A 10-year-old girl’s quest for kills in Halo 2 on Xbox Live

After I noticed that my brother had abandoned a game of shooter in his basement TV, I knew it was time to act.

My Xbox Live debut was planned for 10 year old me, who was in primary school. I put on the headset and said my greeting, but I wasn’t met with the instant camaraderie I was expecting. Instead I received a monotone, robotic voice. Naturally I wanted to know if they were robots. Despite their cordiality, their patience wore thin by about the fifth time I asked, and I was finally met with a very un-monotone “SHUT UP.”

Yes, my robot buddy’s sudden outburst was a bit off-putting. But shooter games were not something I had never experienced, Halo especially, and co-op campaigns after campaigns with my father. Halo 2. After hearing Master Chief’s impossibly cool last line, “Sir, finishing this fight,” I had decided: My fight wasn’t finished yet either. The world of Xbox Live multiplayer was my first adventure, with my dad and then later, by myself. I didn’t care who I was matched up with in the Xbox Live lobbies, or that they were complete strangers; I would be the best preteen Halo 2Any player you have ever seen.

This pursuit led me to dedicate a few years of my life to it. After school and weekends, it was day after day. I got up every morning. Halo 2On our Xbox. And as the infamous Gregorian chants rolled in, I signed onto our family Xbox Live account — which had a username that combined letters in our names — and loaded into a lobby of our opposing teams. After much discussion, I started the game. Now was the time to be myself.

At first I didn’t like the game. It was all about which map you loaded. Headlong, Lockout and Coagulation were my favorite maps. The cityscape of Headlong added a fun platforming aspect, and Coagulation’s wide-open landscape made it easier to spot friends and foes. Despite my worst performance on Lockout I still have a strange fondness for the wintry fortress. Zanzibar? I was happy to put off the fight and drive as far as the water would take me.

But it wasn’t until I dug deeper into maps like Headlong and Coagulation where I realized the key in my quest for Halo fame: the Banshee. If the Covenant aircraft was on my radar, it became my only choice of weapon. As soon as the game started, I made a beeline before anyone else could object, and I’d take to the skies in a series of flips and start my destruction.

Image: 343 Industries/Microsoft Studios

One particular game, I recall unloading my incessantly on an enemy player. They died from my poor little hands time and again. I felt particularly validated when — to my pleasant surprise — I loaded into the next game’s lobby with that same unfortunate player on my team. They laughed and said that we had met once more.

“Ah yes, the little Banshee driver,” a guy’s amused voice responded.

This is probably a good point to admit (and spoil) that this essay doesn’t end on a tale of triumph in my quest to be the coolest and most successful player on Halo 2. Actually, I actually lost more games than won. People didn’t tremble at the sight of my screenname in a lobby. My brother did not congratulate me for my online skills, and he never invited me to join him. Halo 2His friends.

Perhaps it was because I depended on finding Banshees to execute my play strategy. If I wasn’t lucky enough to load into a map with a Banshee, or snag one as soon as the game started, I was in for a steep uphill battle — and I mean that literally. When an enemy ran up to me and shot at my head, it confirmed that I would die. I watched the countdown to respawn before I could react. They began to crawl up and down on my virtual body, which was horrifying. I learned later that this is a cornerstone of toxic gaming behaviour: teabagging.

I can’t say I know for sure what went through acquaintances’ minds when I told them I used to get on a voice chat, as a young girl, with a bunch of strangers (usually boys and men) before shooting at each other on a map. But I always quickly followed the statement with “it wasn’t really bad like you might think.”

Of course, there’s an inherent risk to entering an often unmoderated forum with strangers, and the lobby and violent maps of Halo 2With voice chat, they were not unusual. There were many rude people I encountered, including impatient players and team-killers, as well as strangers shouting insults at me. I’m sure some of those moments impacted my younger self, though I no longer remember, more than 15 years later.

What I remember the most, however, wasn’t the specific losses, the rude teammates and enemies, or even the wins in my indestructible Banshee (at least it felt indestructible until I heard the target lock from a rocket launcher). The camaraderie, fun and friendship that comes with fighting it out with strangers is what I remember most.

It felt like I had lost my little girl voice, which was a lot more than it did in real life. The multiplayer maps Halo 2I wasn’t just another player, no matter if I was trying glitch on a top of a building in Headlong, or performing Banshee Flips from the bases in Coagulation. Sometimes, my teammates would give up their most powerful weapons in order to assist me. Or they would kill an enemy before I was able to get them. Some times it was as uncomplicated as my teammates dropping their best weapons to help me out, or they would shoot an enemy before I got them (and sometimes they saved me).

These are some of the best memories you will have from your time playing. Halo 2 on Xbox Live I took with me, and it’s something I notice and try to remember the most when I play online games now: the commonplace nature of people wanting to cooperate. Sharing those experiences with people I’ll likely never meet, and creating new experiences when I played online with my dad, instead of just playing through the campaign again, were some of the most formative moments of my childhood. Based on what I’ve seen, that game has a significant impact on my life.

Apart from teabagging.