The xBot
When the going gets tough, the tough build robots. For David Harr, Perfect Dark Zero got tough when it came to the two Achievements awarded for playing 1,000 Deathmatch and DarkOps games. “I’d already played Perfect Dark Zero for 50-plus hours for the other multiplayer Achievements,” says Harr, whose gamertag is Diego Knyte. “I got pretty good at knocking out several of them simultaneously.”
But rather than slog through 2,000 multiplayer games manually, Harr crafted the awesome xBot to do it for him. A mix of TTL logic circuits, solenoids, and Meccano construction-set parts that crouch around a cradle for a 360 controller, the xBot presses Start to begin an online bot match, then hits B to quit out of the game and find another. When the lowest possible frag limits are set up, the xBot can slam through about 40 games an hour and get each Achievement in a little more than a day. Its owner gets to sleep.
Why play more? The xBot will get those Perfect Dark Achievements for you.
Which begs the question: Isn’t building a robot to boost your stats kinda...unfair? “I had no problem making this with regards to cheating,” responds Harr, whose other hobbies and projects can be seen at www.dknyte.com. “In the end, I saw an opportunity to use my skills to perform this particular task at hand. Downloading saved games to knock out 1,000 points through one download and a half-hour of game-time — now that’s cheating."
For our two cents, Harr’s mad-genius powers alone mean those Achievements are richly deserved.
A binary counter triggers the solenoids that push Start and B.
The xBot's rear is a delicate nest of handwired TTL circuits.
Harr says the xBot took about 10 hours to design. Time well spent!
See the Xbot in action, then check out Diego Knyte's website for more interesting experiements...
Dan OXM (not verified)
December 04, 2007 at 4:08pm
The nice thing about the web is that some people are finding OXM content for the first time, because they didn't have a subscription when these articles ran. As long as they are still relevant and interesting, we're keen to post them. So it's good old memories for some readers and totally fresh content for others. Win-win. The Xbox laptop is coming, too. :)
djpotatohead
December 03, 2007 at 12:55pm
talking about older articles...i want to see the one about the xbox 360 laptop. I have the magazine somewhere but i don't want to dig for it.
Crackedcactus
December 01, 2007 at 8:34pm
They should give this guy the extra 250+ points that Rare could use in a dc. The xBot earns it. Semper Fidelis
Ghost
November 28, 2007 at 8:44pm
Commenting on what Bennanias brought up, I didn't even know this was an old article must have over looked this article or just wasn't part of the OXM community when this article ran, so yes please put older articles up on the site. Now for the robot thing, this is very cool although I do not know much about Perfect Dark Zero, this seems pretty legal. Props to him for making this, wish I could do something like this. ______________________________ http://gameghost.blogspot.com/
CAWeissen
November 28, 2007 at 6:03pm
I agree with Bennanias on this one. Keep on putting up some of the older articles! I especially liked the custom faceplate one in the September '06 issue, as well as the book excerpts.
Bennanias
November 28, 2007 at 5:36pm
he earned, and technically he didnt do anything against CoC. didnt use a save or have or cheat. to xbl, he did it legit. it's cool to see old articles on the site, the articles are bigger and they are fun to read again at my leisure.
kHz Glitch
November 28, 2007 at 3:50pm
I think that he's earned those achievements if he did that work and design, thats a good enough accomplishment
Connect with OXM Online
Featured Content
Does it hold up, or are we looking back through yellow rose-colored glasses?
For the first time, the Xbox 360 has become the top-selling console in the world for...
Does focusing on a single character create a better Dead Island experience?
This month's issue
Features
Ninja Gaiden 3!
Reviews
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Previews
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, I Am Alive, Asura's Wrath
OXM Twitter Feed
- OXM: Happy Weekend! To kick it off, we've got your YouTube-filled, sarcasm-laced weekly Xbox news roundup column: Inbox! http://t.co/3ZdpuZjs9 hours 13 min ago
- OXM: REVIEW: Is The Simpsons Arcade Game as good as we remember? Read on for our verdict: http://t.co/TrmBr3gr @Konami11 hours 54 min ago
- OXM: Global sales leaderboards reveal Xbox 360 as the number one selling console on the planet in 2011. http://t.co/U5EPMimD12 hours 22 min ago
