That's a good call, those are hackish kludges for people that aren't on the same network. It probably works best if you all are in the same region using the same ISP or are at least within one hop on the backbone from each other. But, the backbone connection itself can cause issues. I'm lucky enough to have a fiber connection and I still get the occasional hickup on Netflix due to the actual backbone being congested.

But, that being said, for older games there's not much choice sometimes.

Definitely :)

Something big to consider, if you do Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, etc... you can find custom maps just for deathmatches and the like. Some of my most memorable are a few maps in Duke Nukem 3D, and i had twice the kill count of everyone else combined together :P Funny thing is they sent someone to watch me play and call out what i was doing and where i was at, so i said 'okay...' and i started doing random crap.

"He's in the water, he's on the tower, he's in the water, he's behind you!"

BOOM!

Ahhh fun times :)

Halo
Goldeneye

Unreal Tournament and Quake II were mostly played on LAN parties at my place back in time.
As well as.. very first Moto Racer : )

edit:
I'd love a proper LAN party.. One more game came to my mind, Kingpin - Life of Crime.

Here's a couple of free ones, but I'm not sure if they all support LAN:

OpenArena
Essentially Quake 3 with open-source graphics.

AssaultCube
Somewhat similar to Counter-Strike, but simpler and more based around direct action/death matches.

FreeDoom/FreeDM
Similar to OpenArena, this is a free replacement WAD for DOOM 2 with new graphics and maps. You can play it with most DOOM-sourceports, such as or [url=http://www.zandronum.com/]Zandronum. FreeDM is entirely built around multiplayer.

MegaGlest
An RTS similar to Warcraft III, but without the RPG elements.

Wyrmsun
An RTS similar to Warcraft II, but with RPG elements.

*packing my computer, headset, my cat and all the peripherals*


So.. where is this party at?

^Second This or the original 1999
Also C&Cs where great or some fast rounds on Colin Mc Rae!

Ah this coming togethers with good friends and collegues from job
nothing like teamspeech or internet can equal this
discussing face to face in a calm relaxing atmosphere with some beers and pizza together
*got you damn motherf*er
*you have to jump JUUUMP
*BASTARD I will get you
*Hes behind me help, hes behind meeee *boom* - ah never mind

Never done LAN Party? you have not lived!

Hmmm I forget sometimes about other games (turn based and the like). I'm reminded Masters of Orion 2 has multiplayer functionality, both LAN and Hot Seat... But that would likely be an all day event.

What other games...

reminds me of DFI LanParty motherboards.. ahh the hype back then.

I would throw in a couple of my favorite LAN MP games:
Medal Of Honor (GOG)
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory (free)
Quake (GOG)
Quake 3 (GOG)
Unreal Tournament (GOG)
Starcraft, Warcraft 3 (i think you can get these only from Blizzard)
Age of Empires 2, 3 (steam)

Ah and maybe if there are still not enough FPS:
Honorable mention of Delta Force (we played 2 and land warrior)!
It had not very detailed graphics but his voxel graphics engine had such a great loooong range vision
and huge maps therefore, have a look in some lets plays if possible
you really hunt down the opposite not just all 2 seconds a kill

Rise of the Triad is a personal favorite for multi-player FPS. The maps are GREAT!

Star Wars Battlefront II is great fun multiplayer.

i think they made ads for their "top notch" LAN chips on their Motherboards? - never had one of them ;-)
Which was of course never measureable in real life We used just good LAN switches 8x or 16x

Counter-Strike 1.5, Unreal Tournament, StarCraft, Warcraft III, Quake 3...