Xbox Live Topped By Gears Of War, XBLA By Contra

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 13, 2006, as well as the top titles for the the original Xbox being played over (or while connected to) the online service. Following months of anticipation building to its recent release, Microsoft's Epic-developed action shooter Gears of War was predictably found to be the most played Xbox 360 title over the online service for the week. Activision's World War II shooter Call Of Duty 3 ranked second on the Xbox Live chart, followed by the Xbox Live Arcade release Contra. While the sequel surged upwards on the chart, players continued to play Activision's Call of Duty 2, which ranked as the fourth most played Xbox 360 title for the week, just ahead of Electronic Arts' popular football release, Madden NFL 07. A pair of downloadable demos for Rainbow Six Vegas and Tony Hawk's Project 8 ranked sixth and seventh on the chart respectively, followed by Ubisoft's Splinter Cell Double Agent and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. EA's racing title Need for Speed Carbon rounded out the current chart in tenth. In addition, this week Major Nelson also released data concerning the full versions of games being played over Xbox Live Arcade, of which Konami's Contra proved to be the most popular. Classic shooter Defender ranked second for the week, followed by UNO and Midway's popular fighting game Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. id Software's Doom was the fifth most played title over the service for the period, followed by puzzler Lumines Live! and arcade classic Pac-Man. Capcom's popular 2D fighting game Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting was the eighth most played arcade title for the week, followed by Dig Dug and Texas Hold 'em. Turning to the original Xbox, Halo 2 unsurprisingly remained on top of the chart. EA's Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was the second most played Xbox title on the chart for the week, followed by Madden NFL 07 and the Xbox port of Counter-Strike. Ubisoft's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow took the fifth spot on the chart, followed by LucasArts' Star Wars Battlefront II. The Xbox version of Call of Duty 3 proved slightly less popular than its next-generation alternative, ranking in the seventh spot for the week, followed by Microsoft's popular racing game Forza Motorsport and Call of Duty 2. The weekly chart was rounded out by Ubisoft's Rainbow Six 3 in tenth.