Hello there. Well, this is my latest production for you people. War Of The Matches is a semi-spoof of H.G. Well's War Of The Worlds, set on the premise of an invasion of the Halo 2 online system by outisde aggressors. If you're interested at all then you can feel free to PM me on the matter. Most of all I hope you enjoy it... [i]“Let us reply to ambition that it is she herself that gives us a taste for solitude.” –Montaigne.[/i] [b]The Evening of War.[/b] For the uninitiated, an explanation as to what [i]Halo 2[/i] even is should be supplied here. [i]Halo 2[/i] is a First-Person Shooter game, or FPS for short. That means that the game is played through the eyes of (usually) the main character, and the game involves gratuitous violence, big guns and bigger explosions. Released to audiences in 2004, [i]Halo 2[/i] quickly became known as one of the foremost online multiplayer games devised. The phrase “Online” means Players have created an Xbox Live account, and can play matches competitively together on Microsoft’s broadband-only gaming network, Xbox Live. On this system, players communicate vocally through the use of simple headsets known as Xbox Live Communicators, thus “creating a more immersing atmosphere,” or whatever the Microsoft Marketing Department spouts at the time. The golden days of the game lasted for much longer than expected, with hardcore fans and even new Players carrying on at the game long after the advent of newer releases. But no one would have believed in the last update of the [i]Halo 2[/i] system that we were being scrutinised from afar like a man would watch cells or bacteria swarm and multiply through a microscope. So obsessed were we with our own affairs, and so assured of the protective defences the operators of our digital world provided, that we were oblivious to any threat from beyond our tiny realm. At that time, we knew not even of the existence of [i]them[/i]. Even with half a year past after the events I chronicle here, negligible amounts have been learned on the matter. Their true identity, rationales, organisation and methodology are as much a mystery today as they were the moment that the first of their enigmatic kind defiled our game world. Their tactics and strategies have been the subject of much heated debate, yet little has been gleaned. That is to say nothing of their place of origin. If only one facet of their kind has to be plucked from the sea of perplexity for sheer levels of confusion, it would be where these invaders came from. However, the events you will read of sent shockwaves throughout the gaming world, with other companies and organisations scrambling in great haste to prevent an attack of such devastating magnitude befalling their systems. The attack unleashed on the [i]Halo 2[/i] online multiplayer system is, without a shadow of a doubt, the single most staggering event of its kind thus far. And yet, despite all the precautions taken, it still wrought terrible havoc. And so, as we blundered and floundered around in the blissful daydream of ignorance, across the vast gulf of the Internet, cold, calculating minds regarded our online world with envious eyes and instruments we have yet to even fathom. And slowly, yet surely, they drew their plans against us. [Edited on 09.13.2007 1:04 PM PDT]