Planning a Video Game Night... Need some ideas.

[droorz77]

Sorry if this has been brought up before but I am trying to plan video game party. I am struggling for ideas. I was thinking to do a little competion deal with old and new school video games. Maybe play mario brothers for 5 minutes to see how many points they can get. Then play another game.

I have most systems and multiple tv's to work with. It will be a bunch of late 20 early 30's guys and gals reliving their youths. But it will be gamers and non gamers. So I need to keep it semi easy to keep everyone involved.

Just wondering if you guys had any ideas or can point me in some kind of direction.

Thanks!

[Ack]

I would say to definitely hit up some classics. Duck Hunt, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Bomberman, Mortal Kombat, Mario Kart, Dr. Mario, and so on. Titles that you know a lot of people played or at least heard of back in the day. That way it should be a bit easier on the people that didn't really play games much, since they should have at least a cursory knowledge of what the games are.

[Marspants]

Second Duck Hunt! Such a good game, people usually love to try it at least once too. Games where you can get people competing for fun without a huge tension are key.

[Hatta]

IMO, one of the best party games ever was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlords_( ... arlords</a> for the 2600.

I've also had great success with Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast. Even with a bunch of non-sports fans and a non-gamer girlfriend we had a blast. Really easy to pick up and play, great for 4 people.

[droorz77]

Duck hunt is a must! I need to come up with some kind of scoring system.

Thanks for your ideas guys.

[fast]

Do competitive duckhunt. Have someone use the second controller to "control" the ducks. It doesnt really do anything on the lower levels but once they get fast it gets nasty.

And ofcourse Bomberman is always a draw, but if you want a neat contest, see how far people can get in Contra on the NES with three lives. You may be surprised at how far some really out of practice people can get.

[Erik_Twice]

Try to play a lot of games instead of focusing on a few. Something like one try to get the hang of the game and then the real thing to see who scores one point. The more simple the games ,the better.

Bonus points if you use balanced teams instead of indivual contest as that way the bad players enjoy more the games and produces interesting changes in score for the pros.

[onemanfilmcrew]

4 Competitive People + Warlords + Beer = Best Game Night Ever.

[RCBH928]

I am not sure, how long a party stays up...but my guess is after 3 hours of playing time people WILL get tired or bored specially when they are from the older crowd.
You can do stuff like videogame related, like watch a videogame related movie, I would say for fun maybe you can capture video of people talking about videogames in earlier days.

The best way I know from experience where people can play for longer times are when lesser people are playing and more are watching or waiting turns. Like two can play SF4 and others watch and wait their turn. Things like Halo where all of the invited gets to play will be hectic and people will lose interest.

Maybe you can do something like, chose your game tournament, where you list few games and people chose in which they want to compete and you can have a winner by the end of the party. You can give away mini awards for winners for memories' sake

[superlarz]

Duck Hunt.
Tetris.
NHL 94.
Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat.
Wii Sports.
Guitar Hero/Rock Band(yeah i know most here hate them but they are good at parties).