Xbox Live Charts Again Topped By Gears, Small Arms

Via the weblog of staffer Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, Microsoft has announced the top ten Xbox 360 games currently being played over Xbox Live for the week of November 27, 2006, as well as the top titles for the the original Xbox being played over (or while connected to) the online service. Once again, it was Microsoft's Epic-developed Gears of War that reigned supreme over the online service for the week, followed by Activision's Call of Duty 3 and Gastronaut's recently released Xbox Live Arcade title, Small Arms. A pair of downloadable demos ranked in the following two spots on the chart, with Lost Planet in fourth and Superman Returns in fifth. Electronic Arts' venerable Madden NFL 07 ranked sixth on the weekly chart, followed by Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas' own multiplayer demo. Call of Duty 2 continued to hold onto the chart by being the ninth most played game over Live for the week, while the top ten most played Xbox 360 titles were rounded out by Bethesda's epic role-playing game, Oblivion. This week's chart covering the full versions of games being played over Xbox Live Arcade is again topped by the aforementioned Small Arms, followed by XBLA mainstay UNO and Konami's arcade classic Contra. Midway's visceral fighting game Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 ranked fourth on the weekly chart, followed by Capcom's own 2D fighting game entry, Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting. Geometry Wars Evolved climbed up a single spot for the week to claim the sixth position on the chart, while Texas Hold 'em surged up three spots from last week into seventh. id Software's Doom ranked eighth for the week, while arcade classics Pac-Man and Defender rounded out the chart in ninth and tenth respectively. Turning to the original Xbox, Halo 2 unsurprisingly remained as the top title on the chart. EA's Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was once again the second most played Xbox title on the chart for the week, followed again by Madden NFL 07. LucasArts' Star Wars Battlefront II claimed the fourth position on the weekly chart, while the Xbox port of Counter-Strike and Microsoft's popular racing game Forza Motorsport raced into the fifth and sixth positions respectively. Interestingly, Activision's Call of Duty 2 was found to be the seventh most played Xbox title online for the week, beating out its recently released sequel, which ranked eighth. Ubisoft's Ghost Recon 2 was the ninth most played Xbox title over Xbox Live for the week, while the chart was rounded out by Rainbow Six 3 in tenth.