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Welcome to the 56ok.org
If you hear bandwidths of 10 Megabits in, 5 megabits out, and think that that's the service you get in a third world country, this is not for you. This is for people who lust after 10 Megabit connections and can afford one or more consoles. This website shows you how to get creative with online games, and find ones they don't automatically get kicked off of.
Network, it's not you, it's me
Probably the most party inducing game I played with my friends before I moved is Saturn Bomberman. I was literally the only smart one who bought it new, and I was invited by Jamal "Zophar321" Nickens, to bring it, my Saturn controllers and 1 multi tap, (at first, he had the other, but then Saturn got so dirt cheap that I bought controllers for $1-3 and have a set of 12 myself and another multi tap) to play 8 or even (if you want to squint) 10 player Bomberman. Those games were both figuratively and literally a blast.
We played it so much, that when we got together, we had a choice of 10 different Hudson Characters, and we always took the same ones, so we got to identify each other in game. One time Zophar321 was so good, he decided to be generous and give someone else the glory, another common friend. He and this friend decided to swap characters when they were teammates, (you can either play teams or cutthroat). So it looked like we were easily killing Jamal, but this other person was invincible, who normally was weak. His name is Dave LaGuardia. I was on the other team and everyone was fooled. Dave and Jamal even did some acting, Jamal pretending to be Dave, and Dave pretending to be Jamal. After about 3 games to 3 wins, I notice Dave's commentary wasn't matching the actions, and Dave and Jamal has a couple communication issues where Dave's mouth (and Jamal's joystick actions) didn't quite match and was a little late. When this friend talked about the plans of Jamal pretending to be Dave, sometimes the actions didn't match the stated intent. After about 3 games, I didn't quite finger it, I was claiming that Jamal sucked that day. And then Jamal chuckled when I said that, so then he cam clean to protect his reputation, after I changed my ind and asked to challenge Dave to a 1-on-1.
But the point was the only one who was just as bad as Dave was me. Yet I didn't care I could rarely get a win in a cutthroat match, let along win a trio of matches. I was with my friends and we were enjoying each other's company. The question is, would Bomberman be just as fun without my friends and/or being far away from my friends.
The first time I played online was Netlink Saturn Bomberman, becuase I had the Netlink, butt he newest computer we had in the house was an Atari 800 XL, and it wasn't networked, and we saw no need to network. So I tok it over to Jamal's house, where his dad had a computer network connection. The funny thing we found was that it was Direct Dial, so we had to go on the network and look at the local players who a local phone call away, on a Sega Net directory which was a bulletin board. So we got the local number. We called them the old fashioned way, said we got their number on the Bomberman BB, and said let's hook up. The rule was either 1 on 1, or 2 on one console vs 2 on one other console. Remember, this was Direct Dial. We won the game, and tested to make sure it works. But calling people online was a pain in the butt.
Then came Dreamcast, and that was a cool online system. So when I heard Dreamcast Bomberman Online was coming out, I was excited. Surprising only I among my Dreamcast friends was able to find Bomberman. Most of my friends were on Broadband in 2000, and Dreamcast was incompatible. At first we had Dial up, then someone got the idea to go broadband. I couldn't play my Dreamcast online. Then we moved, where the ONLY connection was dialup. For about 1-2 years I was able to play Dreamcast online. Then Sega cancelled the service, and wouldn't game online until 2007 when we found Sprint PCS 3G. Jamal won Life to the Power of X and I won an Xbox Prime and a year of Xbox Live Gold, but couldn't use it until later.
But point is I played Bomberman Online. I was a) able to beat the level one computer on the traditional game, and online I was able to win about 75% of the 4-player games online. If I gamed even 4-way odds, I would have came out ahead. Either it's not that I suck at Bomberman as much as I was playing against Bomberman gods, and Yes, Jamal won an Xbox 360 by coming in second place in the world on Bomberman 360. He faced the number one person, and beat him. Before that, something happened similarly in Original Xbox Bust A Move. Basically, there this one person is part of a leaderboard juicing clan, where they play a few ranked games on games where few players play at any given time, they were basically making ranked games out of private games. For like the first few matches, they played it straight. When they found their best player among them, they were challenging each other 8 hours a day and throwing games to this expert, to build up the one expert's score. Jamal did research and found he was screwed out of the number one spot because of this leaderboard juicing, whereas Jamal took on all comers and never lost. If you look up his online record, those are 2 games he never lost online. If there was a Bomberman or Bust a Move torunament, he'd be a favorite.
The point is when the connection was standardized, and when the game vs. CPU was a simulation of an online game except it's 3 CPU on one team vs me, I did well enough. I don't remember too many people on Bomberman 360. It was old by the time I got the internet, Bomberman was vacant. I guess Sharp Iron sharpens Dull Iron, meaning mostly losing to Jamal and quite a few others who were common friends, boosted my skill to winning random 4-player matchups 75% of the time. Of course Jamal moved to cable at ther time and his Dreamcast was worthless, so why buy Bomberman Online?
