Getting classic games online can be a pain in the arse – and that’s massively under stating it. Games ranging from the Age of Empires all the way through to hundreds of EA sports games have all had their internet servers taken down over time – leaving you with a shell of the game you brought before. However in this article we’re going to look at several options you have to ensure your game can jump straight back to life and send you on the path of killing your best friends – and what’s more you’ll be able to do it in game as well!

Hamachi

The first program we will look at is Hamachi. Hamachi was once the be-all-and-end-all of networking programs that enabled you to play LAN games over the internet. The software creates a VPN tunnel between two machines and masks it so that the tunnel acts as if it was a normal network adapter with a very long wire to whoever you want to play with.

When it comes to price Hamachi has two choices – the first is free which gives you everything you would need for gaming, and then there is a premium functionality with offers more security and networking tools, it’s nothing that would impact gaming but rather more suited to corporate customers.

Setup is relatively easy with the application install being that of a standard program – just click next a couple of times then agree to some legal mumbo-jumbo. Once installed you will have to join a network. Networks are groups of people which get joined onto the same virtual LAN. With the free edition you can add up to 255 people – plenty enough for any game.   Joining a network will require a network name and password – so if a friend has already setup a network you can quickly jump onto theirs. If it’s the first time you and the people you want to play with have used Hamachi then you will need to create a new network – just type in a network name and password and keep these in a secure place as they will be required for anyone to join your network.

Once you’re in someone’s network; or indeed you’ve created your own then you’re set to start gaming. This is Hamachi’s weak point. With games of 1 or 2 people all connected from different locations it’s normally easy enough to setup – although with a lot of games you will have to direct connect via an IP rather than seeing the game within the LAN lobby. Once you’ve actually managed to get into a game then Hamachi is quite stable and will play with just a tiny bit more lag than what you would experience as if you were playing online.

Hamachi has problems however and most of these started around the time LogMeIn brought the company. Hamachi is now much more focused on corporate VPN environments and as such it tries to push the premium features a lot more heavily. Also if you have wireless you may found if your net drops at all Hamachi will become to default adapter and you may have to disable it to get your internet working fully again – so at least a small level of technical knowledge is required to use Hamachi well. When Hamachi does work it tends to work great – but too many games have plenty of issues with it and as such it should no longer be gamer’s first point of call for a VPN. 

GameRanger

Rising from the ashes of Hamachi’s demise, Gameranger has quickly become the go to source for gamers wanting to network games quickly. Unlike Hamachi, ranger has been built with gaming in mind and as such it is much easier to use. Installation is simple enough, working very much like the Hamachi install the program creates a virtual adapter and tunnels the data through the internet and then hoaxes the remote computers into being a LAN user.

On first launch of the program you will need to add some friends to play with, or else you can join premade lobbies where you can find strangers to play a game with. The lobbies tend to be quite empty for most games – however titles like Age of Empires still have a very strong player base. Once you’ve all joined a lobby within Gameranger and the host clicks Launch, game ranger will automatically launch the game in question and then connect to the right LAN lobby – all seamless and instant.

Gameranger works perfect for several people across different internet connections with very little lag and resource usage due to its very simple program front end. The real issues for gameranger seem to start to pop up when you have 2 people or more in the same location and then some remotely. Several games wouldn’t show the lobby to the remote player or else only one of the local LAN users.

Ports generally needed forwarding to get gives such as Rise of Legends to work well – which becomes an issue with more than one person playing the game on the same network. Gameranger comes in two editions, the free version which contains basic functionality of joining games, text chat and a few settings – and then it has the paid up version which gives voice chat, the ability to have more friends and then various game ladder options.

Out of all the programs Gameranger comes closest to being a replacement for internet servers in game – it’s just a shame it has real problems on setting up some games with more than 2 people – which leads us on to our final program.

Tunngle 

Tunngle is by far the ugliest of the three programs – with a design that mirrors the style you would expect from the likes of gamespy. It may also the easiest to understand for people jumping straight from an online game mode to using VPNs. The program is the newest of the batch here – and like gameranger it has been designed for gaming only rather than corporate customers like Hamachi.

Currently in open beta the download and installation of the application is easy enough – much like a standard program. It does however take the longest to install. Once installed you launch and then create an account via the Tunngle website. Once you have an account you just login and then are presented with a list of game genres and contained within each genre is a wide selection of game lobbies. Once you join a lobby you will connect with everyone else in that lobby enabling you to play via LAN with them. You and your friend should be in the same lobby and once you are you just launch the game and load a LAN game as if you were in the same house.

Tunngle really does not have that many negative points and it’s by far the best here for gaming. The software currently only has one edition which is free – however in the future there will be a paid version for around £3 a month. The paid version will be more about adding features than taking away from the free version.

The program itself contains space for banner advertising – although at the moment these are only used to advertise community projects and mods it seems likely they will over time be used to monetize the software. Tunngle could do with being prettier – but when it comes to actual gaming issues we’ve yet to uncover one with one of the supported games.

What Have We Forgot?

So there we go – a selection of three software applications, ranging from the well-known Hamachi all the way down to the lesser known Tunngle. Have I forgotten something? Do you know another application which deserves to be on this list? If so feel free to comment below! Thank you for reading.