[Johnny Awesome]

Initial impressions:

I received my Beta Test kit on Tuesday. As noted by other testers: it includes an online copy of NFL Fever 2002, a racing mini-game called Revolt, the Xbox Live setup software, and a memory card for storing your Xbox Live profile.

When I tried to authenticate my Xbox on the servers at 5:00PM on Tuesday, they were shut down. Since an email had already been dispatched to the beta testers indicating there would be a general shut-down on Wednesday and Thursday, I figured they had just decided to collapse the network a little early. A call to 1-800-MY-Xbox confirmed this theory and I decided to wait until Friday to sign on.

Friday at 4:30PM EST I booted the Xbox Live software, connected the headset, and signed onto the servers without any problems. It's about a 15 minute process to setup you account for the first time. I'm not a big fan of NFL Fever, so I booted my copy of NFL2K3, chose the Play Live option, chose Quick Match and was into a game in about 2 minutes (a guy by the name of Dark|^|aster challenged me). He was 20-10, so I figured I'd get schooled, but I agreed anyway. The servers indicated that our connection was Excellent.

We picked teams (I chose Green Bay, he chose Jacksonville). We got to playing and he started talking to me in that annoying Robot mask voice. I'm not crazy about the fact that NFL 2K3 only has one mask, but it was a minor nitpick. He was a pretty good player and he was up 28-10 at the half. We got to talking about various things, like what systems we owned, favorite games, and about NFL2K3 itself. It was pretty damn cool.

He had switched to a regular voice after the first quarter and at the half he asked me why I was still talking in the Robot voice. LOL! I didn't realize that I'd had it on. So he talked me through the menus so that I could switch it off.

The lag was very minor. Occasionally there was a stutter or too, but overall it's pretty solid. The voice communicator had a one second lag that wasn't too noticeable. I'm in Windsor, ON, Canada and he was in Pittsburg, and overall the game was extremely playable.

In the end we added each other to our Friends list and vowed to meet up some time in NFL2K3, or Unreal Championship when it comes out. The final score was 46-28, which was a loss with honor for my first time out. Online console gaming with voice during gameplay is now a reality for me and I couldn't be happier. I'm looking forward to the RPGs where the pace isn't so hectic, which should be conducive to greater social interaction, but NFL 2K3 was a blast online. Playing a human is totally different than playing the AI and really adds something to the game.

Thumbs up for Xbox Live.

[Legion]

i had no idea xbox live started...G-d damnit.

[Glonk]

I got my kit this week also, and I absolutely love it (it's why I'm not around here much these days).

In a week or two they're shipping out online versions of MotoGP and Whacked free to testers too.

[Ug Lee]

Sounds good. Thanks for the impressions, JA.

[Johnny Awesome]

My second game was even more lag-free. I didn't notice any stutters whatesover. This was while playing a guy in New York, who was also pretty courteous. I lost that one too, but mainly because my Little Brother was playing the game for the first time for about 3 quarters. 49-20 was the final score.

[zurich]

gdi Johnny, I thought the Xbox Live beta was only open to US Citizens! Argh. Well I "signed up" just now on the beta site, doubt I'll be picked though. And here I am with a 3/1meg DSL line with speed to burn :P

zurich

[Johnny Awesome]

Well, world-wide 200,000 people have applied for the beta test. Microsoft wants to have 50,000 of the U.S./Canadian applicants on Xbox Live before the launch date, so you have at least a 25% chance of getting picked.