Help for Gamer's Wife-Suprise for hubby!

[bluenova]

Hello everyone---

I am married to a man that loves to play first person shooter games on his mac. In fact, he just got a new intel imac so he could play PC games too. He's always talking about us playing together and I would like to surprise him by setting it up so we can. Since I'm a newbie, please be kind. While he was at work, I tried to connect our computers up in multiplayer mode, but hit some problems. I searched the net, and could find no descriptions of how to actually configure everything. I'm hoping someone here will take pity on me and walk me through this. So, here's the specs:

I have a 20" G5 Imac 2 GHz, 2 GB Ram, ATI Radeon 9600 128 MB VRAM running OS 10.4.4

He has 20" Intel Core 2 Duo Imac 2.33 GHz, 2 GB Ram, ATI Radeon X1600 256 MB VRAM running OS 10.4.7

We have a LAN between our two puters with Airport; the DSL line is hooked up to his computer, so he is acting as the server. I'd like to play with him on the LAN, rather than online.

We have Star Wars Battlefront (his current passion) and Doom 3, as well as some others, like Call of Duty, Castle Wolfenstein, and Quake.

I guess my biggest question is this: Do we need two CD's (one for each puter) and two different CD's keys in order to make this work over the LAN?

After that, could anyone walk me through the steps to actually set this up? I would imagine the steps are similar from game to game once you get the idea (and probably really simple once you understand it!), but I'm lost.

I'd like to have everything loaded and ready, set to go, one evening when he gets home as a surprise.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

Any suggestions, and hand holding here, would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thank you,
---Susan

[Viro]

Originally Posted by bluenova

I guess my biggest question is this: Do we need two CD's (one for each puter) and two different CD's keys in order to make this work over the LAN?

Yes, you will need 2 different copies (not just CDs, as some games check the serial too) when you're playing a networked game. I think the best place to check for information on setting up network games is the game manual. The only networked game I've played on my Mac in recent years is Unreal Tournament 2004, and that was pretty easy to set up as all I did was follow the instructions (not much of a setting up my own network guy...). Try those, then post here for help

p.s. Wish my wife was into games