CSE Week LAN Party; The Quilt of Gaming

Gaming is a patchwork quilt made up of people with, at best, loosely related tastes. More than any other event I’ve been to, the CSE Week LAN Party is the best example of how hugely diverse the gaming community is. Granted, League of Legends (LoL) and Starcraft II (SC2), the most popular tournaments, were both out in force.

 

A whole gaggle of teams rolled into the lower atrium, geared up to see who could lane the hardest and who could macro their micro the best. What interests me, though, was what was on the sidelines; the games that not everybody cares for. Some people, though, care enough to come to arguably the biggest LAN event of the year and willfully segregate themselves from the rest of the gaming community via esoteric taste. Here’s some interesting little bits of the night, as I encountered them.

 

Speedy Gonzales

 

Two guys, one on an honest-to-God Nintendo 64, the other on a PC emulator, both playing through The Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time, racing to the Master Sword. I asked them why they would come to a public, group party like this and willfully separate themselves. Simply, they said they just like doing speedruns of this sort, though they both admitted to playing LoL on the side. Without tools, one of them said he’d beaten Super Mario 64 in 30 minutes, something I didn’t realize was possible.

 

Two Guys, Two Games

 

Earlier in the night, things weren’t really going yet, but gaming always finds a way. One guy, excited to play Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA2). Instead of playing Valve’s hot-pants MOBA, he was trapped in a game of the indie rogue-like, The Binding of Isaac. His excuse? “DotA Purgatory”, which was his way of explaining server issues. Sitting next to him was a bit of something more classic. On a Nexus 7 tablet, one man enjoyed a fine game of Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. Who says the Gameboy Advance is dead?

 

Keeping it Real

 

What kind of LAN party would it be without the obligatory retro station? The hybrid NES/SNES console, the RetroDuo, resulted in some good times from ancient times. The game of the day was the semi-esoteric Machine Warriors, a robot fighting game for the SNES. Host to a variety of different mechs, each with their unique movement options, weapons, and the source of at least a handful of friendly matches. All of this through a TV no bigger than a breadbox (like 12 inches). It’s a huge surprise that these people remained dedicated to the consoles and didn’t give in, bring their PCs, and start learning LoL.

 

Of course, the more/less friendly matches came about with the Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 tournament. Far from mainstream professional play, these few fans of the fighter came and cheered on the new players and jeered the more experienced. Of course, the finals rooted out those less experienced, but it was clear that this cute corner of the sprawling party was at least as excited (and loud) as the nearly silent remainder.

 

The Many Miscellaneous

 

There were even more random, unknown things I saw only in passing. Here’s a quick list!

 

  • One person playing Guild Wars 2
  • One handsome Adonis playing World of Warcraft
  • An animated Fluttershy dancing across an unoccupied PC
  • A small (tiny, really) handful of people playing Counter Strike 1.6
  • A contingent of Team Fortress 2 players. Not many of them, but it’s hard not to notice Valve’s cell-shaded shooter