No Frills Guide to MultiPlayer Gaming
It ain't some much fun thrashing the computer all the time. You want REAL competition.
Only way you can do that is:
1) Get a real person to play against (hence multiplayer)
2) Get a game with really really good AI (very very rare)
Since multiplayer is the way to go, here are some pointers gaming heaven
1) Modem Play or Direct Connection
The fastest way to play. Easy to set up, nice and fast gameplay. Dumb thing about this is only 2 players allowed for one game. For direct connection you gotta have 2 computers connected. Also if the two players don't live in the same area it is not recommended to use modem, unless you have a huge amount of money to spare for your phone bills. All games which has multiplayer capability should have modem option. Just dial the other computer and start playing.
2) Network Play (IPX)
As the name says, a LAN (local area network) allows multiplayer gameplay. Usually fast and allows a huge amount of players because of the speed. The let-down is not a lot of people have a LAN set up. Usually schools, colleges have them, but they don't let you play. Offices maybe, or you can go to a Internet cafe and pay some dough for it, usually isn't that expensive.
3) Internet Play
Used to be the most complicated way to play and slow as hell, but today it is the of the best ways to play with far-away people. You need
1) A game that supports Internet play (unless you use khan, Kail, etc., then you need IPX play)
2) A clean at least 28.8 kBps connection the game will have severe lag
If you are using Kali or some other service (which emulates an IPX connection) then follow their instructions, I don't used them because it is too slow from China
Here is a list of the online gaming services I use sometimes
Most games come with software to set up with at least one of these services so you don't really need to bother about downloading it, just install it off the game. If it doesn't come with it that usually means that it doesn't support the game (service must support that game, duh!)
If you're playing a Blizzard game (Diablo, Starcraft) you must use battle.net to play
Westwood (Command and Conquer, Red Alert) you can use Westwood Chat
Some Microsoft Games can use Internet Gaming Zone
Some games like Ultima Online, Myth : The Fallen Lords, etc all have dedicated servers provided by the makers of the game
Many new games have this gaming service available so use it if you can, usually easier to play that way
If a game doesn't have a service available but still says support Internet Play then that means it uses DirectPlay (from DirectX) to play
Pretty easy to set up usually, here are the steps
1) Find out opponent's IP address (if you're joining, if not just press host game and wait). Many ways to do that, easiest is ICQ, just select user info and update, copy IP address down. There's another good thing about ICQ, makes setting up net games a LOT easier.
2) Start game, select Internet Play. It should ask you to type in host address. Type in the IP address.
3) Usually nothing comes up. Keep pressing Update button (there should be one, can be Refresh button sometimes) until something comes up. Click Join Game and you're ready to play!
In DirectPlay or Westwood Chat or battle.net or whatever, the host should have the fastest computer and best connection because once game is set up the host becomes the server, not battle.net.
Some games need more bandwidth than others. Games like Descent probably need a lot, not sure about others. Whatever the game is always try to get a clean fast connection.
Great Internet Games (that are fast, in my experience anyways)
Starcraft, Diablo, Command and Conquer, Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Quake 1+2, Jedi Knight
AOE seems to be the slowest of these while TA was the fastest. Quake 2 and Jedi Knight ran pretty good.
Clans
For real multiplayer fun, join a clan of gamers. Comes together to kick other clans silly, join competitions, whatever. You have to have a certain level of skill in a game to play though. Some games with clans
Ultima Online (called Guilds)
Lots more, just couldn't be bothered listing them
Comments and Suggestions? Mail me at [email protected]