It’s time for a late night geek out.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Xbox Live… not about playing on it, I’ve been doing enough of that for the past couple months to burn a hole my modem. But about how it works, how they built it, what does it take to keep it going. I ran into this article at console.hardocp.com where Steve Lynch details his experiences inside the heart of XBL headquarters.

One of my favorite excerpts is about the actual building XBL is controlled from.

“The Xbox Live facilities are located away from the main Microsoft campus in a nondescript three story building with no outside markings other than a small Xbox logo on the front door of the lobby.” (Steve Lynch – console.hardocp.com).

Now think about that for a second. This whole infrastructure, managing millions of connections, gigabits of data per second, all sitting in some seemingly random building not even on the main campus. Does this sound like your typical 9-5’er type job? (or 8am-8pm’er? considering how much work these guys probably had to put into it)

“The Xbox Live Operations Center or “XOC” (pronounced zock) is where all the action is. The large room is literally wall to wall workstations and LCD monitors. There are several monitors attached to the wall at the front of the room that display all kinds of system information. There were also a lot of media carousels at one end of the room, each capable of holding 150 games. From what we saw, there was easily enough storage capacity to hold over 3,000 games.” (Steve Lynch – console.hardocp.com)

As for those with even more geek in their blood. Check out this short video of the (2004) Development Manager at Xbox Live (Boyd Multerer XBL extraordinaire) at Channel 9 about the actual software infrastructure of parts of XBL.

He gives good rundown that helps me wrap my head around what Live is made of. The familiarity I had with a lot of his terminology surprised me.

I am no fanboy, just a fan of what works and what is popular. Xbox Live satisfies both of these demands for me. And to boot I’ve found another outlet for the competitive streak in me.

It was a bumpy road, but Midnight, FoulBreed, Sparda, and I (Oculus) emerged victorious in a 3 game sweep in THX’s first MLG Gears of War Tournament match this Thursday. Our opponent, The Shadow Corporation, had to play a man down due to an internal human resources error. But even with a man down, SC managed to pull off wins in 5 rounds. The final tally came to 15-5 rounds going to the hairy men of The Hushed Casket. THX played as the away team, therefore we hosted 1 round; SC hosted the other 2. There were a couple of times that our 1 man advantage came into play, but overall, THX dominated the matches through superior communication and solid tactics. GG guys.

I think SC took the loss kind of hard. There was an occasion of one of their teammates accusing me of the “roadie shooting” glitch, when in actuality, he simply had his lunch handed to him (If I do say so myself). But other than that, I think they were appreciative when we informed them that they still had a chance to proceed in the tournament with the 5 rounds that they won. As usual, Midnight offers to have a scrimmage with them some other day, but they politely refused… or stayed silent, I can’t remember which. And no, they did not want to scrimmage us afterwards. In the end, THX seemed more prepared, and I think it led to our victory.

I believe that we are starting to get used to how each other play. In no way do I think we are even close to being perfect. But hopefully we are a hard team to play against at the very least. Our biggest strength right now I would say is communication. Next would be adaptability. If we polish up our newb shotgun charge, I think we’d probably be a force to be reckoned with.

GG Midnight, FoulBreed and Sparda for laying down another THX GoW woopin.

Match 1: Canals. On the last round, Midnight volunteers to use himself as bait, while Oculus swoops down from above and dishes it out.

Match 2: Mansion. The Foul One lays claim to the boomer and frags at the same time.

Match 3: Clocktower. Sparda brags that he doesn’t need the sniper today.

I bought Ms. Pacman off of the XBOX Live Marketplace last night after I got home from work. Less than one hour later, I had unlocked all of the achievements and gotten a perfect 200/200 points. As a matter of fact, I got 90 points (including the hard-to-get “Perfect” achievement) in the first level. For you information, the “Perfect” achievement is the one where you have to eat all four ghosts four times in one stage. I still haven’t done this in Pacman.

I bought Pacman when it first came out on the arcade a few weeks ago. I played the demo and it brought back memories of watching my parents play this game on an old Atari. However, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when I recalled that I was actually just playing the same level over and over. So, I bought Ms. Pacman. It had different levels or stages and I knew this is what I really wanted to play.

During the first round I got the “Cherry”, “Strawberry”, “Orange” and “Pretzel” achievements right off the bat. Noticing that Ms. Pacman seemed to move a little faster than Pacmac did in his game, I decided to go for chomping all four ghosts with one pellet (something I still haven’t done in Pacman). I simply maneuvered around the stage until all the ghosts, which were following me, were near a pellet. I ate the pellet and ate one, two, three, and four ghosts. I then knew that eating four ghosts in Ms. Pacman was a lot easier than eating them in Pacman. So, I went to the other three pellets and did the same thing: maneuver around the stage until the ghosts are near each other and following me toward a pellet. In the first stage and without dying, I got this achievement. I got 90 points and 7/12 achievements in just a few minutes.

(Note: The “Perfect” achievement must be gotten on the same level. You must eat all four ghosts after eating each of the four power pellets.)

I then spent the next 40 minutes getting the rest of the achievements, the hardest one now being “Clear Round 21”. Since Ms. Pacman (and Pacman) allows you to start your game over at the last level you completed, getting to level 21 was a matter of restarting some of the harder stages from scratch when I ran out of lives.

If you are wondering if you should buy Ms. Pacman or Pacman, I recommend getting Ms. Pacman. There really isn’t a reason to get Pacman over Ms. Pacman in my opinion since Pacman is really only one stage.

Ms. Pacman at XBOX.com – (link)
My gamercard at XBOX.com – (link)

Bungie has officially introduced it’s latest vehicle addition to the Halo universe. “The M274 Ultra-light All-terrain Vehicle provides an alternate means of transporting messages, documents, and light cargo between units. It may also be used to transport forward observers, reconnaissance personnel and sniper teams. Its proven versatility has made it a vital asset to field commanders when used as an alternate means of communication.” Check it out at Bungie.