Xbox Ambassador Spotlight #17 - GrathiusXR

Tuesday, 02 February 2010 07:49

Gamertag: GrathiusXR

Time as Xbox Ambassador: One Week.

Most Knowledgeable Genre(s): First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters, Action, Adventure, Fighting, Open Sandbox, Sport & Music Games.

Time Zone and Time when Online and on Forums on an average day? Australian Eastern Standard Time. UTC+10:00. I usually browse the Australia General Forums all day or whenever I get the chance, & If I'm at TAFE then in on the forums the whole time whilst in class.

If I'm at home playing the Xbox then I browse the forums as well. Usually browsing the forums every chance I get is the best way to stay in touch with what's happening. If there's a day or 2 where I don't check the forums sometimes I miss out on some good information.

What was the main reason you had for becoming an Xbox Ambassador and how did you become aware of the program itself? Well to start off this guy who goes by the name of Anchorman Mazda sent around one of those Message to all Friends thing saying that the Ambassador Program had be re-opened.

Seeing as the whole time I've been writing for OXCGN.com I've been helping out people anywhere I can I thought It would be a great idea to apply to become an Official Xbox Ambassador. It's a great novelty to have that icon displayed on the Xbox Forums so that people can see that, “Hey this guys is knowledgeable so If I need help I can ask him”.

There's no greater achievement than being recognized as an Xbox Ambassador and having the chance to be a global and local go-to person whenever there's a gamer or forum user who needs an answer or help regarding certain things.

What would you consider your 'specialty' area? My specialty area would have to be Xbox LIVE and games in general. I do know my technical stuff but usually a good Google Search can come up with some great answers that I would never have thought off.

Games in general as I purchase and play a lot of games in a variety of genres as mentioned above. Usually whatever game is in at the time of release I am straight on it, so right now Mass Effect 2 is the hot game which I'm playing.

Soon Dante's Inferno is out so I'll be spending my time in Hell and defeating its minions. I'm usually very informed about news regarding most games being released on the 360 and that's good as I don't just have one special game I know about but a very broad range.

I can help and answer questions about a whole variety of games that people will need help with and that’s my biggest strong point being knowledgeable in a variety of genres to help a broader community.

What would you consider is your greatest contribution to the Xbox Community? My greatest contribution would have to have been just over a year or 2 ago. I used to hold Australia Xbox Community Game Nights every Friday for certain games.

Mainly like the Community Playdates that Xbox does now via the Xbox Dashboard. Halo 3 was a big one with 2 full rooms of 16 players and we challenged those who were attending to create a map in Forge where everyone would play it.

Then at the end of the night both rooms would vote the best Forge Map and the winner received a 3000 MSP card. That was great as the community was greatly involved and enthusiastic about it.

Another night we had which I believe was our biggest and best was Shadowrun. Why? Not only did we have a full room of ShadowRun on Friday night we had 2 full rooms of ShadowRun on Saturday and Sunday.

This very-underrated game was extremely popular at the time of its release and it was so unique and fun that we stretched the Friday Community Night over the weekend. That was something special and to see the community actually ask for it to be a weekend was great.

How do you best recommend that other gamers contact you should they ever require help in the future? The best way to contact me is via Xbox LIVE with either a text message or voice message and also via a PM on the Xbox.com Forums. As I write for a community game site my Friend List is at 90 right now & I leave those 10 spare spaces for friend requests from people I know in the industry or friends.

Also I don't accept random friend requests from people I've never seen before. Sometimes all they want is to ask a question so just sending me a text/voice message is the best way to go. As I'll reply to that the moment I read/listen to it but with Friend Requests that have no message attached I usually reply asking where I know you and delete them because they actually do take up the Friend List space.

We've seen a recent influx of new Xbox Ambassadors admitted to the program. What would you like to see done to further promote the program to the wider Community on both a domestic and international scale? Feature the Xbox Ambassador Program via the Xbox Dashboard. I only heard about the program being re-opened because of as I said Anchorman Mazda sent a message around. If it weren't for that I would not have known and would have missed out on the chance to be a helpful poster on the Forums and Xbox LIVE.

The Australian Xbox Dashboard is extremely behind America and our dashboard features a few different things than the US. So having it on the Dashboard would be a great way to appeal to a much wider international scale.

As many gamers here in Australia would love to be more recognised on the same scale as the Americans do and whilst our gaming market isn’t as big as the US we do have a lot of dedicated gamers who want to do their part in helping.

If you could provide any information on a specific genre or game, what would it be? Hmm ... game I would say Mass Effect 2 and the whole 3rd Person RPG genre as a whole. Don't rush these games people!

Also don't give up within 5 minutes or 1 hour. I know plenty who have told me this game sucks and they only ever played 20 minutes of it. Bioshock 1 for example just the other week a forum poster said that they have no clue what is so good about this game.

Everything they are doing is worthless and has no meaning... a few hours later and he came back to praise how good the game is and how much they actually loved it. They had not encountered the Big Daddy or the plasmids yet so they thought the game was pretty boring and nothing special.

But once they saw the Bid Daddy do its damage and receive a few plasmids they loved it.

Don't play a game for a short period of time and bad mouth it give it some time the more you get involved and progress in the story the better it will become. Same goes with Mass Effect 2.

I've put in 20+ hours so far and I'm finding new things to love the game even more. Games like these need time and effort and care, If you involve and engage yourself in the world you'll get out as much as you put in. There's so much to do in the world/universe and if you don't explore you won't get the full experience you're meant to get.

Oh and on that note always play the 1st games in the trilogy as well Mass Effect 2 is that much better of a game because of the choices that affect the universe and the experience had in Mass Effect 1. Playing ME2 and not ME1 will mean that the story as a whole and experience will not be as engaging.

You’re connection to old characters will not be the same, your hatred to others will be meaningless and your in-game choice(s) will not be as hard to decide. There are moments now where I have to literally sit and think exactly which choice I want to choose.

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