Ok, so the people who run lunchtime deathmatch in my office are obsessed with Halo:CE. Yes, the first one. The problems with this are manyfold:

(1) Some PCs are far better than others. Maps with high body counts end up with high poly counts which shaft some of the older machines.

(2) The game itself has really poor spawning - when you spawn you are frozen for about 0.5s and it leads to so much spawn killing that people are just quitting out of frustration.

(3) What's worse is the game starts as soon as the host creates the game, so he can run around, get the high powered weapons and items, then camp on the spawn points.

(4) Better yet, your first spawn forces you to stand still for about 1.5s, making the host even more powerful.

(5) Most custom maps are too big. There are usually 4 or 5 players.

I've tried them on Unreal tournament (some of our PCs are ancient and this runs like a dream on even the slowest of them), and all I got whining because it was "different" there weren't any grenades and "it looked ****".

SO MASSASSI!

Recommend me some awesome DM games great for small numbers of players, old(ish) machines, fun and fairness.

I'm recommending myself Q3A which I've brought in today to install. Hopefully they will take to it a bit better, but I fear the real problem is just Halo-worship...

Love and kisses,

Your friendly neighbourhood Mantrain

CS? el oh el

Q3A and the original Unreal Tournament were both extremely fun times.

A lot of people who play online a lot will intentionally lower the graphics details to make it easier to see what's going on.

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2?

But if they cant handle the change from Halo to UT, I predict zero chance they accept JK. It has aged less gracefully.

Unreal Tournament
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Unreal Tournament 2004
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I tried UT before FGR

Halo is just toooooo slooooooooow for me.

EDIT:

Oh and Detty, we're already doing that.

This. Srsly, tell them to stop being such whiny *****es and get used to this game. It is by far the best option, and, like you said, it runs well even on slower computers.

Team Fortress 2? Yeah it's newer, but it does scale well on the graphics and doesn't have any of the issues you described :/

Rune. It's not a shooter, rather third person melee. It's built on the Unreal Tournament engine (released in late 2000) so it should run well on almost any system. This always seemed to be the game we had most fun with at the various LAN parties I attended many years ago.

some bomberman clone, should run well even on old machines

UT and Quake.

Halo CE is terrible. It has at least 150 to 200ms of input lag.

And honestly, UT looks just as good as Halo IMO.

I agree about the looks, and i must admit sometimes it feels like there's input lag

Halo CE wasn't bad for LAN games, I never had a problem during those matches.

Counter-Strike.

Open Arena!

I have clicked my mouse, had no response, continued falling or walking then having lined myself up nicely with some cover THEN had my rocket come out and blow myself up.

Several times.

AvP2 in my opinion is still one of the greatest mp dm games ever made. Incredibly fun, and strong variety in levels races and classes.

Best. Map. Ever.

Indeed.

UT is epic. Anyone who prefers Halo needs his/her head examined...

This is the problem I have...

Oh my.

Is that a tentacle?

As good as that LOOKS, I doubt its as fun in the newer games compared to old school UT.

They've made 2 "official" remakes and 21655908135614 unofficial remakes, none as good as the first.

for DEATHMATCH with a small number of players you really can't beat Quake *

UT is the answer here. It's unfortunate that your colleagues won't give it a shot.

Yeah, that's what I thought. UT is quick, simple, has the ease of mutators for setting up quirkier games and it's just plain

Shame they're so stuck in their stupid ways.

Duuurrrr Halo is da best

how old are your computers? I second tf2 if they are halfway recent

Yeah, UT is pretty much the best deathmatch game ever.

I don't know exactly how old, but I doubt they'd run Source engine games. Maybe I should try a demo >_>

Worms.

Yeah, Worms is great. I've only played the XBL version online, and only a few times, but I stomped CoolMatty both times we played.

Quake.

We used to play Quake during lunch time at school. A kid tricked the Tech guy into giving him Admin access, and then we installed it on all the computers in the school.
Fun times. We picked quake since it was about all the crap computers could run, but it was still fun as hell.

I'm with all the Quake votes.

Tribes? It's free.

UT > Quake anyday.