you like it if you spent 20+ hours of gametime grinding for a rare item, to find on your next visit some yahoo hopped online with your character and sold it to an in-game pawn shop?

And on-topic with the original post, I must provide some love for Interstate 76. Graphically hasn't aged well, but otherwise provides the best vehicular combat outside console franchises.

[InsaneDavid]

Continuum is somehow associated with SubSpace, and I used to play that ALLLL the time 'back in the day' so I'll have to give it a go.

After Virgin Interactive Entertainment dropped the ball and killed Subspace years ago without an afterthought the community got together and built their own backbone for the game, rebuilt the game from the ashes of the beta and retail versions of Subspace and Continuum was born. (more information at the site) Make sure you use the download directly linked at the quickstart page, the other download hub won't get you what you need.

I'm usually in the Alpha West map, InsaneDavid.

[Sothy]

Day Of Defeat and Natural Selection.
"I believe DOD is already running under halflife 2 and NS is in the works"


Greatest Multiplayer FPS games ive ever played.

And yeah both were made by fans "Modders" Proving the do it yourself scene can still come out with ideas to make the supposedly professional developers hang their heads in shame.

[Leo_A]

Valve games and the Battlefield series are the only ones I ever see played at the places around here.

Not sure if anything else is worth wasting your time on.

[cyberfluxor]

I'd go with a bunch of the previously stated games.

Generally Blizzard makes great online games that play through battle.net. Starcraft, Warcraft 2/3, Diablo 1/2, and World of Warcraft are the games available on there, WoW being the one that costs monthly but is worth it if it's what you're going to spend your time in. I still enjoy Starcraft a lot because of it's still massive community holding up after these years. To a large extent I also believe Starcraft is one of the best RTS games ever, not just because of the graphics, gameplay, control, and idea behind it when it came out, but because they made so many programable features on it that anyone can reinvent the game with Used Map Settings. Warcraft 2 is a bit more rough with few players, but is a great LAN party game. As for Diablo, the original is all hacked up and so illegit you might as well not play except with hacks as well. With Diablo 2, it's a fun game until you start doing runs 24/7, doing the same crap over and over and realise you could have beaten 50 other games and had twice as much fun with new and different games.

You can go with Mr. Softy and get the Age of Empires games, which are a lot of fun and still have decent sized community on the original and second. Of course it's not the BEST RTS series out there, but the following of gamers is vast enough, and has some decent designs and gameplay to last hours of fun.

Another game you can get is the European War series. They just came out with the second one, and you can easily get it at GameStop. The first 3, which are simply 1 game with 2 expansions that work on their own installs, are European Wars, The Art of War, and Back to War. There are really fun and long, and very much like AoE, so it's a nice alternative. Although it lacks the online community for the original. Don't know about the new second release.

You can also get into all those shooters listed, but I rarely play those online. Maybe once a year I hop onto an Unreal server and get my ass served by pros, but I'm not complaining. It's fun to see how long I can live and hide from these savages.

But lastly, try out the Total Annhiliation game (Kingdoms is alright). I don't believe it has a server to host games, but you can do network options and that game kicks butt. I can't want to see what the sequal, Supreme Commander has to offer.