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I was playing Team Fortress 2 on the Xbox 360 (boooooo, I know, I know -- but in my defense, the video card for my PC had just fried from playing too much TF2). My team was, as usual, appreciably terrible (myself included). See, most multiplayer matches are made up of two teams: one elite, experienced, uniquely themed fighting force ... and a bunch of random schmoes still trying to figure out which button jumps. You know that feeling when the lobby loads and the opposing team is:

Charles Bronson

Bronson Charles

Charles, Bronn's Son

Bronn, Charles' Son

Good Grief, Charley Bron

And your team is:

gamesRfun!!1!

Dicknob4

tehBONGinator

YugiohAlex2003

John12345678

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You're fucking doomed, and the game hasn't even started! They're so organized that their team has a cutesy theme, and you've got a stoner, somebody's dad, a 10-year-old kid, and a Dicknob. But what can you do about it? You have to try ...

And trying we were. But as expected, we were getting butchered. Their armed sentries were tearing us up, and we were all so terrible that nobody wanted to play as the spy -- the one class that excels at taking out sentries. I'm bad at all games, in general, but I'm particularly awful at shooters, and even worse at shooters that involve a lot of complicated gadgets and subterfuge. But there was nothing to be done for it: I could try to do my best as the class we needed, or we could just sit there and die with our thumbs up each other's asses in a giant conga line of incompetence.

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I chose to spawn as the spy, sneaked up behind enemy lines, and dramatically, ominously ... loitered. I lacked murder-confidence. Suddenly the entire enemy team came charging past me. I knew they didn't see me, because I wasn't on fire, but I also knew I couldn't do shit about it unless I wanted to be on fire. Then I saw it -- the spy Holy Grail. The line. Just as I got within stabbing range, the whole team went single file to get through a doorway, and I butchered every single one of them, sequentially. Even better, it was right as they were coming through the last doorway to attack our capture point. So my teammates guarding the point saw a line of soldiers, heavies, pyros, demo men, and two medics -- fully powered up and ready to unleash hell -- coming straight for them, and justifiably lost all hope. Then name after impossible name starts popping up, all dead. Just a mishmash of different tones of screaming and spurts of blood, and then I jog out from behind the doorway, alone.