LAN Party Adventures [PC] | REVIEW

Before online gaming hit every home and playing multiplayer became an effortless task, gaming with friends was either done via split-screen or by lugging your PCs across town and wrestling with a jungle of cables to connect everything together. LAN Party Adventures revives that ritual in all of its chaotic glory, blending hands-on PC tinkering with a light mystery about a missing friend. It’s part puzzle game, part love letter to an era when connecting four computers felt like a small miracle, and you know what? It just might make you nostalgic for the click of a VGA connector…

Check out some screenshots down below:

Set at the turn of the millennium, LAN Party Adventures drops players into the role of a teenager whose beloved computer dies just as his friend Pedro mysteriously disappears… talk about bad luck, huh? Well, what begins as an effort to earn money for repairs soon turns into a low-key detective story, with the search for Pedro adding an intriguing twist to the network connecting setup of the main gameplay loop. Admittedly, the narrative never reaches high drama, but it is a kooky bit of fun and helps give the game a sense of purpose beyond simply wiring machines together.

The heart of the experience is the hands-on PC setup, with each level tasking players with the likes of placing towers and monitors, connect them to power, and making sure each one talks to the network for a wild session of LAN gaming. If you’re a kid of the early 2000s, everything will feel immediately familiar, with the game offering a loving recreation of the era’s clunky hardware.

“LAN Party Adventures is a cozy puzzler that mixes PC-building challenges with a light missing-friend mystery, and it pulls off that unique blend with plenty of charm.”

Early on, this careful assembly is charming and even a little meditative, with the satisfying and relaxing loop offering the right balance of tinkering and nostalgia to really hook you in. However, later levels mix in some intricate puzzles tied to the mystery behind Pedro’s disappearance, with players having to really dig through an assortment of clues to learn more about their missing friend. It helps add a few more nuances to the gameplay experience so that you’re not simply wiring up PCs the whole time, all whilst integrating the technical side of things into the puzzling – it’s done in a clever and creative way that gives the gameplay loop that special hook to keep things interesting.

But what really sells LAN Party Adventures is its atmosphere and sense of nostalgia. The developers clearly have a whole lot of love for the culture that they’re portraying, and it really does show in the little touches: old-school interface windows you can drag around, walls plastered with tongue-in-cheek references to beloved franchises… that sorta thing. It really does feel like a time capsule of the early 2000s, with the game capturing the look and vibe of the era perfectly. I’ll admit, there were times when playing when I just found solace in soaking it all in… hell, it even made me want to give a few old friends a call, if only to reminisce about the good old days of LAN gaming. Not a lot of games do that sort of thing to me, so LAN Party Adventures earns extra brownie points there.

Check out some screenshots down below:

However, as enjoyable as the gameplay loop and overall vibe of LAN Party Adventures can be, it rarely evolves as you play. Whilst the sense of mystery and some additional puzzles do keep things interesting, there isn’t much variation in the core loop, with players doing a lot of the same things over and over again. Some of the objects you interact with can be a little finicky too, especially when performing precise tasks when disconnecting and connecting cables. The additional Sandbox mode does let you arrange equipment however you please, but given that the core gameplay mechanics did get a little tiring when playing through the main campaign, there isn’t always a whole lot of motivation to get stuck into the mode.

But you know what? Despite those drawbacks, LAN Party Adventures succeeds in what it sets out to do: celebrate a very specific moment in gaming history. It captures the camaraderie of friends gathering around computers and the small triumphs of getting everything to work perfectly, and whilst it undoubtedly has some drawbacks, I always had a smile on my face when playing. That won’t be the case for everyone – especially modern gamers who won’t have the nostalgia of setting up LAN gaming sessions – but those who do have fond memories of the era of LAN gaming will get a lot more out of the experience.

Developer: LEAP Game Studios
Publisher: LEAP Game Studios, Pchujoy Games
Platform(s): PC (Reviewed)
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3566720/LAN_Party_Adventures/