In the Halls of Valhalla

 By: Jimmy Hackett

Have you ever felt the psycho-sphere? Have you ever been transported to superverse, where all future lines converge on one location? Where you could reach out and feel the guiding hand of fate.

This is how I felt in the most important Halo 4 match of my life. Big Team Battle. Capture the Flag. On the best map in the game, Ragnarök. A remake of a favorite Halo 3 map, Valhalla.

My friends and I played a clinically concerning amount of Halo in college. Our preference. Big Team Battle. Nothing could compete with the energy, the grandeur of 16 people connected over cyberspace.

But what made Halo special wasn’t so much the online play, but the way it connected with local play. Four friends (in my case, best friends) could play online together, locally on one Xbox. It was the perfect way to open up a weekend or cap off a long day. No matter what time it was, there was always enough time for one more match.

But I don’t want to give the humble reader the impression that this was all fun and games. Getting four players on one Xbox always had its challenges. The song and dance of getting 4 WORKING controllers connected to the device, the truffle hunt for batteries which eventually led to the AA triage, deciding which battery-operated device could be sacrificed for the duration of the Halo session. This is to say nothing of time spent on dreaded updates.

Caffeine presented its own challenges as well. Too little and you’re a zombie in a valley of cheetahs. Too much and you’re freaking out at slow load-times. But the perfect amount and your body transformed into the most formidable fighting machine this side of a DARPA research facility.

WiFi was never a given. At any moment the god of signal strength can turn the tide of battle. And in the thralls of college education the competition between online course work, 4K video games, and pornography always presents challenges. In the end, every bit is fought for. The market decides with a wisdom unapproached by modern man. But 4 people united in purpose is almost always a powerful monopoly on claims for bandwidth.

This was set to be an exciting match. Outside, a clear night sky. Like glass reflecting the shadows of a fallen world. Those dark forces of cowardice that lurk around our souls. But also rays of light, reminding the quaking soul of a deeper calling.

A full game of 8 vs 8. Among the ruins of the Forerunners, we prepared for war.

It was a brisk start. The opposing team quickly took the lead. Back to back scores put them up two captures to none. Down by two captures is a death sentence for most. But I saw this as the opportunity for the comeback of the century.

We quickly regrouped at the base and mounted an assault. No time to play it safe. We blitzed the whole team, shouting incoherent battle-babble over the headset, doubting the whole time that the headset even worked. We made a strong push with a ghost to clear out a path for the remaining troops.

Our sniper had a field day picking off the enemy like daisies. We had a slight advantage in numbers and managed to mount an on-foot assault to the enemy base, leading to a successful capture. Down one.

But a few clever team mates had managed to hide out at the enemy base, quickly grabbing the flag when it respawned. No one on the other team was prepared.

Before I knew it, we had tied the game! And with plenty of time left. The atmosphere swelled with bloodlust. Neither team would settle for a tie. We clashed in the middle of the map. Forces pinned down behind cover, both sides waiting for vehicles to respawn. The screech of banshees in the sky painted the hellscape as both teams tempted fate one last time.

Banshee pilots are a special breed. I’m a decent pilot, myself. But I was never among the greats. A true banshee pilot knows how to push the boundaries of the craft. I was always too skittish. Keeping it in play for a long time, but never quite capitalizing on their awesome power.

My specialty was always ground assaults. A decent mid-range fighter who was equally at home with assault rifles and battle rifles. This gave me a certain flexibility over players who needed more specialized weapons to be effective. I also had a good instinct with grenades, which came in handy for fighting outnumbered. But my true specialty hadn’t yet had a chance to make its appearance in this match. That was until the vehicles respawned.

Our forces fell back to take advantage of the hardware. Time was running out. Now or never. One last ride, against all odds. To prove that in this life, fortune truly favors the bold…especially if the bold happen to be rolling three-deep in a warthog.

Rolling three-deep in a warthog fills your veins with fire and ice. A skilled turret gunner is worth their weight in gold and a ballsy passenger has been responsible for more than one comeback. But the driver has to hold it all together. They need to have their head screwed on pretty tight when the firestorm comes. A steady hand behind the wheel to avoid getting turned around on the jumps. A dead stop is a death sentence when you’re under fire. The main job of the driver. Keep this fucking thing moving towards the target.

We tore across the map, opting to go under the rock formation. It avoided some of the main fight in the middle, but left us vulnerable to a rocket strike if the other team had the launcher. They did. Our gunner spun around and landed good shots but not before they managed to get off one rocket. I took evasive maneuvers, but it caught our back tire.

The gunner didn’t get out of the vehicle in time and died in the explosion. The passenger and I survived and made a mad dash for the enemy base.

We made it inside and lobbed grenades into the hallway, taking out a few enemy fighters. My teammate noticed enemy forces coming from outside. Without thinking, he took off to fight them, leaving me to go for the flag. I ran upstairs and grabbed it. Under fire, I took out an enemy player with a melee then entered the man-cannon.

I shot into the air, soaring across the map and over the enemy. Their forces had retreated to stop me at their base. Classic mix-up. After my flight across the map, I was home free. I ran the flag into our base for the final capture as the room burst into screams. Victory filled the halls of Valhalla.

And maybe it was just a game. But consider this, as we speak, the signal used for communicating that game lives on, permanently etched into the fabric of this universe. Radio waves carry the signal of the match, painting it across the cosmos. Till one day another civilization receives the transmission. Maybe they watch the transmission and conclude all days on earth were filled with such honor, glory, and sacrifice. A record of greatness, if only in imitation. But more importantly, this a moment in my life I turn to, to remember that heroes are real. And that not all heroes wear capes. But it sure helps if they can fly, if only for a moment.

And so I leave this piece with only one request of the humble reader…FIGHT!