OK, now this explains everything...

I lost my null modem cable that came with my empeg for a few days. I went and bought a serial cable and gender adapter and it wouldn't work! I finally found my empeg supplied cable and it worked! I thought it was a bad cable and didn't realize that it was the wrong type.... interesting.

I used the null modem cable and connected two notebook pc's via it for deathmatch. Really simple actually and plenty fast enough for the game!