Community Interviews: Lowestformofwit
Original Interview Conducted 30th May 2009. GenuineGamers.com caught up with Xbox.com Moderator and Xbox Live Ambassador, Lowestformofwit.
Genuine Gamers (GG): First I would just like to thank you for taking the time to sit down and answer some questions for our readers. First question then. What made you choose your gamertag?
LFOW: It’s due to my love of sarcasm. In real life I can command sarcasm with majesty befit only to a chosen few but it’s not something I ever use online. I am very conscious that no-one gets it when it’s written down.
It doesn’t stop me running into problems now and again though. Sometimes my gamertag can precede people’s opinion and they think I’m being sarcastic when I’m not…
GG: How old are you and how long have you been gaming for?
LFOW: I’m on the wrong side of 30 and have been around longer than videogames themselves. I remember their birth, it was jaggy and monochromatic.
GG: What’s your first gaming memory and how do you compare it to gaming now?
LFOW: I was mesmerised by the original Space Invaders arcade cabinet when it was first released. We hadn’t seen anything like it before, it was astounding. My first console was a Binatone Pong machine which I played on a black & white portable TV in my bedroom. I was probably as excited as the kids today are with their Xbox 360’s when I got that. The Binatone had 2-player normal pong mode (with 2 controllers!), 2-player hockey mode (2 bats on screen per player instead of 1) and a single player “squash” mode lol. I don’t think you can compare my first gaming memories with what we have today…
GG: Going by the above picture…. you’re probably right! You’re an Xbox Live Ambassador and also recently been made an Xbox.com Forum Moderator. Can you tell us a little about what you do for each position?
LFOW: Ah, being an Xbox Ambassador is a ‘re-active’ rather than a ‘pro-active’ role. What this means is that we agree to have our gamertags published on Xbox.com so that new members can add us as a friend so we can help introduce them to Xbox Live in a friendly, non-threatening environment. Some ambassadors don’t fully understand their role and that is a small pet-hate of mine but that’s another answer for another question…
We can’t really talk about what we do specifically as mods. Just know that we are there to keep things running smoothly on the forums and never out to get anyone.
GG: You’ve teamed up with xFireSpiritx to develop a very popular feature for the forum members. It’s known as B.o.T.S. Can you explain what it actually is and the aim of the forum games?
LFOW: B.o.T.S. is a forum game we organise on a weekly basis which pits girl gamers against boy gamers in a set of gruelling online battles. It stands for Battle of the Sexes.
B.o.T.S. was originally Firey’s idea. In fact she considers herself the ‘Birth Mother’ of the project. She asked me to help out so I consider myself to be the evil stepdad. I organise the boys, she organises the girls and we both collaborate behind the scenes about rules, game choice, game types etc.
The goals of B.o.T.S. is to have fun and meet some of the great people we have on the forums and on Xbox Live. Also, because there’s always an Xbox Ambassador or Xbox.com moderator in a B.o.T.S. game it provides a safe playing environment. This is especially important for the girls who can be subject to a lot of abuse when they join random matchmaking on Live…
GG: I’ve had the pleasure of taking part in some forum games and I must say they are extremely fun! You also gave me the opportunity to lead the boys team on the Call of Duty: World at War forum game. I guess the main thing really is to enjoy yourself and meet new people?
LFOW: Indeed. It’s all about the people on the forum getting to know each other. You can build friendships on the forum but those friendships become closer when you start playing with them online. That’s what B.o.T.S. is really about. The whole girls vs boys this is just a gimmick but it does give the games a more exciting dynamic which wouldn’t be there if it was just boys v boys.
How did you enjoy your B.o.T.S. experience and will you be up for captaining some more games in the future?
GG: The B.o.T.S. experience was extremely enjoyable and I would definitely be up for assisting in future!Being a fellow Scot, and meeting each other via the Xbox.com forums, can you advise our readers the benefits of using the Official Forums?
LFOW: There are many different benefits to the forums and many different types of forum users. At it’s simplest you can find out the answer to a question you have about Xbox. At it’s most complex you can join the community, get involved, build applications or websites to help promote the community, run forum games, meet new friends, build your friends list etc.
The forums can be whatever you want them to be and I urge anyone who has an interest in Xbox gaming to come and have a look. It’s a very friendly place with many great people.
GG: Is there anything that you would like to change about the forums?
LFOW: I’d like to see more incentives for good behaviour. I feel a better method of control is always through reward rather than punishment. I don’t have any answers for this, but say as an example you could link ‘perks’ to the different levels of CUL? CUL1 has no benefits and can only post in black, no emoticons etc. CUL2 gets to add colour to their text and use a limited selection of emoticons and so on… CUL 7 or 8 could maybe even get to add an image to their sig…
I’m sure I could come up with lots of great ideas for improvement if I had more time to sit and think about it…
GG: Those sound like really good ideas. Hopefully we’ll see some positive changes to the already successful forums. Ok, next question then; E3 is just around the corner. Is there anything specific you can’t wait to see?
LFOW: No. I’m in a huff about that actually. I was looking forward to seeing some more of Dead Rising 2 but that’s not making an appearance. Stupid pig flu.
I hope there are a few announcements that surprise me though, that would be great.
GG: What do think about Microsoft’s approach to the casual market? With the introduction of NXE, Avatars and the possibility of a motion-sensing device being revealed at E3?
LFOW: My sister bought herself her first ever video game last week. That says a lot about Nintendo’s marketing strategy. The casual market is far too big for Microsoft to ignore and I don’t blame them for taking a punt at it. I really do hope they are clever enough not to rely on gimmicky control methods though.
So casual games, yeah I don’t mind at all. It doesn’t matter what label you give a game as long as the game itself is fun to play, that’s what I think.
GG: Do you utilise your Xbox for other thing rather than gaming? Such as a watching movies or listening to music?
LFOW: Now this is a leading question Mr Steveo… You know fine well that your guide helped me set up media sharing between my Xbox and PC. I think you just want a wee plug…
Yes I quite often use my Xbox to stream video from my PC so I can watch videos on my TV instead of my PC monitor. I originally tried to use Media Center but the lack of support for certain video codecs made it pretty much a waste of time. Then yes, Scottish Steveo educated me one day and told me the Xbox supported Xvid as well as DivX…etc. His guide helped me set up a media share between my PC and the Xbox 360 and now I can watch my episodes of The Office (US version) in comfort. Cheers bud.
Still not cracked HD content yet though…
GG: I’ve downloaded the beta version of Windows 7 and you’ll be happy to know that Media Centre is compatible with HD content and it works through the Xbox. I’ve found a few bugs etc but this should be resolved with the public release later this year!
Anyway, back to the questions! What’s your favourite Xbox 360 game and why?
LFOW: Dead Rising still. It was the reason I bought a 360 and I still love it. I’m a huge zombie movie nut and this game appealed to me because it was the first game to have a huge number of zombies on screen at any one time, and that’s the point of zombies isn’t it?, huge swarms of them!
I also like the sophisticated, old-school feel with big secrets to find (zombie Jessie anyone?), a choice of how you play (play the cases, choose to mess around, infinity mode), secret items, different endings and the punishing save system.
It was a very innovative title too being probably the only game I can think of which you can’t fully complete it on your first play through. It made you re-play the game over and over to level your character. A lot of people didn’t like this innovation but I thought it was genius.
GG: There’s a lot of popular games due for release this year. Is there any specific one you can’t wait to get your hands on?
LFOW: As I was such a huge fan of Dead Space I am looking forward to seeing Dante’s Inferno. Also Mass Effect 2, maybe Alan Wake and I guess I’ll pick up MW2 although I’m not a big COD player. I can’t really think of much else for this year though. What I’m really looking forward to is Dead Rising 2 and Final Fantasy XIII but they’re not coming this year sadly…
GG: Do you enjoy any more genres over others when playing Xbox or do you like most games?
LFOW: I will play mostly anything but I’m a big RPG fan, preferring strategic, turn-based JRPGs such as the Lost Odyssey over action-RPGs such as Oblivion/Fallout 3. I’m also a retro-junkie and love the XBLA, I buy way too many arcade games…
GG: Are there any old retro games that you would love to see hit XBLA? If so, which ones?
LFOW: I’d like to see Julian Gollop bring Laser Squad Nemesis (pictured below) to XBLA. I think it would work great over Live and I love that style of game. Also I’d like to trade in my copy of Outrun Online Arcade for the 1986 original please, it was miles better…
GG: What do you get up to in your spare time? (Apart from playing Xbox and moderating the forums of course!).
LFOW: Apart from work I play guitar and have been in many bands over the years. I also develop websites, apps and games.
GG: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. One last question for you before you go though. If you could be any specific game character, who would you choose and why?
LFOW: The purple tetrimino. Everybody loves him. He is friends with all the other tetriminoes and will happily slot in anywhere to make them all feel at home. He’s versatile and very much a team player…
Recent Comments