Mario Kart: Double Dash and the short-lived joy of console LAN parties

Time to talk about my good friend RJ. RJ45, that is. Well, technically, we’re going to talk about how Ethernet cables, which tend to use an RJ45 connector, once brought many of us together in multiplayer gaming fun (even before that, but my part of this story started at the turn of the century). It was a delightful copper pipeline for many who might have looked at four-player couch multiplayer as the only context in which most normal people could relate to gaming with friends. That’s right; We are talking about LAN parties.

You know more. You, on multiple trips, lug your entire gaming rig—a beefy CRT monitor, hornkin’ water-cooled desktop machine, keyboard, headphones (or outboard speakers if you’re brandishing) and all the necessary cables—into your extended cab dinky Nissan pickup truck. Then load up on soda and take the donkey to your friend’s mom’s house, in multiple trips, up to their small, poorly ventilated room for a good time, thanks to some Ethernet cables and a network switch — no Internet required.

In the mid-to-late 90s, LAN parties grew everywhere beyond the confines of basements and bedrooms, exploding into some of the biggest esports and gaming conventions we have today. For example, the first QuakeCon took place in Dallas in 1996, and in subsequent years, hundreds – and eventually, thousands – of people plugged their PCs into the annual North Texas event (in fact, the first in-person QuakeCon). Since the beginning of the epidemic is Happening this August), and esports tournaments like Repeat.gg are so popular that Big companies like Sony invest heavily in them.

Traditional LAN parties, though, weren’t really my thing. Sure, I attended them, sitting in a hot room with other intellectuals, but my favorite peer-to-peer all-nighters took place in a 700-square-foot suburban apartment with a game console and a hulking standard-definition tube TV.

For a brief and glorious few months in my 20s, almost every Friday night, we would gather in my apartment, TVs and Xboxes scattered around, to pour rockets into each other’s faces. hello.

The setup was chaotic but simpler than PC assembly: each console was connected to a beefy tube TV (which I forced those poor suckers to carry into my second-floor abode), then connected to each other using Ethernet cables to network switches. Grab your controller and go. PC LAN parties were essentially the same – they just needed it more More setup, more equipment, more time, more furniture and more space A 16-player Team Fortress Classic The match takes 16 computers. In my apartment, even just two consoles was a great night.

For the most part, at these console-only parties, we played split screen, although the number of players and systems varied, and there was one guy who always insisted on playing alone on his relatively huge 27-inch TV (he carried the thing up the stairs, so he achieved). But I loved the split-screen play. This meant my teammates were right next to me, and we could coordinate movements with nudges and sly gestures or jolt each other with glee in moments of great victory.

The final moments of a game might go like this: From high on the walls of Blood Gulch, I train my sniper rifle on someone running a flag through a mountain of rabbits in the bunker, hoping to pick them off. I’m a terrible sniper, so I usually miss a few times before I die from behind my own girlfriend With a power sword. Or perhaps a grenade, perfectly placed, blows me off my perch and into the valley below. But dead is dead, right?

Once, we managed to get an eight player Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Game on, and guys, we were on top of the world that night. hello It was cool, but not the frenzied joy of navigating two hairpin turns on an oval baby park track with seven friends, constantly ricocheting turtle anatomy, bob-bomb explosions and ever-disastrous banana peels threatening to destroy you in the waning seconds of your last lap. Ha ha, you were in first place, now you’re not much, and everyone is laughing at you (including you).

It was one hell of a night, and I’ve been chasing that dragon ever since.

Don’t get me wrong, online gaming has its perks, especially now. You get a huge, colorful, high-resolution display for your lonesome. It also opens the door to strengthening distant friendships that, in days gone by, may have quietly drifted away, flowing into eternity. These days, even Nintendo has figured out how to (mostly) make it easy to hop on Wi-Fi and spin up a game. Don’t even have to leave your house! Sure, playing online means weathering the insults of some anonymous buttheads from time to time, but it’s mostly worth it because it’s easy.

Yet for all its worth, online gaming can leave you feeling… disconnected. The triumph of LAN parties comes not from wide screens and immersive audio but from being there Win or lose, you can see your friends’ elation when their blue shell is attached or their betrayed sadness when their warthog is blown into the sky, and you can share those feelings, and they can see it in you. Does it suck to pull together all the pieces of a LAN party? Yeah, kinda. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat, yes.