Stop Playing With Yourself

Awhile back I disconnected both my PS3 and Xbox 360, put them into a cardboard box along with their respective games, and drove four hours north with my brother-in-law.  Why did we do this, you ask?  Because of a shared memory.   A memory created over a decade ago.  A memory shared mostly by fellow gamers above the age of 20.  This, my friend, is the fond memory of the great gaming ritual known as the LAN party.
The LAN (Local Area Network) party is a gem lost in time.  In the days before Xbox Live and PSN, in order to play against other people you had to connect your consoles together via ethernet cable.  If you managed to get eight or more individuals together with multiple consoles, a hub was typically used.  The amount of people you could get into one game was then only limited by the particular game lobbies themselves.  If my memory serves me correctly, Halo: CE allowed for up to 16 players, enabling epic games of 8v8 capture the flag.  Playing face-to-face with your friends in “real-life” game lobbies takes friendly trash talking to a whole new level.

You may ask yourself; what’s the point?  Why haul around my console and television to play video games with the same people I play with over Xbox Live or PSN everyday?  Well Mr. Skeptic-that-I-made-up-for-this-article, I cannot answer that question.  I can only tell you that the answer you seek can only be found at a LAN party.

The appeal of the LAN party harkens back to the days when multiplayer meant that you had to share the couch with friends.  Back then, multiplayer gaming was a true social experience.  Don’t get me wrong, Xbox Live and PSN are obviously both social experiences. However, with the internet comes anonymity, which then erodes the innate social interaction.  Online, people rarely treat each other with the same respect they do in person.  Would a scrawny 11-year-old call your mother a whore and start team killing if you were in the same room?  Probably not.  The great thing about LAN parties is that not only are they typically made up of your friends, but they are always attended by like minded gamers who share a love of gaming, not griefing.

We named our gathering the first annual FALP (F*cking Awesome LAN Party).  For those gamers out there who have never participated in a LAN party, I implore you to do so.  For those of you who remember going to LAN parties, I also urge you to rekindle your love for social, in person gaming, and try to organize your own FALP.  Change the name if you want, but just keep the spirit alive.  Because even though 36 hours of gaming, pizza, and booze left me hung over with dry eyes and one “red-ringed” Xbox, I cannot wait for next year.