AjimboB said:
I suggest Quake Live, which you can play from your browser.
This is very true, but it feels awkward in schools since they usually watch your web traffic.
If you're like me and enjoy games of the far-gone age of pre-2000, here's a list of things I used to keep on my flashdrive for this sort of thing. Now I just have rogue-likes. Moria, Angband, and NetHack are the ones I actually play.
Anyway. All of these games are relatively small since I had a 2 gig flash drive and such. Some of the multiplayer ones were awesome though, because a few of my friends had a computer class at the same time, and we did like classroom vs classroom games where we would all clan-tag our room number, and do 5v5 CTF in unreal tournament during class. It was awesome.
These are the multiplayer ones I played with other people:
-Unreal Tournament '99
-Counter Strike 1.6
-Quake 3 Arena
-Crossfire
-Starcraft
-Age of Empires II
-Stronghold: Crusader
Most of my friends only played FPS and RTS with me, but those are the easiest to play during a class period because of the time required. Average match lasting 10-15 minutes in the FPS we played and RTS games being ~20-25.
When I was alone, I would play more RPG games and more developed-over-time turn-based strategy games:
First off, I highly recommend DOSBox for any older games.
-Heroes of Might and Magic
-Torchlight
-Stepmania (Makes a lot of noise, (on the keyboard, that is,) might not be a good choice.)
-Fallout (DOSBox)
-X-Com: UFO Defense (DOSBox)
-Master of Orion /// MoO 2
-Master of Magic (DOSBox)
-Descent II (DOSBox; I beat this game in Computer Science 1 after doing one level every couple days for like 2 months)
-Plants vs. Zombies
-Defense Grid: The Awakening
-Pretty much anything on abandonia, really.
If you're looking for free, web-based games, we have an entire section called Alt+Escape [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/alt-escape] that talks about them.
Anyway, there's probably more, but I can't think of them. Any older, smaller, simpler single-player RPGs intrigue me, and multi-player funfests usually require more action and less pacing.
Ansain said:
Tribes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starsiege_Tribes: Like a low-grade Halo with jet packs. Tribes is a single player or LAN game. You can play online; this requires a special patch and is blocked by your school's proxy. So don't download the patch.
This implies to me that playtribes.com is actually out and available and working. If this is the case, OH MY GOD WHY HAVE I NOT HEARD ABOUT THIS EARLIER AWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOME.
Thanks for reminding me that it exists.