The popularity of achievements populates our lists yet again this week as Dragon Age: Origins holds on for a second week in a row. But what does it say about all this that Dragon Age appears at the top of the "viewed the full set of achievements" list, but no one achievement appears on the individual achievement popularity list? Are people seeing the list, getting intimidated, and buying the PC version, instead?
Assassin's Creed II, however, continues to be an achievement juggernaut, with only 1 vs. 100 matching or beating it on the daily unlocks charts (which you can find on the homepage, of course). Considering 1 vs. 100 is free, and Assassin's Creed II isn't, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that AC2 is probably selling pretty well. Bold, I know.
You know, I was initially pretty excited to see 1 vs. 100 return, but after playing it for an hour, I sort of lost interest. I still like the basic idea behind it, but playing from the crowd just isn't grabbing me. Even the promise of playing better in the crowd leading to getting into the mob isn't enough to keep me sticking around. I went in, got the quick achievements, and got out.
3,378 of you have played 1 vs. 100 since they added achievements a few weeks back. For something that's free to all Gold users, I sort of feel like that number should be higher. That's less than half of what Borderlands has brought in, which currently sits at a very impressive 6,774 players. The DLC has brought some players back to Borderlands, it seems, as it's seen a bit of a resurgence lately. Not that it was ever really in a huge slump. It's no wonder that Take-Two mentioned it in its earnings call last week, and it's safe to expect more Borderlands--meaning a whole new game, not just more DLC--in the near future. How many more pieces of Borderlands DLC would you be willing to play? If they raise the level cap and let me make more progress with the character I've already sunk 50 hours into, I'd probably go for another three or so packs.
Anyway, here's the top ten list for game-level achievement lists.
Top 10 Sets
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Assassin's Creed II
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Borderlands
- Modern Warfare 2
- Rogue Warrior
- 1 vs. 100
- Backyard Football '10
- The Saboteur
- Garry's Mod
Yup. Garry's Mod crept back up there. Weird. Steam's calling the shots as far as new lists go, with four new PC games showing up. I think we're just about done with Xbox 360 releases for the year, at least as far as retail discs are concerned. Actually, retailers are showing stuff like Konami Classics Volume 1, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, and Divinity II: Ego Draconis as shipping before the end of the year, but I'm guessing Konami Classics will share achievements with the individual XBLA games on the disc, and we already have that other stuff in the system. We even have the first week of 2010 covered with Bayonetta and Darksiders already listed.
We'll also take in a couple of new Games For Windows Live releases over the next week or so, as Microsoft's gearing up for a new PC-based games on demand store and a few new (well, new to GFWL, anyway) games are coming with that, like World of Goo, Osmos, and Tinker.
New Sets
- Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter (Steam)
- Rogue Warrior (Steam)
- Altitude (Steam)
- Zombie Driver (Steam)
- Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! (French/Canadian version?)
I swear, I think there are five different versions of that Scene It? game out there on 360. There should be some kind of bonus for players who track down all of the appropriate hardware and software needed to play them all. That bonus should probably be a kick in the face.
Assassin's Creed II is holding it down on the individual achievements list with four entries. I swear, I stunned more than four guys with sand on multiple occasions and never got that Messer Sandman achievement. Same for the one where you need to knock down five guys with a long weapon. Did it, no points. So I gave up and lent my copy to Dave.
Top 10 Individual
- Assassin's Creed II - Show your Colors
- Borderlands - Braaaaaaaaaaaaains!
- Left 4 Dead 2 - GUARDIN' GNOME
- Left 4 Dead 2 - CONFEDERACY OF CRUNCHES
- Assassin's Creed II - In Memory of Petruccio
- Borderlands - You're on a boat!
- Assassin's Creed II - Messer Sandman
- Garry's Mod - Secret Phrase
- Borderlands - My Brother is an Italian Plumber
- Assassin's Creed II - An Old Friend