What were your fondest Original Xbox Live memories?

I ended up getting Xbox Live kind of late in the Xbox life cycle. I played soooo much Halo 2 and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory had some of my fondest memories. So many necks snapped and spies whacked. I was actually a really terrible spy but an amazing merc. I placed motion mines in some clever spots. Sometimes behind geometry. I think I rolled mainly with the shotgun. Good times. What are your fondest memories?

that's one douchey commercial

a lot of halo 2.... a lot of it

Way to much Halo 2, Splinter Cell, and one of the Rainbow 6 games ( pre Vegas ). It's funny, I have never played as much online as I did then. I rarely play anything competitive anymore.

Playing some Halo 2 really. Never owned an original Xbox.

Getting completely hooked on Halo 2.

Playing Zombies in Halo 2 was hilarious, especially since there was nothing to force people to team change after being infected so it was a sort of honor-system.

Playing a shit ton of PSO, I missed the original release so on xbox it was all new to me. I put so many hours into that game.

Splinter Cell spies v mercs was also great fun and one of my favourite multiplayer modes ever.

RalliSport Challenge 2. Experts agree, it's a damn fine game and was the first time I got really into an online console experience.

Hooking up to Live for the first time, and playing Halo 2. And playing lots of Halo: CE 4-player split-screen, which was also the very last game I played in split-screen.

My favorite memory though is stealthing my way through the original Splinter Cell.

Playing Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory Multiplayer. I played with two guys almost nightly we got to the point where we had routines for every map and would bet on how long it took the other team to rage quit. It happened more often than not when we played Mercs as its almost entirely possible on EVERY level to trap the spies in their spawn. That game was my religion .

So much halo 2. That was the peak of my online multiplayer gaming days I'd say. Every one of my closest friends was on constantly. Playing online hasn't been the same since.

Another vote on Halo 2, LOTS and LOTS of Halo 2.

Chaos Theory, Rainbow Six 3, Halo 2. The greats.

Halo 2 tons of it, i bought all the DLC for that game. Bungie was pretty ahead of its time with console DLC, they released tons of maps for the game and they were all free.

@zombie2011: They only went free after being released for a few months. The map packs were ten bucks when they each hit.

As with everyone else here - Halo 2. Enough so that I was good enough to want to compete in the early eSports scene and played online with some semi-pros and pros here and there. Good times. 
 
My best overall memory is playing 1v1 on Lockout and Warlock. 

Oh man...it's a toss up between LANing it up at my buddy's house to play Halo on 4 different TVs/Xbox(es), or the first time I played Black, and fired an RPG into the side of an office building and watched the glass and concrete shower over the sheet. That was a mind blowing moment for me when I realized what video games would eventually become.

The night I got my Xbox (well after launch) I set up Xbox LIVE with the free 3-day pass that came with it. I stayed up all night playing the MechAssault demo online. There was a surprising amount of people playing it, even though it was old by then and there were only 2 mechs to choose from. I recall there being a sweet southern gentleman, an annoying kid, a black guy, and myself who were all talking via headset. The black dude kept murdering the kid for being annoying. I recall him saying "Come back here and take your medicine!" a few times and that always stuck with me. I use that phrase to this day. It was so much fun. I didn't play many online games on my PC, and I had only played Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence online a couple times. This was the first time I had played something online where people were talking to one another. We had a lot of fun for hours. It was one of those instances where you form an extremely strong bond with someone over a short period of time, only to never speak to them again. It's known by both parties. You know you'll never see this person again, and so do they. But for that brief period of time they're your best friend. Partner in crime. And then you part ways forever.

"Fond" is not necessarily how I think about the original xbox's online experience.

I have A LOT of fond memories of playing LAN Halo with my buddies, but the newness of Xbox Live wore off rather quickly once the behavior of a lot of the folks on the service stared to wear on me. Listening to people pump crappy music into their headsets, swear nonstop in incomprehensible ways, and 12 years olds who love to drop ethnic and sexual-orientation related slurs fast and furious as part of their "trash talking" repertoire are the things that dominate my memories. So like I said, "fond" isn't how I remember Xbox Live from back in the day.

Not that things have changed much, except that I can now more easily mute voice chat features.

Free Roam GTA4. My goodness my gut hurt from laughing most nights with my buddies and I doing randaom stuff.

project gotham racing 2.

cat and mouse on the nurburgring was endless fun. as was just the races

PGR3 nailed it though

The best memory I have from live 1.0 is the time I spent playing Halo 2 after the live servers were "officially" cut off - anyone still in Halo 2 was not booted and could continue using the service if left on. It was great coming home to see if it was still working and getting a bunch of games in with the newly formed community of holdouts. Numbers dwindled down as time passed and although I was extremely disappointed when my 360 froze, ending my time with it, I was grateful I got to have so much fun with Halo 2 one last time.

Halo 2.

Three words: Spies. Versus. Mercs.

Halo 2

So much Halo 2. I especially have fond memories of playing custom Infected game modes in Halo 2.

@gunninkr said:

Free Roam GTA4. My goodness my gut hurt from laughing most nights with my buddies and I doing randaom stuff.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh "Original Xbox Live Memories". GTA IV was not on the original Xbox.

well i first got into xbox live wiht my 360 and when i first got my 360 it had been out for awhile.

my first xbox live experience was probably Halo 3 online when i got cussed out by a teammate for taking a vehicle he wanted. like cussed out BAD. racial slurs, huge swears, it was awesome. like i didnt react badly to it and i didnt even have a headset, but MAN that guy was mad i took the flying thingy and ended up crashing it. he was SUPER mad.

halo 2

i remember vividly the big team battle games where almost all of the 16 players knew what to do, firing and taking cover, sticking together, firing and taking cover, gaining ground, bit by bit, with the battlefront focused on one moving area.

then came the casuals and polluted the population with their inferior blood.

Most of my experiences with the early Xbox Live online were good. Occasionally, there would be a tool who'd spout something offensive or blast some unrecognizable song over the headset, but those were few and far between back then. Most gamers were just looking to have fun in a relaxed environment. I remember staying up to two or three in the morning playing Rainbow Six Raven Shield, MechAssault and Project Gotham Racing. We'd goof around but still play as serious as we could. I don't know what happened over the years and why it turned so dark, but back then it was a mostly positive experience.

Come to think of it, I stopped using Xbox Live regularly around the time Halo 2 went online.

In Halo 2, me and some friends spent so much time playing plasma-grenade-only matches on Lockout and Midship that in normal games afterwards we'd just never miss a throw. People got pretty annoyed about it.

Rainbow Six 3 and Black Arrow. Still the best FPS games I've ever played.