with the release of halo 2 in the next 24 hours, ive decided to try to my hand at xbox live. the advice i need is, with whomever has experience with live -- is it worth the one year starter kit? also, if i happen to go ahead and get Live, should i expect to get all kinds of lag from the network during gameplay (especially during peak times)? one last thing, whats steps do i have to take to get live up and running? ie, register my xbox, connect my box direct to the wall or through my computer? any advice would be very much appreciated.

I just did the same thing over the weekend... decided on if I'd use or need Xbox Live. I did some research and read that Halo 2 ran nearly flawlessly on Xbox live, in which they said it never slowed down during any of the stress test they ran on it. During LAN games or xbox live.

It's a years subscription so it's quite a while... $5 per month. I just bought it at Circuit City's webpage for $60. They also have the Halo 2 headsets, which until recently I thought was just a stupid green colored headset. I underestimated it completely. I already had the xbox live black headset and thought it would be the same thing, but it's definitely not. The HL2 headset is a lot more confortable, I hardly remember that I'm wearing it. It comes with several ear pieces so you use the one that's the most comfortable and it's a lot clearer then the black one too. Like other people have said, it's a little quieter, but you can hear people a lot easier too.

I've already got my stuff coming/here. Right now Circuit City has the best deals on Xbox Live stuff, beating every deal I found on Ebay.

Since Halo 2 allows 16 players on up to 16 box's in Multi player games I'm betting that I'll be able to use Xbox Live more then normal, since I can play by myself anytime online without worring about getting booted like GameSpy and Halo 1.

Hooking it up is really easy, you pretty much said everything you need to do already.

I like my Live. I use it often as a long-distance phone to my friends from high school.

We get me, a guy in Colorado, Arizona and Texas and voice chat. Its cool


then theres the games. Crimson Skies and Pandora Tomorrow are the only ones I play as of now, but Halo 2 is coming soon. Xbox Live is definately worth the price. I got a 12 month and Crimson Skies for 70 bucks. go for it

but how do you guys like playing over our network? all i hear about lately on the forums is people bitching that our network is getting constantly bogged down. that doesnt fare well with online gaming you know. who exactly do i register with?

It all depends if you are goining to play it alot, if so than its worth it.

For those of you with "tainted" xbox's it seems there is a new detection process going on so...you might end up getting banned.

Yeah, so I hear. I'm fine. From what I've gotten out of it, just don't play Halo 2 with you modchip on.... EVER and of course delete your game saves if you played the Frenchie version.

I'm not banned.

From what I've noticed, X-Box Live on campus isn't that bad, as long as it's LAN. Playing over the actual net might be back, but LAN's smooth. In all the times I've played, haven't really found any major hang-ups or glitches

There are no problems I have noticed when on Live except when my roommates got a bunch of internet things open, like a bunch of IM's or anything.

LIVE IS SMOOTH!!!!!!!and beautiful.

Lan is good, but Live isnt LAN.

Except the fact that the new detection process detects hard drive alterations. Even people with their modchip turned off have been getting banned. It bans the hardware, but doesn't nullify the account.

im thinking about picking up xbox live this weekend. hopefully i can get some matches going with some people that happen to stay in town. ill post my gamertag asap.


just a little off topic....

my website has changed over to a new system. all the writers now have their own unique page. check it out. http://www.apollolounge.com

From what I've heard it's if you change the harddrive after registering your xbox with live, or it's a box with Live built onto the operating system.

Right now they think they've figured out the problem to random power fluctionations sent to the LPC which cause the certain modchips to activate or give a sign that it's there. In turn telling them you have a modchip installed.

It seems the new chips are what fall victim to this, the older X2.3b chips are said to be safe. The new X3 and Xenium's are not.

Correct me if I'm wrong...but I was unaware the Xbox had an OS. What exactly do you mean Worseley? Bios? Dashboard?

The dashboard, if I'm not mistaken, is the interface you get when you start the X-Box up without a disc in the drive.

As for the OS, anything with a computer inside has an operating system of some kind; in the case of the X-Box, it's most likely a majorly stripped-down version of Windows. These objects also have a BIOS. If you're not interested in computers, that's all you really need to know, and if you are interested in computers, you probably already know.