When I joined Xbox Live in mid 2003, the first thing I did was hop on the Moto GP Online Demo. Little did I know that the game would provide me hundreds of hours of entertainment, create some of the longest lasting friendships of my life, and still be my favorite racing game four years later.

In my first ever race, and my first ever session on Xbox Live, I remember viewing the experience as something just holding on by a single thread. I remember thinking of online gaming as something that could break at any moment, and was an extremely delicate and complex operation that could self-destruct at any moment. And I remember feeling a real sense of power in the fact that at any moment I could speak and 16 people would hear me. I remember someone named "Ninja Pimp" who was being very annoying. :)

Well four years later much of that excitement is gone, but somehow when I think of Moto GP I still consider it perfect. While I didn't realize the fact at the time, Moto GP was the kind of racing game I would still love to play today, if any developer thought a game could survive on such a simplistic model. For me, what makes Moto GP such a great racing game is the fact that the "hardcore" didn't count on their setup, or their specially crafted motorcycle to get them to the top of the scoreboards. The only thing that stood between the player and greatness was the players willingness to race lap after lap, trying the hardest he or she could to move up in the overall leaderboard. The game didn't have bike setups, which is why it all came down to racing skill, and manhandling the bike around the course, not the perfect tire pressures and other options all of today's semi-realistic racing gamesnow rely on.

But even such a perfect competitive environment wouldn't be complete without a way of ranking that makes sense. This is something that Moto GP is still completely unbeaten in. The scoreboards for the game were very simple. You had an overall rank, and a rank on each track. Ranking was all determined by best lap times. The overall scoreboard was all of your best lap times for each track added together. Yes, it's a simple system, but it also works extremely well. Who cares about things like ELO and other ranking systems games like Forza attempt to introduce? This is the way ranking in racing games should be done!

But anywho, Moto GP got so many things right, and does so many things better then any titles after it. I think the game has a special place in the heart of most early Xbox Live adopters, but to me Moto GP is perfection on so many levels, and the start of amazing friendships that I still have today. For the 5th anniversary of Xbox Live, thank you Microsoft. For the small price of just $49.99 a year you have given me so much more then I could have ever imagined.