Ever been to a LAN party before? If you haven't, read on! A LAN Party is where gamers come together, hook their comp up into a network, and play the crap outta every game. That's what I did this past weekend. I was at this small LAN party at my friends house, where all my friends came to play. We played Half-Life most of the night, with a little Counterstrike here and there, and a game of SC. We couldn't get Unreal going cuz nobody liked it, plus my video card screwed it over. Anyways, for the uneducated, LAN stands for Local Area Network.
Usually when playing, you have a ping under 70, as oppose to net connections where you have around 200-400 ping. This is how games should be played. With silky-smooth connections. At the LAN party, everyone had really good connections. My friend, since he had a really good system, and I didn't, had a ping of 14. His system is like a P3 450 MHz with a 32 meg video card, where I have a P 233 MHz with a 8 meg video card. So sometimes my games were choppy. So, back to the subject.
Some people like to bring their computer so they can distribute stuff, such as MP3s, patches, or other files. My advice is that anything could happen to it while you're there, so keep an eye on it. My video card recently got screwed up after this LAN party and I don't know how. Still want more reason to go to a LAN party? It's totally fun to say "Haha! You suck!" whenever you frag one of your friends in HL, as oppose to just typing it into the game. It's totally fun to tell your team mate to get something in Counterstrike out loud, instead of typing it. It's so damn fun! That's why you should go to a LAN party! It's the real way to play games!
Now that you know what a LAN party is like, wanna know how to get one going? Here's some tips. Have LOTS of food, and LOTS of pop! 4 people can go through more than 24 cans of pop in 1 night. The more food, the more merrier. Just chips won't cut it. Maybe like 4+ pizzas. Get lotsa sleep the night before. I stayed up all night and damn was I tired. I think I slept 12 hours the next night, which I never do. Also a must is music! I suggest anything from Korn, to Prodigy, to Rammstein, to Limp Bizkit. Those really get you pumped up. Don't bring any of that BSB shit, you'll be literally dead if you do. Another good thing is to make sure there's more than 1 bathroom. Everyone will be peeing from all that pop.
People will get bored, so bring good movies, or maybe a console system. We watched the Matrix twice at the party, once at night, and then again in the morning. That was the damn best movie I've ever seen.
Anyways, now you know what LAN parties are like. I suggest going to LAN Party.com for more info, or to sign up for a LAN party near you. This site also has some good info on LAN parties, maybe info not included in this article. Don't forget, LAN Parties are the real way to play games.