My girlfriend was pacing around nervously before my championship match started, muttering out loud about how good the other team was, reminding me that one of their players scored 20 out of 30 kills by himself in an earlier round in the tournament.

Gee, thanks a lot for the pep talk, babe.

Earlier that evening, we were sitting in a freezing movie theater, waiting our turn to play five-on-five Uncharted 2. My girlfriend's team actually eliminated mine in the first round, but by a lucky random draw, I was given a second chance to compete for a prize so dangerous, Sony can't give it to me until I've sent them a signed, notarized affidavit basically saying I won't kill anyone with it. Or at least if I do, it's not their legal problem.

Sony rented out theaters across the country to show off Uncharted 2 on big, big screens to bloggers, fans, and the media. (The public events are tonight, but they're sold out.)

In between demos of some of the game's most cinematic moments, 16 teams of five faced off for a chance to win the not-for-public-sale Fortune Hunter edition, which includes a replica of the Phurba Dagger artifact that plays a central role in the story. This package is so rare, even the developers don't get one...for free. "I even have to buy a copy from Sony," Naughty Dog Creative Director Amy Hennig told me last night.

"I understand that the Phurba Dagger is a replica and collectible artpiece
used for ornamental purposes only and is not to be used as a weapon."

Sony gave us a new map to play on -- the snowy mountainside Sanctuary -- to make sure no multiplayer beta players had an unfair advantage. I was hoping to watch the other participants compete for a bit, so I can scout the stage before I had to go in but no luck. My randomized team was up first, and we happened to be going up against my girlfriend's crew.

My group lost a closely contested match 29-30, so it was back to shivering at my seat, waiting to see how far Raychul's team would go into the tournament. But Sony needed to even up the bracket, so the organizers drew raffle tickets at random to fill out a "second chance" team.

That's us -- Team Plaza -- a ragtag bunch of first-round losers billed as the night's biggest underdogs. We went on a tear, winning our first two games (deathmatch then elimination) as a new team before facing our biggest foes (so far) in the semifinals -- a group lead by Jeff Rubenstein, Social Media Manager for Sony (hey, he works for the company that's bringing this game out!).

We discussed some simple strategies ahead of time for this Plunder match (a capture-the-flag-esque mode where you need to bring the map's artifact back to your spawn point): throw the treasure over walls and back toward the base whenever possible, throw it over the edge if we're definitely going to lose it rather than giving it up to the enemy, work on our kill counts (which determines the tie-breaker), etc.

We were winning 2-1 in this first-to-three round, before the host on the other team pulled the connection. Honest technical problem or sore-loser shenanigans in an attempt to get Sony to restart the match? We'll never know, but since it was right near the end of the time limit, Sony awarded Team Plaza the win.

The championship deathmatch round was nerve-wracking. We were never supposed to have gotten this far, and here we are, ready to face off against Team Fortune Hunters and Mr. "20 out of 30 kills" who destroyed all opposition before us.

We discussed some more strategy -- mainly just "stick together," "stick together," and a bit more "stick together" -- and Raychul acted as our team mother/manager of sorts, trying to pass along our verbal communications to each other over the loud spectator crowd and encouraging us whenever possible, despite her nervous pre-game chatter.

If this championship game was Nathan Drake's half-tucked shirt, Team Plaza was clearly the tucked-in half. We stuck together like a band of brothers and dominated against what should've been superior players. It was 9-0 before the enemies scored their first kill, but they never came after us as a cohesive team. One by one, they'd attempt to break up our pack, only to get chewed up by a hail of coordinated gunfire as we called out their locations.

Final score of the championship match: 23-10. Final record: Team Plaza 4-0.

We high-fived, we fist-bumped, and we hugged. I'm not sure any of us cared that much about the deadly prizes themselves (which Sony will send us one of each later, after we mail them the legal documents). We were just riding high on the thrill of an unlikely victory. Screw online play -- last night made me wish I could play all my multiplayer games in person with other players in cold, chilly theaters.

That's me, VillainSanFran2, with the final scores in the championship match. Also thanks and virtual high-fives to Team Plaza members Chris Takeda, Miguel Caron, Jeff Chow, and Calvin De Jesus
(pictured above, clockwise starting with me in the upper left). De Jesus never touched the game
before this night, by the way -- check out his score as VillainSanFran6!