I’ve been told I was god’s gift to gaming at a lan party before. These people were, obviously, horribly ignorant of my online exploits at the time.

I was actually always fairly bad at video games in my youth. It all changed when I went to high school and my friends and I started hosting “Halo Parties.” It was a strange thing as my pals and I were often poked fun at in middle school and elementary school for loving video games and card games but in high school we developed a reputation for having these epic gaming marathons that everyone wanted in on.

With this new infusion of multiplayer gaming in my life I also leveled up in testosterone fueled manliness, and with a newly grown beard I gained a newfound mastery of first person shooters, particularly Halo 1. I was a ballet dancer of death. The Jackson Pollock of the pistol. It was truly an art form in itself. I even won a local tournament.

Then it happened. Xbox live. The deep, unfathomable series of tubes brought the multiplayer madness (and fresh new games) to my home television… and subsequently killed the Halo Party. It ushered in a new era; one of my victories being fewer and fewer and the number of crotches on my digital face skyrocketing. With more time spent on schoolwork and less online, my trend of deaths only increased.

If anything redeemed me it was the re-release of Halo 1 for the 360. I was a god among men once again and after cutting a path of death and destruction for a few days, I left my life of destruction and decided to focus on the more peaceful arts.

-Sean