Planning a Video Game Night (8-10 people)

[Jason Waddell]

Help me plan a gathering!

We are planning a video game evening with the following resources:
- an open living room with sofas, large tv
- a secondary room with up to 2 small tvs + 8 chairs

Systems available:
- Wii U
- Wii
- Xbox 360
- PS3/4
- Nintendo DS
- SNES

It's a mixed, mostly casual audience, and we're looking to keep everybody entertained without fragmentation into cliques and such. A friend suggested a tournament of sorts, with teams of 2, and I'd like to explore this idea (unless you guys have a better plan for this type of dynamic).

I want games that are easy to pickup, and can be played in teams of sorts. This is where not having a Dreamcast hurts. No Chu Chu Rocket or Virtua Tennis is a bit of a blow. Or Wayne Gretsky's 3D hocket. NBA Jam.

Currently we have brainstormed the following:
Super Smash Bros (Wii U)
Nintendo Land (Wii U) (1 v 4, player from Team A vs Team B + Team C)
Mario Kart Racing (Wii U)
Mario Kart Battle (SNES)
Tetris (DS)
Wii Tennis U (Wii U)

Do you guys have other games to propose? Surely there must be something good on Xbox Live Arcade. And how would you organize it in a way that allows us to crown a champion team at the end of the night? Are there any surprises we can pull out?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Crap, when? Assuming it's as much of a riot as the first, Magicka 2 should be out late may for PS4.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Crap, when? Assuming it's as much of a riot as the first, Magicka 2 should be out late may for PS4.

No date yet. How easy is Magicka to learn? I'm assuming we'll be playing some of these with people who haven't played at all. Also, is there now a battle mode?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I learned to play it on my first try. We just played the adventure with four people (that was Magicka 1 though). I only discovered about 2 when I went looking if 1 was playable on anything besides the PC, so I don't know any details. I do know Magicka 1 was awesome though, both in humor and gameplay ("never cross beams!")

 

[Jason Waddell]

I am wondering about the "decathlon" style. Maybe it's better to run individual tournaments for games (e.g. a Wii Tennis teams tournament) and crown a champion for each, then move on. It keeps people committed for less time, and allows people to opt out if needed.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Little Big Planet games have always been fun for those kind of games!

 

[Meltyman]

Doritos Crash Course is pretty fun to play and it is free. (xbox360)
4 players and the game is easy to learn and the game play is pretty hectic

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Also:

http://hmq.hubpages.com/hub/best-ps3-party-games
http://www.reddit.com/r/PS3/comments/29zzjp/party_games_for_the_ps3/

 

[Aoret]

TowerFall: Ascension ...and you probably won't need to play anything else.

 

[spicewitch]

Vigilante 8
Geometry Wars
Worms Armageddon (xbox, not pc)
starfox 64
Super Mario War if you have a hacked Wii. I think there are some tricks to get it working on a non-hacked Wii if you burn it to a disc? It's so worth it. It's basically super smash brothers, except you are NES/SNES marios. So you can kill each other as simply as an expertly-piloted jump on the head, or with fireballs, or by spinning your raccoon tail after getting the leaf powerup, etc.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Okay, here is the current plan after discussing with people. Each game will be a miniature tournament (30-45 minutes), and the music games are just a 1-song for points thing. How you do in each game translates to a certain number of points. Each game has a winner, then there will be an overall winner.

Two rooms, four rounds.

Main Room:
Wii Tennis (Wii U)
Mario Kart SNES 1v1 Battle (Wii U Virtual Console)
Just Dance 2015 (Wii U)
Smash Bros 4 (Wii U)

Second room:
Tetris (DS)
Towerfall (PC)
Street Fighter 2 HD Remix (Xbox 360)
Singstar (PS3)

 

[Goldenpineapple]

The few times I attended this type of event they had similar stuff- team games, 1v1 games, and a casual "overall tournament" scoring system. They were fine, and your 8-10 people sounds closer to the right size than the 20ish we always had.

Biggest problems were some games being a little investment-demanding and people not being familiar with more technically-demanding games (fighting games, simulators) and just not playing. Something like Borderlands or Trine can keep people from playing them because they don't want to jump into the middle of a long grind or the middle of a story- I brought a SNES and my copy of Super R-type, a sidescrolling arcade shooter that simply resets levels / the game when you die, and almost everyone played it- when someone got really far or reached a new boss they would come watch and cheer them on.

I have to recommend having as many "side events" as you can that both don't count for the tournament and are really easy to pick up- arcade games and simple-control games like 2D mario games or something that everyone can collectively "work on" over the course of the night have been big hits in my experience.

Weird stuff that was always the big talk post-party closely resembled the gimmick side events at some large fighting tournaments- imported construction vehicle fighting game, or playing fighting games with DDR pads.

 

[Diakonov]

Main Room:
Wii Tennis (Wii U)
Mario Kart SNES 1v1 Battle (Wii U Virtual Console)
Just Dance 2015 (Wii U)
Smash Bros 4 (Wii U)

Second room:
Tetris (DS)
Towerfall (PC)
Street Fighter 2 HD Remix (Xbox 360)
Singstar (PS3)

This looks like a solid mix. That's bummer about the lack of Dreamcast... Chu Chu Rocket is a blast. I strongly recommend 4- or 5-player Sweet Day on Nintendoland. That's still my favorite group game on the Wii U.

Super Mario War if you have a hacked Wii. I think there are some tricks to get it working on a non-hacked Wii if you burn it to a disc? It's so worth it. It's basically super smash brothers, except you are NES/SNES marios. So you can kill each other as simply as an expertly-piloted jump on the head, or with fireballs, or by spinning your raccoon tail after getting the leaf powerup, etc.

Super Mario War is fantastic. Very much in the same genre as Towerfall. We used to play it on Dreamcast all the time. I did the sound for an Xbox Live Arcade game called Ranger Wars that is basically a Super Mario War ripoff. It's $1. I recommend it!

I have to recommend having as many "side events" as you can that both don't count for the tournament and are really easy to pick up- arcade games and simple-control games like 2D mario games or something that everyone can collectively "work on" over the course of the night have been big hits in my experience.

This seems like a very cool idea. Like a collective "let's beat Mega Man 3."

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, I like the collective thing. Not sure what game in my collection would work well for it. Castle Crashers? Or should it be single player?

 

[Jason Waddell]

This looks like a solid mix. That's bummer about the lack of Dreamcast... Chu Chu Rocket is a blast. I strongly recommend 4- or 5-player Sweet Day on Nintendoland. That's still my favorite group game on the Wii U.

Yeah, we play that a lot, I'm sure we'll do it after the "main event" is finished. The event is currently structured around teams of 2, and Nintendoland didn't factor into that very cleanly.

 

[Goldenpineapple]

Castle Crashers? Or should it be single player?

The problem with castle crashers/gauntlet/something is that they're pretty long and pretty grindy- I haven't played crashers in a long time but I remember it being a lot more time-consuming than actually difficult. Games like mario / r-type that "reset" the level when you screw up, and have relatively short levels (2-5 minutes) are a lot easier to put down and pick up than a beat-em-up with a health pool that encourages time-intensive gameplay, so the levels and boss battles feel longer (10-20 minutes). It's very easy to have a couple people on a couch or a couple chairs shooting the shit and passing the controller on-death or something. Keeps everyone engaged without becoming boring.

We had a lot of space and TVs/monitors, but portal 2 co-op was pretty fun in a party setting.

 

[Jason Waddell]

The problem with castle crashers/gauntlet/something is that they're pretty long and pretty grindy- I haven't played crashers in a long time but I remember it being a lot more time-consuming than actually difficult. Games like mario / r-type that "reset" the level when you screw up, and have relatively short levels (2-5 minutes) are a lot easier to put down and pick up than a beat-em-up with a health pool that encourages time-intensive gameplay, so the levels and boss battles feel longer (10-20 minutes). It's very easy to have a couple people on a couch or a couple chairs shooting the shit and passing the controller on-death or something. Keeps everyone engaged without becoming boring.

We had a lot of space and TVs/monitors, but portal 2 co-op was pretty fun in a party setting.

Yeah, I think we'll have 3 TVs + DS's, but 2 of the TVs will be occupied with the main event for the first few hours.