Xbox Live Aware Opens the Doors Between Online and Offline Games
Imagine this scenario: You get home from work, school, band camp … whatever, and you feel like playing a little Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon™ 2. So you pop it into your Xbox® and look around for a game on Xbox Live®. Only none of your clan members are online. This annoys you. How dare they? So you have two choices: You could go do your homework, mow the lawn, or practice playing the trumpet; or, you could pop in an Xbox Live Aware title and play a fun offline game while you wait for your buddies to get their butts on Xbox Live.
Here's how it works. When you insert an offline game with Xbox Live Aware (look for such titles on the Xbox Live games list) into your Xbox, it automatically searches for an Xbox Live account. If you're an Xbox Live subscriber, you're logged into the service. Now, this doesn't make your offline game magically Xbox Live-enabled (sorry, Halo® fans; try Halo® 2), but it does give you the ability to keep track of what's happening on Xbox Live. You can quickly check your Friends List to see if any of those slackers have logged on. Plus, your friends are able to see that you're online and send you game invites that pop up in the game you're playing—just like a cross-game invite between two Xbox Live-enabled games. So when your clan members log on to Xbox Live, they send you a Ghost Recon 2 game invite, you load up the Ghost disc, and away you go!
Xbox Live Aware opens the doors that once separated online and offline games. As Xbox Live Aware program manager Andrew Murphy says, "It's the icing on the cake. Once a lot of games use Xbox Live Aware, you'll wonder what you ever did without it."
