I am sure you have heard by now that Xbox Live will be down for approximately four hours on 09.10.07 for an upgrade. Oh yes, this is big news in the gaming community. This earth shattering story has been carried by both Kotaku and Joystiq. It’s been Digged and Dugged. In three days, we will be facing four whole hours that we can’t play our games on Live. Sure, we can play them by ourselves. But we can’t play them on LIVE. Never mind the fact that it will be happening in the early am hours when most of us are sleeping. Never mind the fact that most of us don’t game during that time period anyways. The point is that if we wanted to play on Live during that time frame, we couldn’t.
Before you start to panic, please know I have your back. Lots of people give suggestions about what to do during these infamous Xbox Live downtimes but they are always lame ass ideas such as “Read a book!” or “Go outside!”. Seriously, who the heck does that stuff anymore? Not us gamers. Us gamers, we game. And when we can’t game with our friends when we want to, we need other gaming activities to fill our time. In order to prevent wide spread panic concerning the unavailability of Xbox Live, I devised a back-up plan. Actually, I have devised 10 back-up plans. You can thank me on 09.10.07 at 06:01 PDT by sending me a thank you message via Live, because by then hopefully it will be up. Let’s not even think about the fact that it may go longer than the scheduled four hours. *shudders
Here are the top 10 things to do during Xbox Live downtime.
Play Oddball
Luckily for us, stores like to get ready for Halloween a few months before October even arrives. You know what that means right? SKULLS. Go to your local Halloween store (or any retail store that carries a good selection of Halloween-themed items) and buy a skull. Tell your buddies to head over to your house with all their paintball gear. Everybody can load up their paintball guns and play a good ol’ fashioned game of Oddball. Same rules apply in real life Oddball as they do in Halo Oddball. You get hit, you are out for 10 seconds. If you were carrying the ball and get hit, you must then drop it. Team (or person) with the most time wins. Remember, always go for the headshot. Your buddies will appreciate that.
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Paint a Matchbox car with the same design as your Forza car
Go to your friendly neighborhood store and buy some white Matchbox cars. Also purchase several colors of paint and a small detail paint brush. Cover your table with newspapers, get your supplies ready, and begin painting the design you have on your Forza car onto your Matchbox car. You have four hours so you have plenty of time to get all the tiny details right. If you can’t remember the smaller parts of the design, load up the car and use it as a reference. Remember, even though Live is unavailable your Xbox 360 does still work. Paint away, let them dry, then race them around the house. Fun!
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Make your favorite video game character out of Legos
I am convinced you can build absolutely anything with Legos in a fairly accurate fashion. Halo vehicles? Halo figures? Halo anything? No problem. Care to play some Guitar Hero on a guitar made out of Legos? No problem. What about Mario and Yoshi? (Please don’t ask what they are doing in some of those pictures, I really don’t want to know.) Get inspired (not by Mario and Yoshi please), then get busy. Happy building!
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Play Pac-Man
If you thought you could only play Pac-Man on a console, you were sorely mistaken. Grab four of your closest video game obsessed buddies and head out to the backyard. Build your favorite maze out of sticks on the ground. Now comes the tough part, deciding who is going to be who. Each of the ghosts has a very specific personality. It is of the utmost importance that each person stays true to their particular ghost. How boring would it be if all the ghosts just rushed Pac-Man and stayed on his tail? Not very. Pinky tends to move in a counter-clockwise direction while Inky is unpredictable while Blinky will stick right on your tail while Clyde tends to avoid you. Study up on the ghost personalities and then have at it. A fun extra touch would be to have each ghost wear the proper color coordinated shirt. Do not underestimate the powers of color coordination.
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
See how many words you can discover that are banned by Xbox Live
I always have an interesting time when I am trying to change my Xbox Live gamer motto. Certain words that they have banned surprise me. When Bungie released their special free downloadable content, I attempted to change my motto to “Bungie rocks!” and several variations of it. Apparently you can’t use the word Bungie. Bastards. Obvious words don’t fly, but some not so obvious words don’t fly either. Access your account from your computer and see how many banned words you can find that Xbox Live does not allow. The more random, the better.
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Pretend to play Guitar Hero
Play Guitar Hero but not on your console. Simply get your guitar and play your favorite song from memory. Once you get your groove going, start working on your rock star moves. Sometimes when you are playing at the higher levels of difficulty it gets hard to pull off your rockin’ moves as you are concentrating solely on your playing. As you play from your memory, make an effort to work some super star moves into your routine. Needs some inspiration? Check out this awesome article detailing the top ten WSVG Dallas guitar moves. See how many you can pull off and what your favorites are. Then perfect a few of them. Ladies love a rock star. Show ‘em what you got!
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Become your favorite video game character
First scour all the closets in your house for articles of clothing that resemble what your favorite video game character wears. Don’t be afraid to check your wife’s closet, your sister’s closet, your little brother’s closet, the dress up bin in the playroom, whatever. Take the time to style your hair appropriately, apply make-up if called for, and accessorize. Success with this one is dependent upon the smaller details. Once you are in costume then begin working on sounding, moving, and walking like this character. You have to be the person in every aspect if you want to pull this off. Don’t stop even when Xbox Live comes back online. Sign in and see if your buddies can figure out who you are. Get that Live Vision camera up and going. Your friends will think you are so cool. Because you are.
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Play Worms
Worms is a fun game on the Xbox Live Arcade but it is also a fun game you can play in your own backyard. Grab a shovel and dig up several worms. You may have to dig pretty deep right now to find them. Once you have a handful, arrange them in a small area of your grass and scatter miniature weapons (the weapons that come with your Master Chief figures work great) randomly amongst them. When a worm touches a weapon, they can use that one on their closest opponent. Since real worms can’t really use these toy weapons, just assume they will take out whomever they are firing upon. Last worm standing wins. Special note : Please don’t really hurt the little wormies. Handle them carefully, keep them in the shade, and put them back in the dirt when you are done. Worms are our friends. (Sheep however are not. Exploding sheep ftw!)
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Make a grocery list for 09.25.07 that will last you at least a week
Halo 3 is right around the corner. This downtime presents the perfect opportunity to get organized. Sit down and write out a complete grocery list that will last you bare minimum seven days. When you are done writing your list, run to the store and pick everything up. That way you are completely ready. We all know you won’t see the sunlight in that time period. You need to make sure you are fully fueled for the awesomeness that will be Halo 3. Include lots of easy to fix frozen food on your list such as pizza, chicken nuggets, etc. Those things will be super convenient to pop in the oven and simply pull out when they are ready. Don’t forget your beverages and munchies. Gamers only eat chips and stuff like that. You are a gamer. Now act like one.
*When you are done with this activity, check to see if Xbox Live is back online.
Sleep
That’s what I’ll be doing. (Just don’t forget to set your alarm for every 15 minutes to check to see if Xbox Live is back online.)
Hang in there. We will get through this together.
lol my friend, very nice tips, but i will probably be doing college homework! I have to create a visual representation of my classmate who I interviewed a few days ago (due tuesday) Another homework assignment that I have to do is write a journal 5 times a week.. and also read a book called The Symposium by Plato(I could describe the book here, but its not a very kosher book, lol) {due thursday} Plus, write a reading response to it as well. So lots of homework for me!! Thats only from 2 classes, I have 4 other classes as well. My college is great, but they know how to pile on the homework
I will do a personalized list for you. Here goes.
Silvercube’s Top 10 Things to Do During Xbox Live Downtime
Homework x 10
There ya go!
LOL!! You’re the best!!
Thanks lmao
My friend reckons he’s going to down some sleeping pills with red bull some red bull as scientific experiment. I’d stop him, but I think it’ll be funny to watch… Just as long as he doesn’t get diahorrea… (every experiment he conducts tends to end that way… it’s a horrible anti-climax)
Haha. Nice list.
I’m in the same boat as Silvercube though.
I wonder what the update is about. Hopefully a clan list.
NOOOOOOOOOO.
I hate that when you don’t have LIVE, you can’t play your LIVE arcade games. Even offline… Check it.
I think launch boxes are the exception. We couldn’t get Geometry Wars up at the LAN except on one box.
“Make a grocery list for 09.25.07 that will last you at least a week”
Water, snacks, lots of caffeine. I’m good to go. Bring on the ownage. \oo/ (>.<) \oo/
Man, I won’t have to worry about the downtime. I’ll be too busy with homework and school. T_T
Woops.
** \oo/ (>.<) \oo/
@Stuicide:
This is only true if you’re not playing them on the console they were downloaded on. When you download an arcade game, it’s tied to your console and your account. If it’s on the original console, anyone can play it, on or offline. If it’s not, you can only play it if the account that owns it is online.
Then again, you could try going outside and re-discovering the real world. Just a thought.
Are you of an alien species? *runs to the kitchen to find some foil to make a hat
Great post, definitely thinking about playing the real-life game of pacman in the wee hours of the morning.
You know, that Oddball game isn’t such a bad idea. Friends, fresh air, paintball guns. Any way you slice that, it’s a good time.
I’ll see if I can convince my friends into doing it.
Too many of those activities require pants.
Pants can be optional if you’re creative, or with the right crowd. As a member of the world outside the xbox live, there are many ways to enjoy life without pants.
http://www.improveverywhere.com/2007/01/13/no-pants-2k7/
“admin” is not allowed in mottos. i found it odd.
And KP starts the wave going in a different direction within the comments!
@ ryz3rwitha3
Nice find! I would guess maybe that isn’t allowed so people are unable to impersonate an Xbox Live admin member, but there are lots of different admin of various sites and communities that could use that term legitimately. Thanks for sharing. : )
@ jon
Well sucks for me. I had to send in my box because of the RROD last year and they sent me a refurbed one in it’s place. So through no fault of my own, if I lose internet, I can’t play Geometry Wars.
Great list!
I wish you’d written this a couple of weeks ago when my Xbox died (still waiting to get it back) as I could’ve used the tips to help me pass the time
That paint-odd-ball game would be fun with some tweaking.
The skull is about the size of a basketball and keeps track of both team’s time. In order to score time you have to hold down both of your team’s colored buttons (located on opposite sides of the ball, thus requiring both your hands). On top of that the ball emits the sound clips of the dying master chief every few seconds, to give away the position of the ball. Batteries not included.
I’ve added to you my blogroll if you don’t mind.
I am so horribly offended. *counts to ten and tries to remember to keep breathing
#11. Thank Rabid.
Thank you Rabid! Much appreciated. : )
Or you can send in your 360 in that just RROD’ed after you just bought a new tv.
It happend to me today so I need to call em up and see if i can get it fixed before halo 3.
Or you could also go out and buy a new 360 because you plan to sell the broken one after it comes back from getting fixed.
Funny about the words that are banned from Live - you actually can’t put in the words Linux or Unix… Hmmmm… is M$ holding some sort of grudge??
can you add this to the list!?
11. Bang your head on the wall til xbox live is back online. (This kind of activity is sure to be interesting for someone who just can’t think of anything to do…) LOL. hehehe…
Too awesome Angel! I was reading this and I thought ‘this writing style reminds me of someone…’ I just followed the link from HBO. w00t!
@ Robert Fredericks
Someone who is almost as bitter as me about the RRoD. Nice! Good luck with that. I more than feel your pain.
@ XMixMasterX
That’s strange. Some of the words that are banned are interesting. Thanks for sharing, I am fascinated by the odder ones like that.
@ filchiprogrammer
Ouch. I will add Tylenol to your personal list. You will need it!
*waves at Saej
@Stuicide
(sry for on-topic comment off-topic from the post).
You CAN play geometry wars, or any arcade game you can’t part with (Hexic, Eets, Space Giraffe, Marathon, anyone?) as the full, not trial, version. It’ll cost a friend the price of the desired game, however.
This is what I’ve done, as I live out of a hotel 5/7 days a week: I have two gamertags, geophf and DemoclesSword. The games I originally downloaded with geophf (that have been displace from my original X360) I redownload AND BUY with my DemoclesSword gamer tag to the that box. X360 now senses the game to be native to that box and allows me play the full version with or without XBox Live.
Test this on geometry wars by doing the above (download and buy on your box with a friend’s present gamer tag, pay your friend 5 USD/400 MS points) and then unplug the X360 from the internet entirely. Sign out of your friend’s account and sign into yours. The game should now play as the full version (not the trial version).
And once you’ve got that working (noting while off Live all the arcade games you MUST have during downtimes), you can repeat the process as much as your “but I’m paying TWICE for this game” quibbles allow.
HTH.
geophf