I mean, I disagree completely about the "awkward" part. Online gaming has nothing on hanging out with a bunch of friends in the same room playing PC games together for a weekend. If you happen to be younger and you've never had a LAN party with friends, you absolutely should try it once. It's a unique experience and it's crazy fun.
Agreed. LAN parties were amazing. I have such fond memories of gathering with 3 to 5 buddies in a basement for an entire weekend. The games were fun but more often than not they were just a background activity for an epic hangout.
LAN parties weren't amazing. They still are amazing. My friends and me still have LAN-parties the whole night on weekends. We play classic games like Warcraft, Starcraft, CS GO and 1.6, but also play "newer" (needs ro run on every machine) games like Borderlands.
My girlfriend also regulary have LAN-parties playing Stardew Valley with her friends all together in a room like in the good old times.
All of us are 20-30 years old. Some take their laptop with them, some their tower + keyboard and mouse. The only difference is that we can play over Wifi (still works better over LAN) and have fast Internet for all these annoying updates.
LAN-parties aren't a relic of the past. They are still totally awesome and no online-game can compete with good friends playing computer games all night. ;)
I mean, I disagree completely about the "awkward" part. Online gaming has nothing on hanging out with a bunch of friends in the same room playing PC games together for a weekend. If you happen to be younger and you've never had a LAN party with friends, you absolutely should try it once. It's a unique experience and it's crazy fun.