Good 2 player PC Games?

[HeadRusch]

I'll expand on my earlier thread:

Can you guys think of any good 2 player games that will run split screen, that might be good on the mame cab?

For example, do any of the NEED FOR SPEED PC series run split screen, or just "network"....

Do any of the First Person Shooters allow split screen play??

[Howard_Casto]

In a word no.  

As all pcs support network play and most gamers use a simple mouse/keyboard for controlling pc games there has never been a split screen pc game made to my knowledge.

The only reason this is done on console games is because until this current version of consoles network play was unheard of and having 4 tvs just to play mario kart is inpractical.  

[IIOIOOIOO]

Pretty sure that Serious Sam does split screen (I know the CroTeam engine does) for multiplayer. The second one sucked, but the first game was an amazingly fun game.... and it started out at $20 list price. I'll bet you could pick it up dirt cheap. It had a feel similar to the original doom (endless swarms of enemies), but with better gfx, true-3d mapping, and outdoor environments.

[HeadRusch]

I'll look into it...thanks!

[NiN^_^NiN]

Well Liero does till u come close to your enemy then it merges but thats the best dos game for 2 players u must get it

And dogs of war is split screen till u meet up with the other person

but they both work on 486 n better and they both use the same keyboard altho they dont support joystick

[Wade]

Whiplash is a really fun car game that can play split screen and the keys are all programmable of course.  It ran great on low end Pentiums of the time at around 90 mhz.  There is also a 3DFX version out there that might look better if you have a 3D card.  All games were for DOS.

I think this would be a pretty ideal game for a cabinet with exception of the lack of coin up and arcade style interface.  But that's a problem with any PC game that I've seen.

Wade

[human_being]

Whiplash is a great game

I know that Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit and High Stakes both support split screen racing.  I'm not sure about the others in the series...

You also might want to check out the You Don't Know Jack series (or any other quiz-show-type games).

The one PC game that I might put in a cab would be Worms (any one in the series), as long as there's a trackball (for mouse movement) on the control panel. You'd only need one set of controls, too, since the game works hotseat style... great fun if you haven't tried it...  

[Odonadon]

If you look hard enough, you should be able to find plenty of split-screen games - NFS III and IV, Liero, YDKJ, Whiplash and Hi-Octane are old but work, etc.  Don't let that first reply get you down because it is SO not true

Odonadon

[SirPoonga]

sport games are generally good.  They aren't split screen, but they were made to have many people play on one screen.

Like Hockey.  I know NHL FaceOff series for the psx did 8 playters through the multitap.  For the PC basically any sport games allows up to 4 gamepads usually.

[Wade]

Well if you are going to play hockey or soccer you probably might as well use one that runs in mame right?

Was Hi-Octane the game that was like a racing and shooting game with hovercraft type vehicles?  That game rocked!

Wonder if any of these old games are PD or open source now, so they could be modified to play on a cab with proper coin ups and other arcade "stuffs".

Wade

[radiator]

Was Hi-Octane the game that was like a racing and shooting game with hovercraft type vehicles?  That game rocked!

yup, that's the one
aaah, fond memories!

if you hunt around you'll probably find tons of split screen games...maybe not modern ones, but definatly cab-worthy!

and yes, serious sam is split screen (played it with a mate, bit fiddly though)

i just hope that when howard said "in a word, no" he thought you meant modern pc games (if not, i can't believe he'd never come across a split screen pc game before!?!)

if you manage to find a few, post a list

have fun
 

[EDIT]

howard mate, you actually gave yourself a clue in your answer...
remember all those MarioKart spinoff PC games that appeared? i think all of them were split screen...

now, what was that one called where you controlled fuzzy animals driving carts? i think it was made by Apogee...

[Howard_Casto]

Yup you got it.  

You see if it's not a modern pc game then it's inferior and shouldn't be played.  Before you jump down my throat.  Pc games, before recent history were always crappy and/or crappier ports of console games.  And on a modern os (read nt based windows)  they can't even be played in most cases.  

For the record I didn't know that serious sam did split screen though.  BUT that game wouldn't play well on a mame cab as it's a fps.  Fps - mouse = can't play on a mame cab.  The same can be said for need for speed.  If you don't have a steering wheel controller then it won't play well on your mame cab.    

So now go back down the list and pick out the games that would still work taking into account the things I just said.  There might be 1 or 2.  

[radiator]

aah...never thought about the OS thing...(unless he's using win98, or DOS)

and yeah, i was just confirming that serious sam is split screen...hell, i'd never want to play an fps on a cab (i can't even play them on consoles!!)

and i used to love the crappy pcs games (well, i was a kid! and for a long time i never knew that pc's could play games, thought they were just for word processing, spreadsheets and solitaire!)

it took me sooo long to find out about pc gaming...the first one i played was another world (i was way too much of a console boy back then, but, as i said above, i was young and stupid! )

 

[IIOIOOIOO]

Howard is absolutely right. Castle Wolfenstein on console totally defined the entire FPS genre. Of course it did, sine all computer games of that era were either just plain bad, or vastly inferior ports of console games. And all those PC RPGs were totally weak, and persistent state games were totally all over the console scene. Oh wait...

Don't follow up your wrong-fest with more wrong.

[Howard_Casto]

Howard is absolutely right. Castle Wolfenstein on console totally defined the entire FPS genre. Of course it did, sine all computer games of that era were either just plain bad, or vastly inferior ports of console games. And all those PC RPGs were totally weak, and persistent state games were totally all over the console scene. Oh wait...

Don't follow up your wrong-fest with more wrong.

Let's see going down the list.  

Wolfie... A decent game at best when new.  Total crap now.  Innovate? Yes.  Worth playing now? No.  2 player?  Nope not really.

Getting to the point.  Do fps paly well on a mame cab?  No, not even the old ones.  There are simply too many buttons.

Rpgs are to gaming what golf is to sports.  I.E. they could be considered a game only in the loosest intrepretation of the word.  Personally I don't sit in my basment with 4 loser friends making dungeon maps out of cardboard.  Rpg players do though, not that there is anything wrong with that.  But even if you like them (ugh)  graphically superior versions of these games also came out on consoles and rpgs didn't catch on until they did.  

People remember Final Fantasy and Dragon warror.  Unless they are the geekiest of geeks they don't remember pc rpg games.  

But getting to the point again.  Do rpgs play well on a mame cab?  Nope, not unless you like standing, looking down at a monitor for several hours.  


Maybe you need to actually THINK before you get defensive.  Arcade cabinets are designed specifically (controls and all) for fast paced, short length gaming sessions with pure digital controls in most cases.  And a very few controls at that.  

Pc games up until recently are the polar opposite of this description.  So as I said they are inferior and shouldn't be played.  (Any game that requires a whole keyboard to play has something wrong with it.)  If you like those types of games then that's great, load up dos on an old 486 and knock yourself out.  But they only play well on a pc, not anything else.  

[IIOIOOIOO]

Nice novella, however this is what I was referring to...

Pc games, before recent history were always crappy and/or crappier ports of console games.

...your wrongness following another wrong.  In fact in your post of "refutation," you in fact state that a good chunk of those games were great. It goes with other such examples of unadulterated genius as trying to swear people off of DOS, even though it can much more easily provide a better arcade machine simulation (from BIOS self-test -> Shutdown) with windows having several virtually inescapable portions of the boot-up process.

But I don't wish to stray too far off topic.... hmm.... 1 day till dxLaz right?

[radiator]

head over to Megagames and check out their freeware games section

they have a lot of single/multi player games that would work well on a cab (75% of them are arcade style), and they look damn good too

 

[Wade]

I think that saying all PC games sucked from that era is similar to when younger kids now say, "why play those old arcade games on your cabinet, when you can play much sweeter looking games on a PS2?"

I'm not a big fan of playing non-arcade games on my cab, but I think Hi-Octane and Whiplash would work well.  I'm sure there are tons of others.

If anyone can hack these 2 into looking more arcade-like, or if they are open source or PD now, I would enjoy them on my cab.  But I doubt they are available.

Wade

[spectre]

MARSHMALLOW DUEL
SCORCHED EARTH
HUNTER HUNTED
DOOM LEGACY SPLITSCREEN OPTION
ROAD RASH

thats all you need to know...

[Odonadon]

MARSHMALLOW DUEL
SCORCHED EARTH
HUNTER HUNTED
DOOM LEGACY SPLITSCREEN OPTION
ROAD RASH

thats all you need to know...

Oo oo oo - Worms Armageddon!  How could I forget!?  Unless it was mentioned already and I'm blind?

Odonadon