back to article Lockdown team building: Actualise the potentiality of your workforce... through the power of video games

Greetings, traveller, and welcome back to The Register Plays Games, our monthly gaming column. Since lockdown, a handful of vultures have been trying to fill the social-distancing void by playing video games together, and, hey, if you don't hate your colleagues' guts, maybe there's something here you could introduce to them in …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I remember well using Left 4 Dead as the defacto meeting place for the volunteer staff what at the time was a large well known website. You'd be surprised at how good you can get at if with the same team. If anybody is still playing it, try and play as two pairs with one pair advancing and then kneeling (so the people behind can shoot over their heads) and the second pair providing covering fire, we actually used to advance through the insane rushes without appreciably slowing down by doing this.

    The community manager liaison between the volunteers and paid staff however had a few things to say about our meetings being done in this game. Apparently persuading the company IT department that it was absolutely necessary that he have a work a PC capable of playing Left4Dead, plus a copy of the game, a gaming headset with a mic and having the ports required allowed through the firewall during working hours led to bureaucratic warfare on an epic scale which only got worse when his boss wanted to join us to have occasional chats too.

    Which to be fair as an IT Professional I do appreciate, since I can imagine my reaction to getting the same requests from my users...

  2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Devil

    You lot

    should try Left for dead in verses mode.

    4 human survivors, and 4 human special infected

    Its ended many a friendship and indeed ruined a couple of relationships.

    But its damn good fun to face zombies with brains rather than the AI they normally run with.... along with the brief screams of unwary survivors

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You lot

      That mode is hilarious.

      One time we did that on one particular level the humans waited a minute in the saferoom for some reason, and the zombie team outside got that fat man boomber thing on top of the roof outside the door. As soon as they walked out, the boomber jumped into the middle, got shot and then blew up blinding them and the jockey and long tounge thing took one each. The other two retreated back into the saferoom and basically got blockaded inside.

      If a side has excellent teamwork it can be impossible for one side or the other to win.

  3. chuckufarley Silver badge

    What about...

    ...Playing a bit of No Man's Sky? Multiplayer missions from the Nexus are great for team building. Especially if you want a team that consists of players eaten alive by the Monstrosities.

    1. Excellentsword (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: What about...

      I have it installed! Yet to give it a go, though. I remember how it was torn apart at launch so I'm a bit cautious of it.

      1. chuckufarley Silver badge

        Re: What about...

        Well, the best advice I can give you now is...

        ...DON'T PLAY IT! You have life to live! Articles to write! Songs to sing! Jokes to mangle! Dances to stumble through!

        If you decide to ignore that warning then be brave and prepare to "pull wife-agro " as you get sucked in. Even if some bits of the game are still thorny overall it has come a *very* long way. The player base is awesome as well. Nary a troll in sight.

        1. DavCrav
          Joke

          Re: What about...

          "prepare to "pull wife-agro " as you get sucked in"

          No worries for me. She's not a farmer.

  4. Boothy

    We are doing it retro

    We also get together on a Wednesday nights, but we are doing retro titles at the moment, so playing CTF in both Quake 2 and the original Unreal Tournament (not the remake on Epic store).

    Reminds me of when I used to go to LAN parties back in ~1999 to 2005, just without having to lug about a PC!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I tried using X-Com as a team-building tool

    Because X-Com showed the way by being unfair, brutal, and being used to your comrades snuffing it in obtuse ways.

    Sounds perfect for middle management!

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Team building - a sure sign your Human Remains dept has too much time on its hands - or just too many hands.

  7. Andy Non Silver badge
    Unhappy

    I'm starting to go off these games

    Not because I don't like them, but because some of them are just too damn good. Not only do they interfere with life and get me in trouble with the Mrs but I'm losing sensation in my left thumb from being too forceful with the PS4 controller from melee fighting enemies in Assassins Creed Origins and other similar games, I don't tend to notice the force going into the L3 joystick until I can't sleep at night as my left thumb is throbbing and aching with arthritis. After forty years coding on a keyboard with no noticeable effect, I never envisaged getting RSI from a few months on a PS4. Sigh.

    1. DavCrav

      Re: I'm starting to go off these games

      "I'm losing sensation in my left thumb from being too forceful with the PS4 controller from melee fighting enemies in Assassins Creed Origins and other similar games,"

      That at least is movement with a purpose. I frequently find myself craning my neck to look round a corner on a computer game. Which is so obviously stupid I have no words for it.

  8. Luiz Abdala
    Pint

    "This is going to hell in a hand basket real fast!" "Axe me a question!"

    Oh boy, do I have good memories of L4D2, and surprised by the fact there was no option to disable team kill, not even in "as if" scenarios.

    Tip #1: at least one person carry an auto-shotgun. You can dispatch a witch from the back of her head, aiming down, on the lower difficulties, with a single 8-shot burst. On the hardest, nope, you won't have time to stop around a witch.

    Tip #2: get dual pistols akimbo and get the "autohotkey" set of tools to enable an auto-clicker. You can turn 2 9mm pistols into a fully automatic SMG, with infinite bullets, but reloading every 10 seconds. It is more fun than the rest of the game, and saves the main gun ammo for more important things.

    Tip #3: If you are going for the hardest difficulty, forget the AI, bring 4 capable humans, and 4 semi-auto sniper rifles. Explanation: the sniper rifle bullet can cross multiple enemies, and can be hip-fired. The AI director will go into "why don't you die already" mode, and launches more zombies than you have bullets. Funnel them into narrow corridors, and let them line up for multi-shots.

    #4: Kneeling is crucial.

    #5: Molotovs are your best friend on hardest. Immolate your own team to get away from tight spots. No really.

    #6: Use Healing packs on hardest only when a person is seeing black-and-white (and they should communicate that). If you run into defibrilators, then you should use the healing pack early just to carry the defibrilator.

  9. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
    Pint

    old skool fun

    Xnetrek

  10. Blank Reg

    128vs128

    Too bad MAG isn't around anymore. You could play 8 to a squad, 4 squads to a platoon and 4 platoons to a company for up to 128 players per team. So you can have your team setup to mimic your company hierarchy and play one group against another. IT vs HR and the bean counters?

  11. Joe Gurman

    Arrrrgh, maties

    Nice to see that the pirate game communities are, er, gentlepersons of fortune.

    As the old song says,

    "Hey ho ho!

    It's one for all for one

    And we'll share and share alike with you

    And love you like a son

    We're gentlemen of fortune and that's what we're bound to be

    And when you're a professional pirate-

    "You'll be honest, brave, and free!

    The soul of decency!

    You'll be loyal and fair and on the square

    But most importantly,-

    "-when you're a professional pirate

    You are always in the best of company!"

  12. Roger B

    I've been playing HFF on and off as they keep adding free levels, but I am almost hate playing it, I find the character control soo annoying, possibly not helped by using a well worn Xbox controller, my character will not stand still if I put the controller down, he always wobbles off to one side.

    I was in the beta for Sea of Thieves and downloaded the full game as soon as it came out, unfortunately one of the first things I did was go and drink too much grog which created a far to real feeling of being drunk before passing out and now whenever I load the game up and walk out the front door I am overwhelmed with motion sickness and can only play for 30 minutes before needing to go and lie down. The water is nice though.

  13. MJI Silver badge

    Too many different ways to play.

    Got a mix at work of owners of gaming PCs Switches, PS4s, XBone.

    Need to find a game we all have and can cross play.

    Due to working on them all day, not a fan of PC gaming. Some people code all day game all night same machine. PS4 owners have different game likes, XBone player has to use other friends.

    So a little stuffed here.

  14. The Count Is Dead
    Pint

    If you say

    "Actualise the potentiality of your workforce" one more time I'm gonna fly over to London and break the pint your drinking over your head.

    1. Excellentsword (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: If you say

      That was the effect I was going for.

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