The Greatest Victory of All Time
I have never quit an online match in Halo 2 and today I was
rewarded for my zealousness in finishing what I start with the greatest Halo 2 victory of ALL time.
I have been trying to level up in team slayer matches in
Halo 2. For those of you who are wondering, it is a 4 on 4 deathmatch game. I had found it fairly difficult to level up to this point for two reasons. First, I do not have anyone to team up with so I am constantly going in solo and second, the people I get teamed up with will frequently leave in the middle of the match or worse, turn against the team. Leaving an online team game is the elevator fart of online games, rude, obnoxious and makes everyone want to get off before the ride is over.
For some reason I find myself unable to leave a game where I
am outnumbered outgunned and usually too far down on the scoreboard to preserve some dignity. Yet I somehow feel honor bound to go down with a sinking ship. It makes no sense except in that I feel that there is always a chance to somehow pull it off, comeback from behind, beat the odds and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. And this is exactly what I did in the greatest team slayer game of all time. A game that ranks up with the miracle on ice hockey game where and amateur U.S. team beat a professional Russian team. Behold my small miracle as I regale you with its details.
With no friends online at the time I joined a team slayer game through optimatch. The map is ‘ivory tower’ with the standard weapon set. The match starts and two teammates quit at the offset of the game. I found myself facing 4 adversaries with a lone sidekick.
I began to think of strategies that might allow us to win
despite the odds. My first thought is to find my teammate and to stick
together. I run toward my sidekick’s icon and as I am approaching him it suddenly disappears. I instantly know what this means; I am now outnumbered 4 to1 and fighting a hopeless battle. The best I can do is hide and hope that my opponents use some kind of lubricant.
The score is 2 to1 in my favor; I hide in one of the stairways and wait. All I have to do is match them kill for kill to keep the game close. Winning doesn’t really occur to me, but how can I manage this when
I am outgunned four to one?
Flashback to a game I had played just the day before where
the situation was reversed and realize that my team absolutely slaughtered a single player that refused to quit. The guy couldn’t spawn without having two guns and a sword on his ass. I guess that this is payback. I seriously consider quitting. There is no possible way to beat these odds, I just don’t have enough fire power and these guys aren’t noobs. They have decent ranks of 11, 11, 13 and 15.
They approach my position and I ambush one of them with a shotgun blast to the back of the head. His teammates open fire on me and I only manage to get a few ineffective shots off before I die. After I spawn I grab a second weapon and charge toward the nearest red dot. I kill him but trade too much fire to last against his teammate.
I spawn again and run to the sniper rifle. As I pick it up I look below and see a red Spartan aiming a rocket at me, I have just taken the
bait of trap. Without hesitation I zoom in and take aim at the head while I see the glow of a rocket rapidly getting larger in my scope. I pull the trigger just before the explosion and breathe a sigh of relief as I am awarded a sniper medal.
I somehow manage to continue this trend until the score is
15-14 in my favor with 4 minutes left to play. If I can hang on a little longer I might steal away the greatest win of all time. I see two foes coming toward me and I take aim at one of them when I hear the squeal of a rocket. I blow up and find myself tied. I spawn to an angry player wielding an energy sword and find my self down by one point. It was a good run and I put up a good fight. They seem to have gotten their act together and assault me strategically. But they are getting cocky now. I find one of them standing around and assassinate him.
One of them quits and leaves me facing only 3 opponents. The best I can do for the next minute is trade kills but that only lets me save face in certain defeat and now I find myself losing by 2, 19 to 16, with a minute to go. I pick up a plasma rifle to dual wield with my SMG and see an opponent running toward me with the energy sword and behind me are his 2 remaining teammates.
I can tell that he is full of confidence as he is clearly out of position to make the kill but continues to run toward me. There are fifty seconds left as I open up on the cocky sword wielder. As he dashes forward for the kill he falls dead and the now ownerless sword flies toward me. I grab it in mid air and quickly turn and lunge it into the next approaching enemy. Thirty seconds left, my shields are low and another Spartan is just steps away. I lock on to him with the sword while taking fire hoping that my shields last for one more second and I beat him down. 25 seconds left and I have just tied the game.
Suddenly one of them appears and he is carrying a sword! Where did he get it?! The glitch doesn’t matter now, all that matters is that I have to kill him or lose this game. I lock on and lunge toward him with my
sword but I miss! He now has clear shot my back and I try my best to turn around and face him. As I do, I see him dashing at me. I push the thumbstick hard right and he misses! I will not waste another opportunity; I turn around and slice him dead. Unbelievably, I am winning 20 to 19 with 15 seconds left!
The other two are charging toward me, one of them with a rocket launcher. I will not let them tie the game and deny me my victory. I
lunge toward the closest one and get the kill before a rocket ends my spree. I spawn in a far location to hear the 10 second warning and I count it down to zero. I have just achieved the greatest Halo 2 victory ever beating 4 enemies by myself.
Brilliant strategy and skill with a hint of luck made it possible but more than anything was that I had a glimmer of hope that keeps me
in each and every game no matter what the circumstance. My win will never be repeated but if you don’t quit your games, maybe you too can achieve a similar victory. If you have achieved a victory like mine (I doubt it), email me the game link and some details. I would love to hear about it.
Check out the corrupted stats of the game at:
http://bungie.net/Stats/GameStats.aspx?gameID=214691023&player=BigDamage
