Event: Octane 2 LAN Party Event Date: 07/26/2002 Written By: Warhawk Date Written: 07/27/2002

The Octane LAN party was held at Calvary Church in Los Gatos and was one of the coolest LANs I've been to. When I first heard about it, I was a little wary, wondering how good of a setup they would have. They didn't even have a website to advertise for the party, so i figured it would be pretty small. I'm happy to say I was very wrong about all that. The facility was totally awesome, there were three projector screens, two with console games, and one in the middle that was displaying winamp visualization to the loud techno music that was playing over the PA system.

There were quite a few people there, Id estimate around 50 or more. Everyone was friendly and easy to start up conversations with. There was a BBQ with free hotdogs, hamburgers, soda and candy setup outside. Since it was a church event, they wanted to restrict it to games that did not feature a lot of blood and gore. This means that CS, the LAN party favorite, was off limits. I actually liked this idea because it gave everybody a chance to try out some new games for a change. The main games that were going on were Medal of Honor and Jedi Knight 2.

I played MOH most of the time, and was able to stay in the top one or two spots most rounds. Unfortunately I packed my stuff up too early to be able to compete in the MOH tourney they had. The Jedi 2 server that they were running was on version 1.03, which meant I couldn’t join it because mine was 1.04. This was incredibly LAME. I hope they have their server upgraded for next time. I was able to join an unofficial server or two and I did pretty good.

I am definitely looking forward to attending future Octane LAN parties. The facility, people, and games are awesome, and the price is very reasonable (10 bucks).