When David Harr grew frustrated over being 60 Achievement points short of finishing (the decidedly mediocre) Perfect Dark Zero, guess which he chose? Yup, like any true nerd worth his salt, Harr drew on his experience as a car mechanic and electronics know-how to construct a robotic device (which he christened xBot) that would gain those last 60 points for him, all without Harr having to lift a finger. Over the top? Perhaps to some, but there was method in Harr's madness.
See, the points that had eluded Harr would normally have taken 40 hours to unlock, and can only be racked up by playing 2,000 offline deathmatches. xBot's duty was straightforward enough, then: to press the two buttons on the Xbox 360 controller that would repeatedly start and re-start each of the 2,000 required matches.
"I reverse engineered the problem and came up with the xBot," explained Harr to the BBC. "I calculated that it would take about 40 hours of gameplay just pushing two buttons to start and re-start a game. With my electronics experience, I wondered if there was something that could push those two buttons for me so I could go about my daily life."
US$60 (AU$80 / £32) and ten hours later, xBot was born, yet Harr is adamant his device isn't an unethical form of cheating: "This is not playing online on Xbox Live - it is not playing against other people. That would be unethical. If I was recording button presses and joystick movements and duplicated that to help people bump up their scores, then there is money involved - that would not be ethical. This is a one trick pony, getting you just 60 points. It's not stepping on anyone's toes."
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