Does anyone else have a friend that they have a never-ending rivalry with in gaming?

I do and it’s a really specific unusual rivalry that actually started out kind of normal.

The game was (and still is) Crash Nitro Kart. The rivalry started back on the original Xbox. We would spend hours upon hours playing each other, we would bet money on races vs each other and we would try to beat the platinum lap times on our own consoles as a means of bragging the next time one of us was visiting the others house.

This went on for years until Crash Tag Team Racing came along and spoiled the series lol.

In reality, we both developed our own lives and families etc and due to CNK not having any online modes it sort of fell by the wayside but our rivalry would continue across other kart racers over the years but it was never on the same level as Crash.

Fast forward to last years announcement of the CTR remaster and I was excited, I sent Peter (my mate) the announcement trailer and our hype began with him declaring “that’s my game no chance you will ever beat me at that”. Well, I decided to be a cheeky chap and downloaded the original CTR on my Vita for a little refresher and after my eyes got over the visual horror that are PS1 polygons I was amazed how well the game held up. Peter came to visit and saw that I was playing it and asked for a shot (this was a mistake).

Without exaggeration, all it took was 1 turn for our rivalry to kick back to the exact point it was at before. The way we played had evolved, we no longer did races instead it was 3 lap time trials with the aim being to set the fastest individual time, the beach level reminded us of the beach level that’s in CNK  and we spent 2 straight weeks with him coming to mine to try to beat each other’s crash times, it easy had 50 plus hours of game time over those visits and the trash talking would reach fever pitch with it continuing over instant messenger while we were not playing.

Since then we have moved on from the Vita and are back to playing CNK on the Xbox 360 or Emulated on my laptop and it’s crazy how our rivalry is just a strong (if not stronger) than it was “back in the day”, we constantly play the same track over and over and it’s all about shaving fractions of a second off each others time just for the right to say “that’s my track”

Its safe to say that the CTR remaster is the game I’m looking forward to most next year, mainly because I will be able to kick his arse online, the downside in that is I will not be able to take joy in the misery on his face when I beat him again.

Do you have a rivalry like that that either focuses on one game or a game series?

What is it, how long has it been going? Share your stories in the comments.