A quick dash to the stables and a couple of ledge hops, and I was tucked away in the hay loft. One of the other gang members spawned inside a nearby building and promptly sprinted outside, which marked him on my radar. I'd like to say that "I made quick work of him", but to be painfully honest he reacted quickly to my shots and fired some of his own back. I was forced to swap cover, and the brief pause in flying lead gave him a chance to find a tree and tell his teammates where I was hiding. After another short exchange of fire, he finally left his head sticking out long enough for me to shoot it off, but by that time his fellow hombre had taken the opportunity to sneak up and stick me like a pig with his Bowie knife.
I respawned and checked the score: two kills, two deaths. Not bad so far! I had my doubts that I could keep the score even, but for the moment I was elated. A long-range shot snapped into the wood next to my character; time to leave the score screen and get to some cover, dummy! I swapped to my repeater and started searching for movement again. A flash of color caught my eye. Raising my rifle and preparing to fire, I suddenly realized that what I was aiming at was another U.S. Army soldier, far in the distance. A glance to the radar confirmed it was true - someone had dropped into the match on my side of the Shootout!
Confidence bolstered even more, I moved up to a feed storage shed and pressed to the wall. The other team's sniper was perched on the barn. He had seen me move, and had lined up for a headshot. I crouched and leaned out, appearing below his crosshairs and getting a bead. I fired three rounds, one of which was a good hit and sent him back into cover. At this point, my newly joined teammate had gained the attention of the other two hombres - the distraction was welcome, but their firefight was moving toward where the sniper and I were playing cat-and-mouse...and stray bullets were randomly pelting the wood of the storage shed and plunging into a stack of nearby hay bales. It was making me nervous, and I missed a good headshot opportunity on the sniper (although I made two more good hits). Between the two of us, someone was going to have to either move out or get a lucky shot; we were both too cautious to get hit more than once before ducking back and regenerating our health.
But I was stubborn (please contain your gasps of shock), and it paid off: I finally connected with a bullet to the dome. The telltale ba-dink! Achievement notification sounded - it was Red Dead Rockstar, which added insult to the fatal injury I'd just inflicted. Not only did I cap you, but I got an Achievement for it, ya prick!
The fight continued for another couple of minutes - minor highlights including some slick pistol kills and getting waylaid once by a double-barreled shotgun - before coming to an end. My final score was eight kills for eight deaths, which is good enough for me...unfortunately we still lost the fight because my pardner wasn't able to quite hold his own.
That is the account of my first Shootout match, and to date the only one I've had. Take what you will from this story, and leave your comments. Don't forget to tip the bartender.