Seeing their game face

Jolt Cola was the drink of choice for around 60 gamers who got together to blast, shoot and razz each other at the Budget Inn on Saturday. The 24-hour gaming party for SpokLAN, as players call Spokane Local Area Network, brought together men and women, ages 6 to 50, who packed along their personal computers and hooked up to a networked system to play video games. A central system provides instant access to games, and participants can choose to play Halo, a battlefield series, Unreal Tournament 2004 and other popular games. “No one here is afraid to admit that we’re geeks. I’ve been a geek my whole life,” said Tim Martin, a Spokane resident who organized the event. Similar groups have sprung up across the nation as online gamers find they have enough in common to spur a more personal connection. SpokLAN members are spread throughout the Northwest, Martin said, adding that in the two years they’ve hosted monthly parties, 400 different players have attended. Between events, members chat online, play games on the Internet and trade and give away old computer parts. Meeting in person gives gamers a chance to look at the faces behind the fantasy characters that have dogged them onscreen. David Brady, a tall, spiky-haired junior from Shadle Park High School, doesn’t own a computer, but comes to the parties with friends. “It’s not just a place where geeks come together and do geeky things, but it’s a place where geeks can come and socialize.” Outbursts are part of the fun and during one intense battle, a teenage girl jokingly shouted “I hate you!” at one of her opponents. People traditionally considered introverts squeezed an amazing amount of real interaction between fantasy fights that were simultaneously enacted on multiple computer screens. Spokane Valley’s Darryl Overby, 38, said it’s nice to socialize and exchange files with a wide range of players. “I think the generation gap is broken.” While hard-core computer gamers stayed mainly on one side of the room, younger players, who used computers but prefer X-Box and Play Station games, sat on the other side. Many of the PC towers are modified. Spokane’s Geoff Greer, AKA Gooberguy, hand-built a computer tower that houses all the components for his hard drive. The Army-green casing resembles a munitions box that’s used to detonate explosives. On break from a small college in New York state, Greer, 19, enjoys seeing the people that he normally plays online. “You can associate a face with a person,” he said. As the day progressed, people and computers packed the room, and portable fans were plugged in to take the heat off of the competition. Between rounds, participants broke for snacks and chatted about the games’ most intense moments. “I can guarantee you won’t find anyone here who doesn’t have a friendly face on,” Brady said. As one of a half-dozen female players, Chelsea Wehrli, a junior from Lewis and Clark High School, said it’s fun to beat the boys but that’s not the main draw for playing. “This is the only time I get to see my friends in one big group.” Morgan Watson, a tall 17-year-old with long black hair and pierced ears, drove from Colfax with a friend to attend the party, saying that playing in person is a totally different game. “All the people here are really cool and they have the same interests as me,” Watson said. “It’s a place where you really feel accepted.”