Halo 3 Reclaims throne atop XBL, again
Well that didn’t last very long. Major Nelson’s regularly irregular log of Activity on XBL shows that gears Gears of War’s reign at the top of XBOXLive is over … at least for now. Over at his blog, Major Nelson shows that Gears of War 2 has sunk to second, while Halo 3 reclaimed it’s throne atop the most played games list on XBL. Hit the jump to see how far COD has fallen.
Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Halo 3
2 Gears of War 2
3 CoD: World at War
4 Call of Duty 4
5 GTA IV
6 Fable II
7 Left 4 Dead
8 Madden NFL 09
9 Fallout 3
10 FIFA 09Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)
1 Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
2 A Kingdom for Keflings
3 UNO
4 Castle Crashers
5 Worms
6 Portal: Still Alive
7 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8 Aegis Wing
9 Bomberman Live
10 Assault HeroesThe above arcade list is based on full versions purchased.
Original Xbox Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Halo 2
2 Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
3 Fable
4 Counter-Strike
5 Call of Duty 3
6 Battlefield 2: MC
7 Conker: Live Reloaded
8 Street Fighter Anniv.
9 Star Wars: Battlefront
10 Splinter Cell ChaosThese lists are based on global unique users connected to Xbox Live or in the case of Arcade, full versions purchased that week.
While Gears of War’s matchmaking issues are most likely to blame for the change, why would a game over a year old be more popular than these recently released titles? And why does Major Nelson seem to have no pattern about when he posts this info?
stupid map pack sale
Halo 3 is an amazing game. The number of people still playing it speaks for itself.
Speaks for itself eh?
To me it says “as many jock frat r-tards that played H1 for 4 years are now playing H3 for 4 years.”
Or people that just, y’know, enjoy having fun.
It’s Halo, not Madden.
Yeah, COD is still waiting for a Call for duty.
You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s absolutely no comparison between Halo 3 and COD 4 or WAW. COD is far better graphically, tactically and in terms of depth to the single player campaign. COD4 in particular shines in single player with some absolutely stunning moments that had me gob smacked.
Halo 3 on the other hand is Space Invaders 3D with very little story at all. I’m not saying it isn’t good. It’s a great game for certain, particularly when it comes to multiplayer, but it can’t shine the boots of COD in any respect. It has to be the map pack sale that’s put it back at the top. There’s no other logical reason.
Which is why CoD is both 3rd and 4th… Add them together and you have 1st =P
COD has the same old “War Hero” Campaign. It’s been done way too many times. And saying that Halo has “very little story at all”???? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? ARE YOU STUPID??? HAVE YOU EVEN PLAYED HALO???
Explain to me the “plot” of Halo without sounding like a complete moron. If you can.
Plot is secondary in Halo whereas the story in say COD4 has far more universal appeal with greater emotional content and significant changes in direction. Halo = see bad guys, shoot em. Hooray for the heroes…
Halo’s a great game, but please don’t pretend to me that it has depth. It’s Space Invaders 3D. A VERY GOOD Space Invaders 3D, but let’s not pretend it has any more depth than that because the “plot” that you say is there is VERY thin on the ground.
That’s like saying “Commando” with Arnie in it has a plot. It doesn’t make it terrible without one, but don’t claim it has a plot because it doesn’t.
Based on that synopsis, you’ve obviously never paid attention to the Halo games.
I could just as easily replace Halo with Call of Duty in what you said. Generic war in a generic middle eastern country (there’s your “universal appeal”) and a rogue political leader that bought a nuke from the Russians (oh no! A plot twist!). Americans and British fight the bad guys and win and the mentor dies (emotional content! *sob*). Espionage movies have been using plots like that for years. See bad guys (arabs/commies… yay generic enemies that have been used for the past three decades!), and shoot.
See how easily things can be simplified?
If you had actually given a thought to the story through the Halo games, you’d see the detail included and references to previous conflicts in the history, as well as the political contexts and things like the detail in the caste system of the Covenant. Just accept the fact that both games have entertaining and in depth stories, whether you paid attention to them or not.
Btw, MetaDemon, both games have “war hero” campaigns.
Seeing COD and “tactic” in the same sentence made me laugh.
I’m not sure why. COD is more tactical than Halo, full stop. Surely you’re not saying Halo is a more tactical game than COD? I haven’t seen it, I have to be honest.
He cetrainly isn’t. Halo is Run n Gun Heavy, COD is Run n Gun Lite … and games nothing like these two (ahem R6) are tactical shooters.
I can tell you with certainty that if all you’re going to do is run around, shoot and then pray, you won’t get too far in a game of Halo.
The shields alone make run n gun a void argument for Halo.
4 headshots versus 1.
don’t get me wrong, I like the differences between the two. They compliment each other, but offer very different gameplay experiences.
And any way you slice it, I pwn at both games so…..
pwn….how lame…. :(
Kevin nailed it. Both games are fun, and both can work with tactical gameplay… but generally, players don’t use tactics. They resort to the same cheap strategies as often as possible. If you want a tactical FPS, those games most certainly are not them. Go for R6 or even Battlefield.
At which point, I enjoy fucking their days up. :P
Whoops, those two last sentences got mixed up.
Gears 2 is such a magnificent failure that a game my grandfather once played is able to reclaim the crown. I guess Epic should have focused on improving their atrocious netcode instead of picking their ass for the last 2 years. Although it’s no surprise halo would experience a resurgence– before the xbl update you had to enter the konami code to actually communicate with your teammates in this game, now you can just use party chat to bypass bungie’s incompetence.
there is no denying that COD4 delivers the best multiplayer experience ive ever played, but it still isnt more FUN than halo.
And whoever said halo has no story, ur a fukn tard. educate yourself.
And you obviously won this year’s spelling bee…
Explain the plot, if you can, showing the shifts in dynamic and direction and character development where appropriate.
It’s amazing how upset some people become when other people express their opinion if it differs from their own. If you think it has a deep and emotionally enriching plot. Great. I’m pleased for you. But respect the fact that I’m looking for more from a plot to actually define it as having one.
And we’re not talking global politics here. It’s a game guys. Lighten the f-ck up.
“Explain the plot, if you can, showing the shifts in dynamic and direction and character development where appropriate.”
followed by:
“It’s a game guys. Lighten the f-ck up”
open mouth, insert foot.
Repeat.
And I think that if you really have such a hard on to figure out the plot, you could do yourself a favour and pick up any of the 5 full length novels.
A generic made up war is no better plot than a generic sci-fi made up war. In fact, it’s less memorable. I don’t even remember the name of ANY characters in CoD4.
I remember Soap and Gaz. Just because I wished I had a sweet nickname like Soap or Gaz.
I thought COD’s campaign mode was memorable in terms of keeping me interested (the ending was fantastic), but I think Halo’s over-arching plot is more interesting and it’s certainly far more in depth.
Honestly You all know one day that you get bored of the game your currently playing….Your gonna go back to Halo, thats what kind of game it is…. It’s like your mom you want her to leave you alone but she keeps coming back. Who cares about specs and shit Halo is just an amazing game, and the campaign is 3 games long unlike COD which cant decide whether to stay in the present or past
The fact that all these people supposedly keep going back to the same game tells me one thing. Not that its a great game, but obviously everything else on your system sucks and your system has no games. If Xbox is so great why aren’t people talking about all its great games, instead all they do is talk about Halo 2 months and months after it came out. You call it having fun, I call it you don’t have shit else to play, but you keep calling it whatever you have to in order to make you feel better about your stupid ass purchase. PURE CRAP!
The fact that you keep coming back to let loose your lame fucking opinion with no basis in fact tells me one thing.
You don’t have any more movies worth watching or even one game worth playing on your Blu-Ray player.
You call that what you want until you get the next installment of Barney the purple spastic dinosaur in HD on Blu-Ray to keep you amused for another year
Fucking flapping mongoloid fuckwit cunt.
Hey. Leave Barney out of this!
Your mother is a fucking mongoloid cunt. Oh and sadly your pathetic little rants about what I say just comes off as total jealousy. I’m really sorry your to poor to afford a PS3 and have had to settle for a worthless system but hey that’s your problem not mine, so why don’t you stop crying about it you big pussy.
‘Too poor’?
It’s in taste, why spend so much money for something you’re not gonna use?
That’s your opinion, an opinion not shared by 17+ million people. I use mine all the time and I’m sure those 17+ million people do to. When where not playing the best exclusive video games, where watching high def movies on BluRay, you know BluRay, the format that one the HD format war.
Good one, I find the best insults known to man are when you take something someone has just said then repeat it exactly but make out you said it first.
Oh…. by the way, you’re a fag.
“A fag” that’s really very clever, did you come up with that all on your own or did you get your faggot father to help you with it.
I know you keep wishing I was gay Glovner, that way you wont be the only one, but I’ll tell you again, if your looking for a man to grease you up and stick his dick in your ass the way you like it, your gonna have to go to another web site for that. This site isn’t for homos, so you should get lost.
Mano, you gotta stop with the “Halo 3 has no Plotz!!!11!ONE” people don’t care about the story, they beat the campaign a LONG time ago.
I, for one, am surprised. True, Halo was fun for me, but the frustration with lag, questionable kills/deaths and just the lacking of really balanced gameplay really put me off from it. Don’t believe me? I have two videos, both from the same game where in the first one, I’m on one of the towers in the Pit with a sniper. A guy is coming towards my tower from the other tower under the bridge. I pull off a clean headshot except! my bullet went through the metal sheet that acts as a shield. You actually see a bullet hole being made.
I STILL killed him, my bullet went through a wall! My second kill, I was helping my teammate when he had one guy going after him. This was near the camo hall and I’m still in the tower. I shot one of the barrels and he died, 3 seconds later, without firing a bullet, I got a double kill.
Apparently, there were TWO guys there and I didn’t see the second one, but he was considerably weak, so when the barrels exploded, he didn’t die right away, he flew a few feet away and then just dropped and died.
I have the two vidoes, and they’re in RANKED Team Slayer matchmaking. Look it up.
Okay it has some tactical aspect but it all goes to hell once someone gets the sniper and they’re ridiculously good. OH and forgot tactics when you have a rocket launcher.
Ever since I got Gears 2 and WAW I haven’t touched Halo 3, and I don’t plan on coming back to it anytime soon. Gears 2, I’m waiting for them to fix matchmaking, then I’ll try co-op on insane and play some multi. WAW is a fun shooter for me, kind of tense but rewarding as well, plus NO LAG!
Every game in the history of online gaming has suffered (at some point, and to varrying degrees) from lag.
CoD 5 is no different.
To be honest, I’m just happy that I’m keeping my kill:death at 1.08 in Call of Dootie. Its such a spray and pray game that its not funny.
Plus, I hate that weapons are ‘unlocked’. Half the fun of Halo MP is running like a chicken w. no head to get the power weapons. Epic battles ensue, someone lives, someone dies, and the game goes on. Fun stuff indeed.
Hey I can accept lag, it happens, you can only hope for the best. But when 85% of the games you play are bogged down by minimal to severe lag, even to the point where you can shoot through walls that otherwise would’ve been impossible, no thanks.
With COD4 and WAW, maybe once did I ever experience lag.
The lag with H3 is not fun for me.
Another thing that pisses me off is that you hear your sword making that sound, or your shotgun go off, or your rocket shoot, but you still die and nothing happens to the other guy. Like you never pressed the trigger and the sound just wanted to fuck with your head. That right there, I’m sure everyone has experience, and it’s probably one of things that piss me off, about 1/8 or so of my deaths are like that.
Don’t get me wrong, at one time or another I enjoyed H, H2, and H3 immensely (H3 campaign was a bit lax and boring and unsatisfying). And Mutliplayer, I put up with its flaws for a while but I’ve had enough, especially when there other promising titles.
We must be playing different games then.
Are you in the UK? It may be that it’s localized to your Island, whereas my Island (US) localizations between two oceans, and I think our neighbors to the north.
So you’re lag may not be as severe as mine, if yours even exists for that matter. So yes, if that’s the case, we may indeed be playing different games.
Heart Attack, I played Halo 3 for a long time before I put it down, and I don’t remember many problems with lag. I’m on the east coast of the US.
Are you playing through a router?
Either way, people seem to forget that when COD4 (and COD2) came out the lag was -terrible-. As for the gun going off but nothing happening, etc., that happens in all online games, and I actually remember more frustrating occasions like that on COD. It’s simply the connection between the players. When something is happening that fast, mixed with connection lag, it’s just gonna happen.
Also, I wish COD would go back to COD2 style. I loved the MP in that game, and I was actually really good at it, for once in my life.
It just seems that the Halo MP system is less prone to picking a turd burgler for the host. In WaW I’ve had at least a dozen games ended becasue of either: a) host left room b) shitty connection
They still haven’t sorted this garbage out since CoD4’s first days online. Swap the host you douch bags!!!! Don’t end the game!!! halo does it….
No one likes lag, but until every home is outfitted with a personal fibre optic line its something we’ll have to deal with.
Open the NAT on the router, and follow the setup tips for your router for opening the correct ports for gaming. Can’t remember the deets, but I’m sure its on the interwebz forya somewhere.
Let’s just leave it at this then: We are lucky to have this triviality to argue about. They are both great games.
but Gears’ multi…..ugh. I hate it.
Horde is the only reason to keep it, and even then, only until I can trade it for something newer (that’s what she said)
I haven’t tried Gears’ multi yet, but I love Horde.
The point I was making was that it’s the games with more depth to them that would make me want to play them again in a single player context. Halo 1/2/3 were almost precisely the same from level to level. Enter a new area. Kill some bad guys. Move on. No emotional lows or highs to it. The only changes were really in the bits where you get to go in vehicles. And to be honest, any plot they tried to shoe horn into Halo 3, it was awful. That’s not what Halo’s about. It’s about shooting aliens. That’s what makes it fun. The bits with Cortana and that stupid demon voice thing were unbearable and detracted from the action of the game.
Whereas a game like COD4 which opens with your stereotypical guy in trouble then heroes come in and save him at the last moment type of thing, but then undercuts it by having the executioner shoot you in the face. That was an amazing and emotionally gut wrenching moment. As was the moment where you get to play the guy who comes out of the helicopter in the middle of ground zero of a nuclear detonation. Harrowing stuff, but extremely gripping. That level of emotional depth in terms of highs and lows of storyline dynamics really draws you in and makes you want to play it again. The same applies to Gears 1 and 2. Both of them were very rewarding in Single Player. Particularly Gears 2 in this respect.
In terms of multiplayer, I find Halo too slow paced. I prefer COD simply because it feels more exciting and more immersive in terms of graphics, atmosphere and actual gameplay dynamics.
I am in no way saying any one here has to agree with me. I’m simply stating my opinion and the highlighting the kind of gaming that pushes the standards of gaming higher rather than taking them back a step.
They are all good games at the end of the day, but until someone can describe to me the highs and lows of the plotline in Halo 3, I most certainly shall dispute that it exists. Halo does not even require one. It’s a short term fun game only IMO.
Were you completely oblivious to the deaths of Captain Keyes (father and daughter), what happened to Johnson in the first and the last, etc.? As I said above… you weren’t paying attention. Maybe something was going on at the time, or you were just unable to get immersed, but you’ve quite apparently missed large moments in the campaign. I even got attached to the various grunts you ran into the during the game, which is more than I can say for the one replaceable soldier that was in every mission in COD4 and came out of nowhere when his previous iteration died.
When COD4 opened, I already knew the prisoner you were playing as was going to die. The ground zero moment definitely took me off guard, but after the first time it’s just an annoying delay, same as the Cortana/demon voice segments. I don’t want to play through it again, I just want to get on with the damn game. Gears 1… I don’t remember the campaign in that game most times, and I can’t even remember the second half, and I’m wracking my brain at the moment trying to.
I guess it just shows how much of this stuff is related to the experience itself.
When it comes down to it, I guess, it’s simply a question of personal taste.
I didn’t miss those moments in Halo, they just didn’t ring true for me. I didn’t get that immersion. I’d say the strong Americanisation of Halo is partly to blame. I’ve nothing against America or Americans, but that gung-ho “Hooray for the USA and we’re the heroes of everything” attitude really tends to get on the nerves of the rest of the world and Halo definitely falls foul of that mentality.
Which I guess is another reason I prefer COD as you get to see the war from multiple character view points and it is more international in its appeal. It has a broader, fairer point of view. And I find you can relate to the characters in COD whereas I don’t find I can relate to the character of Master Chief in any way.
For me, playing a great game is like reading a good book. After a while, you almost forget that you’re reading at all and you feel like you’re in the story itself. That’s the level of involvement I seek from a great gaming experience.
Yeah, in that case I can see where you’re coming from.
Although, I could relate to the COD characters more than Master Chief, too. However, it was because they were (mostly) regular guys, not 7 foot tall armored super-soldiers.
Sometimes it’s nice to be an epic hero like that, though (i.e. Fable II).
CoD freaks, deal with it, ur on here sayin how sad it is when people get upset about expressin an opinion. i thought that opinion was being expressed for the last year.
both games are amazin multiplayer.
hellz ya… There both awesome… all im saying is I play One then get bored so go back to the other or the other way…I just always go back to Halo usually…Not because there are no titles for 360 (lets faces it every1 knws 360 has a shit load of awesome titles) but because i enjoy playing it, just like i still enjoy playing Pac-man on my old ass nintendo
ok unlike sum ppl i aint gonna shyt on which game is better blah blah its all about the individual thats playing the games taste. if you dont like it dont play it to bad for you. you can spend all the time arguin which game is better but it aint gonna get u nowhere…sum ppl love halo…sum love cod…and sum still love pacman haha so stop wastin time shittin on games that you dont like…if you dont like em dont play em !! enuff said
Just read there doing a new game that’s very very similar to Halo 2, except they’ve taken all the game play elements out and all you do is sit on your couch staring at a never ending loading screen and talk shit about everybody else’s mother over your head set. Sounds just like Halo 2 to me, actually this one might be slightly more exciting. It should definitely be a huge seller. I hear Microsoft is planning a huge marketing campaign and plans to spend like 80 billion dollars in advertising for it, in an effort to convince people its a good game even if its not , just like they did with Halo 2. Hopefully you’ll be able to preorder it at Taco Bell and Seven Eleven just like you could for Halo 2. Come on hype machine.
wow, really solid point…
Wow, what a faggy comment.
what was that you said about spastic three year olds making witty comebacks.
Well if thats all I am ever going to get back in return why bother wasting my time trying to inject a bit of wit into the proceedings.
I may as well just lower myself to the level of others.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
And lets face it, no matter how badly Smitty is beaten everytime he always comes back for more. So I can’t be bothered anymore.
Hence.
Faggy comment.
Man, again with the fag talk, listen guy we get it ok, your gay we understand, honestly no one here cares, we except you for who you are. I mean seriously in this day and age its totally ok if you want to be a flaming ass pirate, no one is going to think less of you, but I think we might want to enact a don’t ask, don’t tell policy here. No one asked you how gay you are so why don’t you stop telling us, ok.
Or what you could have said to appear just as witty but less verbose was:
“I know you am, but what am I?”
Fag.
Wow is that the best you have smitty? the lame duck ‘it’s cool if your gay’ speech, like that even stings anymore. Your retort has gone the way of Yo’momma jokes, so 2004.
Actually that’s what a fag would say,
“hence”
your a fag!
A fag that constantly declares himself the winner by saying you’ve somehow beat me. Unfortunately for you, declaring yourself the winner of anything doesn’t make it so. Also unfortunately for you, I’ve handed your ass to you on more occasions then I can possibly count which is why all you can come up with now is “fag”. Its not because you lowered yourself to anything, its simply because that’s all you have left. You suck, your a looser and everyone knows it, now why don’t you go play your Xbox sense you think its so great, I’m getting bored with constantly making you look like a fool.
Why you do such a good job?
Fag.
Um, you haven’t won at anything. I mean if you count breathing as winning then congratulations, but you’re just so oblivious. You probably had all this time to build a thick skin in middle/high school didn’t you? So you may THINK you won something, but for every winner, you are the loser.
Oh, and it’s “loser”, not “looser”.
Better luck next time, Walter. Try to imagine a world outside your own miniscule realm of existence and you will be well on the road to recovery.
You never know, you might even manage to stop deluding yourself that you win arguments by just stating “I’ve won”.
That’s your opinion, an opinion not shared by 17+ million people. I use mine all the time and I’m sure those 17+ million people do to. When where not playing the best exclusive video games, where watching high def movies on BluRay, you know BluRay, the format that one the HD format war.
Haha wow. 17 million people? i doubt 17 million people are sad little fucks like you who spend all their time being a little fanboy bitch argueing that the system they bought is way better that the other one. you may find this hard to believe but some people have better things to do unlike you. and not everyone buys something because “17 million people” have also bought it. what are you expecting out of bitching about how great your system is? obviously it’s a piece of shit if you’re sitting on your ass talking about it all day rather than actually using it. and i hope you realize that a ps3 isnt the only thing that can play blu-ray? because you sure as fuck are acting like it. OMG MY PS3 CAN PLAY BLURAY LIKE YOU KNOW BLURAY? OMFG ITS BLURAY!!! no one cares about your fucking life go do the world a favor and rid it of another dumb fuck. go ahead make a gay joke. it’s the only thing you seem to be able to say.