With April 1^st upon us, it’s about time to prepare for the battlefield known as April Fool’s Day. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to wreak havoc on your friends, prank your gamer pals and put your brilliant gamer brain to work. Canadian community member Keadin has come up with some sure-fire ways to make this April Fool’s Day the best ever.

Xbox Prankster: Your Guide to a Gamer’s April Fool’s

By Justin Amirkhani, GeneralGames.ca

Possessed Controller!

Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action is an excellent game and it comes with four Big Button controllers and a wireless receiver that connects right into the Xbox 360. The controllers are small, easy to use with one hand, and awfully discreet, perfect for a prank. Not many know this, but the Scene It? controllers actually can operate on the Dashboard. The Big Button on the controller actually works as a D-pad and can be used to easily navigate around menus.

To set up the prank, plug in the wireless receiver to the 360, hiding it somewhere accessible, but hidden. Stash a Big Button controller in your pocket and when your friend sits down to check out the latest Marketplace content, simply tap the edges of the Big Button pad to move their selections around. They’ll have no idea you’re controlling it and will be convinced their controller’s going haywire.

Advise them to take out the batteries, and let the controller resync, perhaps that’s the problem. When they follow your suggestion and remove the battery pack from their wireless controller keep moving the menus around with your secret controller. The system will look like it’s operating all on its own. For added effect, open up their message inbox and write a new text reading something along the lines of “This is the ghost of Gamers Past! Get out… GET OUT!!!”

If your friend is not running for the door already, be sure to remotely shut down the system by holding the Guide button and selecting Shut Down System. This is the one prank I don’t recommend revealing. It’s an excellent way to make their experience with Condemned 2: Bloodshot a whole lot scarier.

Lost in Translation

It’s a little known fact that the Xbox 360 is actually a great tool for learning new languages. If your friend has ever expressed a longing for a trip to Japan, or just needs to brush up on their Portuguese, feel free to give them a hand and force them to at least learn how to say ‘Open Tray’ in a foreign tongue.

If you open the dashboard of any Xbox 360 and flip to the System Blade you will find an option within called Console Settings. Within Console Settings there is an option to change the console’s default language. My favourites include Korean, Japanese and Chinese, all with characters vastly different from the English language. With these, there is no way they’ll be able to decipher the different options and it’ll really put to test their memory of the dashboard.

Don’t forget, once you’ve had your laugh you can easily change the language back by going all the way to the left-most (purple) System Blade, select the first option, and then the third. You’ll be back at the list of languages and you can kindly restore it to their native tongue.

Inbox Surprise

Messaging friends is a great way to set up online game session, check up on each other or even just say “hi!” With the Xbox Live Vision Camera you can even send photos of you waving, or holding up your favourite game. It’s quick and easy to do and everyone can do it, Gold and Silver members. That also means that for a long-distance prankster options are still available, even if you can’t mess your friends locally.

To set up this one, you’re going to need a new Silver account. These are free and easy to create through the Xbox 360 Dashboard and are a great way to get connected without the subscription of a Gold account. When setting up your account be sure to pick a gamertag that’s bound to have your friend interested, “ContestWinnar” or something similar should suffice for our nefarious purposes.

Send your friend a text message congratulating them on winning a contest with Xbox LIVE and, to claim their free download code, check out the attached image for the number. When they open the full message be sure it’s an image of you with your best ‘You just got served!’ face, and an accompanying voice message reminding them of how gullible they are.

Well, there you go. You are now fully armed to wreak havoc on your friends and relatives this April Fool’s Day. Just remember, what goes around comes around and keep these, and all pranks, in the spirit of fun.