Most Popular Achievements (10/17 - 10/23)

My name is Jeff Gerstmann and I am addicted to data. There's something about charts and graphs that excites me. And that's why I take a look at the traffic for our achievement stuff every week and share these details with you. That's also why I'm hoping that we'll have some automated charts and graphs to share in the weeks and months ahead.

This week, it's obvious that Borderlands has become quite popular, achievementally speaking. That, combined with the talk that it was selling out in some locations, makes me think that it's going to go on to sell well, which is something that some analysts thought impossible. I guess the real test is if it can maintain its popularity once Modern Warfare 2 is released. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. 3,390 of you have synched Xbox 360 Borderlands achievements to the site. For a game that's less than a week old, that's a big start. That puts it just ahead of Brutal Legend (3,336) and means it's already bigger than Gearbox's last 360 game, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (2,347).

So with that in mind, it shouldn't surprise you that Borderlands is leading the popularity list this week. But there's more to it than just raw numbers. The achievements in Borderlands are pretty well-designed, with a good mix of things you'll get over the course of normally playing the game and a few things that you'll have to go out of your way to earn. They're good stuff. I'm guessing they were something of a focus, as the company's president, Randy Pitchford, obviously cares about points to some extent. He's got over 81,000 of them, enough to slot him in at #13 on MyGamerCard's celebrity/industry leaderboard. 

Top Ten Sets

1. Borderlands
2. Brutal Legend
3. Left 4 Dead 2
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum
5. Halo 3: ODST
6. Forza Motorsport 3
7. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2010
8. Risen
9. CSI: Deadly Intent
10. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Now that Forza Motorsport 3 is actually out, the achievements are now publicly viewable. Expect Tekken 6 to become viewable sometime soon, since it's due out this week. OK, new stuff. We've got Assassin's Creed II achievements on the site now. Beyond that, nothing too mind-blowing here this week, unless you're a big fan of the Crash Time series.

Please tell me you're not a huge fan of the Crash Time series. 

New Sets

• Assassin's Creed II
• Tayutama: Kiss on My Deity
• Fairytale Fights
• Top Spin 2 (not sure which version this is)
• Tower Bloxx Deluxe
• Everyday Genius: SquareLogic (Steam)
• AI War: Fleet Command (Steam)
• Autobahn Polizei (this is a version of Crash Time II)
• Tropico 3
• Crash Time III

"Kiss on My Deity" is the dirtiest phrase I've ever heard, by the way. Running just behind it at a close second is, of course, "Fleet Command." The individual achievements this week are once again tainted by me posting about the "Ask Him Ref!" achievement on Twitter, but Borderlands is the clear victor here. Also, since we can now properly rename secret achievements, the secret "You're On A Boat" achievement is our #1 this week. 

Top Ten Individual

1. Borderlands - You're On A Boat (Secret)
2. Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
3. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2010 - Ask Him Ref!
4. Brutal Legend - Beast Master
5. Borderlands - And They'll Tell Two Friends
6. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
7. Borderlands - Fully Loaded
8. Batman: Arkham Asylum - World's Greatest Detective
9. Garry's Mod - Secret Phrase
10. Brutal Legend - Boar Bather

Our upstairs gentlemen are working on some site redesign stuff that will manifest in new, cleaner designs for the achievement pages, among other things. It should be easier for you to keep track of alternate versions of a game once they're done. And we're still looking at building some method to manually add PlayStation 3 trophies to the system, since it'd be great to have stuff like Uncharted 2 in there, even if we can't track your progress.