Have you ever had an epic duel with a nemesis in an online game? Have you ever been totally focused on beating one person, who you've never met? Have you ever read Bow, Nigger and thought "I remember a game like that"?

One of the best games of Halo I've ever played was one I had no chance of winning.

It began in the normal way, the Halo 3 online matching system throwing together a few players of disparate skill levels for a game of Slayer on The Pit. As soon as the game began, though, four players dropped out with network problems. That left me and one other guy. (It could have been a girl - we didn't speak - but I'm going to go with statistical probability.) Let's call him The Enemy.

The Enemy was good. Really good. He had an unnerving ability to appear briefly in the distance, disappear and pop up behind me. He could pull off headshots with the sniper rifle from any range on the run. He seemed to be able to spot the blur of active camouflage from across the map. I started to think of him as Darth Vader.

For the first five minutes I didn't get a kill. I would scurry down a corridor, up a ramp, scanning left and right while strafing from cover to cover, only to glimpse The Enemy falling on me from above, guns blazing, not a single bullet going astray. Or I'd step out into the open, hear a single BOOM and fall down, a fresh hole through my virtual brainpan. Once or twice I managed to stage an ambush, thinking I had him this time for sure when I had unloaded half a clip into The Enemy's chest from close range and he hadn't managed to shoot back yet - only to see a brief glimpse of shotgun barrel and hear that familiar single BRUNTCH that meant another round of waiting to respawn. Pwned, n00b.

I couldn't win. It wasn't a possibility. And I realised I didn't need to win: I needed to die trying.

My first kill was lucky. I got the drop on him with the needler; he was holding the sniper rifle at much too close a range. His first shot went wide, his second hit me somewhere non-vital and his third never came. Boom. Fear the pink mist.

I died. I died. I died. I got lucky with a grenade. I died. I died.

My third kill was overkill. After minutes of guerilla warfare - skulking, hiding, striking from cover - I changed up, going from Vietcong to US Forces. The Enemy saw me coming on the radar, but he expected me to dodge around with an assault rifle; he didn't expect me to jump down right in front of him with a heavy machine gun turret. Without the element of surprise I'd still be dead - the gun emplacement makes you too slow to avoid a skilled opponent - but before The Enemy could regroup he was riddled with holes.

After that, he got more cautious and I got more dead. I died and I died and I died. Boom, boom, boom, headshots. The Enemy's sniper rifle seemed to see through walls.

After a few short-lived rounds, I stopped, hid and devised a simple plan. First stop, the sword; second stop, the active camouflage; third stop, The Enemy's latest sniping nest. Knock knock, it's a lightblade enema.

By the end of the game I was almost matching the ruthless bastard kill for kill. I was afraid to show my face in the open, but that fear made me faster, made me more cunning, made me willing to use any tactic that might work.

I killed The Enemy twice in a row with the rocket launcher. Usually I'd feel vaguely guilty, because it's the rocket launcher. This game, I felt exultant. It's not cheap if it evens the playing field, right?

Finally the score sat at 9 to 24. The Enemy needed another kill to win. I needed another kill to make it to double digits. We all needed Bon Jovi lyrics to really capture the mood: I was living on a prayer, going down in a blaze of glory, wanted dead or... well, dead.

The ending was right out of a John Woo film. I was on a high ledge, holding the needler; I saw The Enemy on a slightly lower ledge, with an SMG in each fist, already spewing bullets in my direction. We leapt at each other across the gulf, three guns blazing, my shields melting away like butter in a bushfire, and collided in mid-air, each still firing point-blank into the other's midriff...

And I died. For the 25th time. My body fell flailing three or four metres to the floor. The Enemy landed lightly beside my corpse... and exploded.

I actually yelled aloud: "Yes! Suck my revenge, you evil bastard!" I was going combat-crazy. The round was over and I needed a breather. I went to the kitchen, put the kettle on, got out a cup and a tea bag and returned to the living room. When I got back, there was a message waiting on my Xbox Live dashboard from The Enemy:

"gg man"

At least you didn't get tea-bagged in the game.

Some weird sh1t happens in Halo 3. There are times when I got the drop on "the enemy" and there is no way they could have killed me... yet they somehow did. The only thing boiling is my blood on those occasions.

Yeah, lag can suck. I take it with a grain of salt.

quakeworld 1v1........ better than all online games : )

rofl that was the BEST thing I've read in a very long time. Thank you.

^_^

Awesome. THAT is what multiplayer is all about.

That was an awesome story.

I did something like that, but it was in SSBB, before I decided not to play it anymore because it was boring. And it was against my friend, who is superior to all in Smash Bros games. And I lost.

I lose a lot in games like that.

The only game like that I didn't phail at was COD1. Ooh! I had a super-awesome sniper battle in that! Except I was the superior sniper in the fight. It was in the map with the two facing gigantic destroyed buildings as the center-piece. My team was mostly about going into the enemy base, and the other team was mostly all snipers. I decided to try my hand at sniping. Being one person made moving unseen throughout my building easy, and after I had figured out the layout (mostly), I was able to pick of most of the other snipers and quickly move to another position and take out another, so while everyone was constantly trying to find where I was, their comrades were dying. After a few minutes, my team was finally able to survive and get into their building, and sniping changed from picking off everyone to watching everyone get slaughtered from behind by my teammates with automatic weapons. It was fun.

... You're very descriptive, you know that. Nice attention to detail.

As for me, I've never had anything that epic, but there was this one time in Halo PC where I was versing this guy. We both had pistols, and we were my base. No one helped me, so it was this guy (who was playing quite well) and me, duking it out. We dodged, we smacked each other, and it was a straight out brawl (well, as much as a brawl in Halo PC). Eventually, I lost to the guy, and since it was close to my base, as soon as I spawned, I got over to the guy and killed him. Too late though, since he had won the first time; me spawning had replenished my health and ammo, while he was still recovering from the last abttle. No hard feelings between us though; we ended up saying 'good game' to each other afterwards.

Nope, but I did once play 100 games of Connect 4 in the garden. Not only did I lose 54-46 but I sunburned my back so bad I was having spasms.

Also that was a beautifully written description of an online match. Bravo!

you sir are good at sounded epic when really you had gotten well... nine kills.

i have played a few games as THE ENEMY and quite often i felt so intriqued that this person that i kept slaughtering came back punch for punch.

i grew great respect for him.

and then i sent him a friend request and built the most epic map ever to hit halo 3.

sadly his subsription expired.

sounds like something from an 80's film but its true.

i will always remember you PapaSmurf2169

Good write-up, bit of a slow start but picks up pace very well.

I got one from UT3. Team Death Match with ten people. Eight of which didn't matter. Me and one other guy, on opposite teams, far ahead of the rest of the scores racing across the map, fragging left and right to top one another. He was the host, and put the game on a 15 minute timer with no max kill score. Some of the most intense fifteen minutes of my life that was. It was in the middle of summer, I had wanted to go outside and sit in the sun with a book, but I thought, ah, just one game. Fifteen minute later I was sitting wide-eyed, half a meter from my screen with sweat streaming down my face and my heart pouding in my throat. I had won the duel by a two frag margin. But lost the match because the rest of my team scored a total of ten frags less...

In one game of CoD4 a guy dropped into a random server who played the game at world league level. He was in the enemy team. Me and one other guy on my team ended up with 26 kills. The enemy team won, their leader had 89 kills. But man did I savour those two times I managed to gun him down (one with an airstrike, but still, BOOM! YEAH!).

I was playing Search And Destroy on COD4 and this golden cross bet us that if we all killed ourselves and watched him he would proceed to kill the whole other team with just his Desert Eagle. For some reason we all agreed (I think it was one of the rare occasions where everyone in the game was intelligent, good natured and fun to talk with, so we all fragged ourselves!)

And he only bloody did it! It was chuffing amazing! Everyone on the other team without exception declared him the enemy, but with the support of his useless teammates they didn't stand a chance. Legend.

Yo man, nicely written. Makes me feel like playing some Halo right now.

Yeah, I've never had an epic battle or an "enemy" like that. The closest I've ever come was when my brother and I were ditched by two assholes who didn't want to play Shotty Snipers on Valhala and ended up leaving us outnumbered. Forunately it was snipers, so they had less to shoot at. You could say we had an advantage, and we did win in the end.

But hey, good attitude. If you lose your connection, fine, but players who puss out of games cause it's not what they want or they're at a disadvantage are always the easiest kills. At least you got stuck with someone who, even though more skilled than you, recognized that you were gonna put up a fight and go down shooting. Would've sucked if you had gotten stuck with some tea-bagging asshole.

I know these experiences too.

It is, pretty much called challenge. And while it is really fun to be the king of a match, it's much more satisfying to make a good cut against nearly impossible odds because it is, after all, a higher archievement (for the moment).
Of course, that won't apply if challenge is created by people using cheap tactics, thats just frustrating.

I myself fondly remember a GOW Match in which i defeated an entire team by myself by using evasion tactics and sneaking up on unsuspecting campers. The then-defeated team proceeded to kick my ass after that, but it's the one moment of glory that counts.

Something like that happened when me and my Dad were playing Battlefront 2. We love Battlefront, heart and soul. I've had some real fun with that game. We often played the Assault game mode, which involved all the Heroes (Luke Skywalker and company) fighting all the Villians (Vader and the guys). You can only play it on Mos Eisely, which happens to be one of our favourite levels.

The game normally descends into some territory war; we'd pick a spot like the roof of the hangar and fight over it. He was frustrating the hell out of me by force-pushing me off the roof whenever I tried to get up there. I kept trying, and he'd keep pushing me off.

Eventually, I made an attempt at jumping. As I soared over the wall, he tried to push me again, but missed. Fatal flaw. I landed, and pushed him back. Vwoom, he goes flying into the ground. Vwoom, he hits the opposite wall. Vwoom, vwoom, vwoom, I pushed him a couple more times into the wall before dicing him with a lightsaber.

It took us both a few minutes to stop laughing.

That kind of stuff happened way more in Gears than Halo for me, but this is a really nice story. Told well.

I love having sniper duels with people, because it really tests your skill, and it's also extremely tense.

However, I try to avoid actual duels in objective games, or when there's a good chance of people killing you in close combat.

I remember when I first played Halo, It was a friend of mine who to this day is one of my greatest foes, We went over to his house and fired up the X-Box for a few rounds of slayer (This was before Halo 3 came out) and he roasted me, 25-1 and that was a mercy kill, But I kept on playing, and I'll never forget the first time I beat him, It was Glorious!!

Never had this happen really. The only games I've played extensively online against other people are EVE Online and Age of Empires III. In both games, 1v1 fights are relatively rare.

I had a fairly similar experience, although the players I was against were far less sportsmanlike than your "enemy". It was in Rainbow Six Vegas - a game that usually has a fairly good community - and in this particular match I had been drawn against a group of players from the same clan - and naturally they were all on the same team whilst me and a couple of other random participants made up the opposition.

In that game, we got absolutely battered by the other team... I think the score must have been something like forty kills for them and a matter of around eight for us. But it wasn't through skill or teamwork that they won (as most clans do), but rather it was a case of them just spawncamping.

Naturally, I wasn't going to let myself get humiliated by these people, and after sufficient trash talking in the pregame lobby, I bought in a couple of my school friends. And in the next game, things were slightly different.

This time, before they could position themselves for spawncamping, we tactically surrounded and killed them. We got a lead of about three kills. Then five. Then ten.

We continued using our determination to beat these people and probably beat them by about fifteen kills. Second game was a repeat of the first but by the third game they were back to spawnkilling and we were overpowered. It was nice though, being able to beat them just those couple of times - showing what real teamwork can do.

in medal of honor: HEROS 2 (wii)
i was online in a 16vs16 capture the flag game...
it was going mad because the game had gone on for hours and each team was getting pissed off and while all that was happening me and a enemy i was rivaled with were having private sniper fights, he got to a good place and killed my in my good place then i found a good place to take out his good places and so on... 1 shot kill then move somewhere else lol

in Star Wars: Battlefront 2 i was playing a heroes game and i was boba fett and another guy was Han Solo, so we jus kept having duels and it was pretty epic becasue we'd do this for a wehile, and we'd always get interuppted by jedi

I can't remember any specific fights, because it was a long time ago I played, but Rakion. That game is awesome. I was almost always worse at the game than my enemies, I'm not that good at it, my computer lags a bit, and it's a bit too fast-paced for me. I don't really do that buttonmashing and reflex thing well. I prefer it when there's more tactics involved and you can win even if you don't use cheap moves and have sensitivity on highest, turning around several times a second.

Anyway, the fights in that game, when against an opponent of similar skill is awesome. Pieces of armour flying everywhere, the brutal animations, just gripping someone by the neck and then smacking them with a hammer. It feels a lot like what is described in the link. You are really circling around each other, one move and you're dead. Especially as a mage, or blacksmith which are the slowest classes, and the ones I played the most. The one time I remember, and got reminded of by the link in the first post was when I was in a death match, just me and one other guy. I outmatched this guy, something that doesn't happen a lot. He complained a bit about it, and I took him in as my apprentice. Drilling him, telling him when to strike and when to wait. And commenting while we fought all the time. I circled him, and dodged every attack he made, easily.

Well, after that we fetched another person and went on a quest, I complained a lot about the newcomer, he was really slow, so he challenged me to a duel, my apprentice joined to watch. I had the worst situation every, I was a mage against an archer (to those who don't know, they're both ranged, and the archer is much faster. A good archer can shoot the mage so often the mage can't fire a thing, and runs faster. Even if the mage is to dodge one arrow and instantly try to throw a fireball the next arrow hits). Of course, I got my ass handed to me, over and over. Ashamed as I was to be so beaten in front of my apprentice, I asked permission to switch characters. Then it became a fight. I think I still lost, but this time it was close, and we were almost evenly matched (despite him being 20 levels aboce me :P I'm lucky that doesn't matter too much in that game). Then of course, before I could train my apprentice further they made some "updates" to the game that made it unplayable. Literally. It won't start on my computer. Or any of my friends. Or for that matter anyone I've talked to about it in Sweden.

ChristianxKrupps:

i will always remember you PapaSmurf2169

I've played against that dude! He was one hard b@stard. Like you I grew to respect his skill. Quite often we'd spot each other across the chaos of the battlefield and charge, assault rifles spewing a heavy volume of lead, grenades sounding off behind us, plasma hissing past our ears, until one of us was felled. There was no b1tching or animousity, just pure competitive spirit.

A couple of times I had him on my team. He proved as good an ally as he was an adversary.

Wonderful story. Reminds me of some Counter-Strike Source matches I played in. Ha, you never forget the ones where you almost single-handily beat an enemy team. Or on PuBs when you miraculously go 8v1 and win the round... (I know 8v1 sounds ridiculous, and I did use a lot of distractions and skill, but I still think I was just lucky and that they must have been newB's)

In any case, the best part about these type of situations, is just how much fun they can be. The adrenaline rush is amazing... Then you tell your team "Hey guys... my arms are numb from the adrenaline rush, you're going to have to play without me this round >.<"

I was going to post this in my other post, but forgot it.

Another thing the description in the first link really reminded me off was fighting IRL (not brawling or streetfighting or anything like that). The way it was described was so much like that, seizing up ones opponent, checking out their weaponry and going over probable scenarios in ones head. I've yet to come across that feeling, for real in a game. Some games have some of it, but when you have the real deal to compare it to, it doesn't even come close.

I remember one such fight I had, at a LARP (and before you come with all your prejudice and stuff, this was a real LARP, not one of those American or German atrocoties you can find on youtube). I was a little overly cocky against the captain of the guard in a village, when they were drilling, and he threatened me, he said "maybe we should use YOU as target practice". Of course I agreed, thinking he would get in trouble if actually tried something, but he drew his sword. Starting to panic a bit I draw mine as well, this guy is bigger than me, older than, wears a chainmail and looks pretty experienced. He turns around and begins to walk away, and I he came to his senses, not wanting to start a fight, but instead he walks and picks up a shield. He now has an additional advantage over me. He is on level ground as well, while I'm standing on a rock surrounded by a trench. I draw my dagger in my offhand just to have something to counter the shield with, and he comments about it, then starts advancing. Realising that I can't hold my ground because of the bad balance I have there, I jump forward as fast as I can against him, thinking to get behind him and down on ground, and slash against his legs. He didn't have time to react, not with the shield to block or even to strike against me despite my vulnerable, extended position, so I jumped back again as fast as I could. "You're a fast one, I'll give you that." And now he looks even more prepared, albeit limping a bit, he takes on a lower stance, and faces my new position. In my head I try to find some way out of it, I can't kill him, then I'd get killed, most likely, or thrown in jail. He's captain of the guard after all. And I can't talk him out of it, he looks quite into it now. Just as he's about to strike, a higher ranking officer shouts at us, breaking up the fight. As he gives the captain a lecture, loudly, about his behaviour I sheate my weapons and slink away, with a sigh of relief and a short salute. That was a close one.

The fact that I was there to stake out the mayors housing for an assasination attempt made it even scarier. What if they caught me and found out who I was?

I am so confused by that LARP thing. :D It sounds like a cross between a How To Host A Murder party and lunchtime at primary school.

I think the key to a good duel is the power dynamic. You'd think it's best to be evenly matched with someone, but I find that if I'm on par with another player I kinda blank them out. I focus on players who are better than I am, without having an infuriating playing style, and obsess over counter-attacking them.

Fraser.J.A:
I am so confused by that LARP thing. :D It sounds like a cross between a How To Host A Murder party and lunchtime at primary school.

I think the key to a good duel is the power dynamic. You'd think it's best to be evenly matched with someone, but I find that if I'm on par with another player I kinda blank them out. I focus on players who are better than I am, without having an infuriating playing style, and obsess over counter-attacking them.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.62567

I somewhat agree with you about the other part, fighting people who are better than you (except if they are the annoying pricks populating most online games) is much more interesting. To need to press every advantage you can find to even have a chance. If you're on par with someone I often feel like it doesn't really matter, I'll keep up anyway. If I'm better than someone it's just boring. I don't even have to concentrate.

But if you are evenly balanced with someone and both person still feel strongly about winning I think that's even better, especially if both people are good. I usually play against a friend of mine, and while most of the time, in FPS-games he hands me my ass on a silver platter sevaral times before I even see him, when we find a game where we are evenly matched it really becomes interesting (unless I start winning too much in which case he complains and quits). He wants to keep his lead, and I really want a chance to finally beat him, so we desperatly use every little trick we can find, and do all we can to finally beat the other one. Since we're evenly matched this can go on forever, at least in games like Rakion where you can dodge and block your opponent. We hardly even hit each other, and we know that a failed attack will result in the other one winning so it all comes down to timing, and we usually just circle each other looking for that single mistake until some jerk comes around and breaks it up. Fortunately we're often good enough to be able to kill that person without interfering with our own fight, in most games, and can then continue. It's really fun.

Epic, dude!

EDIT: Something near this happened to me in real life. The playing field was a little more level though, and we weren't using plasma rifles, but paintball guns.

We were in an urban setting. Two sniper towers, plenty of small buildings for cover. First round, I sniped, I did alright. Two or three guys ate my balls...wait, I mean, I smacked them with my....you know what, forget it. I got two guys out. The second round, I went out. I was in there with a couple of friends, and although we tried to remain non-competitive, it got a little tense at times. Let me clarify: In this urban setting, we started off playing Full Elimination, i.e. get everyone on the other team out to win. First round, I was in the aforementioned sniper tower. Round 2, I scouted the field. I had a friend cover my six. I heard some shooting and we ducked in a small house. I peeked out and saw the sniper got us sighted. The guy who was with me jumped outside and rolled. And was hit with two paintballs. Out. I was alone. There were only two other members of my team, the sniper and another scout. Scout runs up. Scout ducks and weaves through the buildings, only to leave his foot uncovered for two seconds. Scout gets hit. Field is left with a sniper and me. I start running and see that the two buildings to my Northwest and Northeast and guarded. I'm out in the open, meters away from another house. I lunge towards a 'broken down car' put in place for cover. I hear the plinks of paintballs narrowly missing my face. Then I realize something. Our sniper tower's being raided. I yell to our guy, and he manages to get off a round, but two enemies are there. He died (not literally, just play along) fighting, and he got someone out for me. Me vs. Four of them. I jump towards cover and get one of them out. Me vs. Three of them. The sniper shoots in vain at the house I'm guarded in. A botched attempt to raid the house I was in makes it Me vs. Two snipers. I run as fast as I can towards the last building, and run up the stairs. I jump into the room and he's hit. One on One. I try to regain my standing, and I feel blunt objects strike my shoulder and gun. They're splattered with blue paint. The sniper on the other side of the field got me. I'm usually not great at paintball, but I think I did alright. The teams meet up, congratulations go around, and I'm singled out. I know I did a good job, almost good enough. It may not have been a situation like yours, but David got damn well close to killing Goliath.