All-night session plugs enthusiasts into team fun
THOMAS LA BARBERA / Press & Sun-Bulletin
| VESTAL - Eight hours into a 16-hour event Saturday, about 40 young men and a handful of women all plugged in to high-end computers sat shoulder to shoulder in a Binghamton University lecture hall. Blood and bullets flashed across their flat screens. Cheerful music droned endlessly from the Nintendo console plugged into an overhead projector. Shouted expletives punctuated jargon-heavy conversations about computer accessories and strategies for ambushing competing teams. "It's just kind of a place to hang out," said Nate Fenson, a sophomore at Binghamton University and the event's organizer. "There's some real good players in here." Binghamton University's Computer, Robotics and Engineering Club sponsored the all-night event, called Maximum Overkill. Fenson expected about 100 people. The all-night gaming competition in gaming circles is known as a LAN party; A LAN, or local area network, is the infrastructure that allows gamers to compete against each other in the two halls. The gamers brought in their modified computer towers, plugged them in and started practicing for the scheduled tournaments. Mike Specioso, an 11th-grader at Union-Endicott High School, sat in a row with four of his high-school friends. A can of Red Bull and a bag of peanut M&M's sat next to his machine. Specioso said he practices between two and three hours a day; his machine, a homemade conglomeration of the newest gaming technology, cost him about $1,700. Specioso said he pays for the technology with money from a part-time job. He and his friends hold smaller-scale LAN parties on a regular basis, Specioso said. "We usually just go to each other's houses," Specioso said. "Then I've got another friend who has an apartment. We just have a room where we set everything up." Specioso was connected to nine other players through the LAN. The group, divided into two teams of five, faced off against each other armed with virtual firearms. They crouched for cover, picked off opponents with sniper rifles and shouted orders to each other through headsets. With computers growing more powerful, the software growing more complex and the Internet facilitating worldwide connections, computer games create an alternate reality. "It's kind of like another community you can hang out with," said Zach Millea, who recently opened the LAN Gaming Center in downtown Oneonta. | [attachment=66:attachment] |