Have you ever overheard someone proclaim themselves as the best at a certain thing and felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand-up? Or found enjoyment in watching someone fail miserably at something you could do with little effort? If so, you'd probably make a good gamer, especially online. The desire to be considered the best is one of mankind's most primal urges and gamers seem to covet greatness more than most other groups of people. Trash talk is common in sports but hop on Xbox Live for a game of Call of Duty; that's real trash talk. Of course, talking yourself up is one thing; actually achieving something is another. Very few of us will ever have the dedication and patience to become professional gamers, as sad as that may seem. They are people who push that desire to be the best to the very limits; playing one game on a full-time basis to further increase their abilities before going out and competing on a global stage in front of an internet audience of thousands to win insane amounts of money. Remember when your teacher asked you what job you wanted when you grew up? Professional gamer would have been a pretty good answer in retrospect. It's true competition exists outside of professional realm. Friendly (and not-so-friendly) rivalries are forged all the time in gaming and local multiplayer modes have always been a great way of fueling them. Humiliating your opponent over the internet is great; watching him emotionally crumble before you is even better. Putting together a list of competitive games is a surprisingly hard task, simply because everyone's battleground is different; hell there's no doubt that someone somewhere has been practicing Pong religiously just to to one day get the better of a rival who bested them in high school. The following twenty games have all seen many battles, both professional and amateur. These games represent some of the best in their genre with great gameplay, neat innovative modes, ideas and unique concepts. Better still, every game on this list makes us want to invite someone over so we can crush them virtually before kicking them out the door and inviting the next challenger in. If you happen to have a boxing or wrestling bell handy, now might be a good time to sound it off. Round one begins here...