Holiday family LAN party game suggestions?

[mrjoltcola]

I have some family coming in for Christmas, and usually my nephews like to invade my home office and look at my hardware and tell me I should run some cool games on it. I want to setup a little fun this year for once.

I have 4 desks and 3 good rigs (see my sig), and I'm putting together a 4th box as we speak that should be game capable. Have 2 rigs with 30" and will have two with 24" 1920x1200.

So since I'm pretty much clueless about multiplayer gaming these days, I need some recommendations from the experts. Looking for multiplayer games that we can ideally run a local server with. Last game I played multiplayer was Quake 3 Arena. All I've played lately is Crysis II and BF3.

1) Good mature family friendly game - Doesn't have to be rated G / Care Bears, but no Zombie games. Though, I do know what some of my nephews play, I think they have BF3 for the console; I don't want the in-laws frowning either, so I want to keep it as clean as possible. Is there a way to turn off the language, btw? I think the kids range from about 10yrs up to college age. If not first person shooter, maybe a dogfight or strategy game?

2) Local server, if possible? I have two copies of BF3, but we have to connect online. Are all EA games like that? I also have Crysis & Crysis II, but never tried multiplayer.

3) Hopefully something I can install from the same media, and not require me to signup 4 different Steam / Origin accounts, etc.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

 

[Texashiker]

Quake live, its free and you do not have to worry about everyone having a steam account.

Some other games I would suggest, Quake, Quake II, Quake III, Painkiller, Serious Sam. Quake did not have a cd key, while everything from Quake II did. I am not sure if painkiller has a CD key, I bought it on steam.

There is always Doom with something like the JDoom or ZDoom modification.

 

[Zenoth]

Let's not forget Unreal Tournament 2004, pretty friendly for LAN setups and a blast to play with people in the same room, and no over-the-top violence, some gibs won't hurt feelings around much. Some good old CTF or all-out co-operation against A.Is in Invasion, plenty of fun to be had with UT2004 in my opinion.

 

[JujuFish]

Let's not forget Unreal Tournament 2004, pretty friendly for LAN setups and a blast to play with people in the same room, and no over-the-top violence, some gibs won't hurt feelings around much. Some good old CTF or all-out co-operation against A.Is in Invasion, plenty of fun to be had with UT2004 in my opinion.

And only $5 for a DRM-free version from GOG right now.

 

[Barfo]

Postal 2.

 

[CottonRabbit]

Mount and Blade. It's hilarious in a LAN.

 

[biostud]

Dungeon defenders, great co-op tower defense/fps game. Cheap as well

 

[goobernoodles]

No zombie games?

Killing floor would be fun.

Edit: Errrr... nevermind, there's constant phallic innuendo by the trader girl.

Urban Terror is free and fast paced.

 

[mindcycle]

Another vote for UT2004

 

[Dankk]

http://www.gog.com/en/catalogue#shooter/gameMode/multi-player/

Full list of multiplayer shooters on GOG.com, currently 50% off, all DRM free so you can purchase once and install on as many household machines as you'd like.

Unreal Tournament 2004 is on there.

 

[Throckmorton]

TeamFortress 2. End of discussion.

 

[Clinkster]

UT2k4 imo.

TeamFortress 2. End of discussion.

I thought that too, until I remembered it's only 3-4 players. TF2 requires at least double that to be fun.

 

[Childs]

My family used to do this. All the uncles and cousins would bring their PC's over and play Q2 or HL mods all night. And I literally mean all night...until the sun came out.

What you could do is play TF2 on the LAN, and play against other people online.