Mattalogue; Living the Xbox Live 'Life'.

A couple of weeks ago I waved goodbye to the greatest thing that happened to me since left handed can openers. No it wasn’t my collection of classic sitcoms, rather a certain someone sodded off the Italy for a month to teach kids how to swear in English. Half way there and I’m still experiencing withdrawal symptoms, it’s quite jarring talking to someone nearly every day for 8 months then suddenly stopping. Like suddenly becoming deaf the day before a new Maiden albums out.

So what did I do the day after she departed for the great boot shaped former empire? Blub uncontrollably? Sit in the dark covered in Vaseline while looking at pictures of her? Write a whingey blog/poem/story?

Nope!

In fact I did something rather more telling and nerdilicious. I got Xbox Live.

Yes that’s right, I finally bowed to the ‘man’ and paid money to unlock something already installed. Although that’s par for the course with an Xbox. If you so much as want to change your name it’ll cost you, then as soon as you press the ‘confirm’ button, hey presto! There it is! Normally I don’t like laying into Bill Gates, it’s the equivalent of shooting the morbidly obese kid at paintball. Anyone can do it and joining in leaves me devoid of ammo for the less obvious targets. Like a passing Ant McPartlin –if you’re too young…look it up- or that guy who’s allergic to paint. Not that I'm bashing the Xbox itself. It has games! It's just been her first anniversary as my official play thing, maybe we can squeeze another 12 months in before she gets a red ring.

But anyway! On with the story, my first xbox live experience took place on none other than Red Dead Redemption. If you’re one of the 2 people who doesn’t have it (the other being the blind kid…he tripped up and fell down a mineshaft) then I highly recommend it for the single player alone. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll rage at the half thought out Scrappy character you play in the end.

So there I was, in the vast expanse of the American west with nothing on my side but a donkey and a pistol you couldn’t kill a rabbit with. For the first few times I played, I totally avoided other people. It appears that even on Xbox Live I’m an anti-social smegger. Whenever someone came towards me or invited me to join their ‘posse’ I would scarper away, my donkey placed firmly between my legs. Of course, anti-social tendencies didn’t prevent me from making a couple of enemies.

I was casually minding my own business, taking pot shots at two gangs beefing it out over a ‘Zebra-Donkey’. Don’t bore me with the biological impossibilities. All you need to know is it’s awesome. So naturally, while the two sides were duking it out, I snuck up and stole the donkey. Big mistake.

One person seemed to take offense to this, and spent the rest of the session chasing me down with their ridiculously over powered arsenal. Taking back the ‘Zebra Donkey’ didn’t seem to be enough for them. Like Richard Kimble I was hunted down across the United States, and this person was Tommy Leet J0nez. Eventually the chase ended the only way it could. By me pressing ‘quit’ and making myself a cup of tea.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. If someone has marked themselves as an ‘Underground’ gamer…get the hell out of there because they WILL be a douche. I really want to try out COD fer 2 on Live too, however I'm slightly intimidated by the fact that people use mics in the game. I find there to be something quite creepy about shooting virtual people in the face, then hearing the voice of a nine year old telling me to "get out of [his] town" or just opting for a frustrated banshee screech.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to returning to Uni. I’m pretty sure I’ve done more work this summer than I ever did last year. But hey, next years gonna be different. The grades actually matter. Which means I’m much more likely to fail. Oh and the small matter of that special person returning. I should probably bathe.