I recently started playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood online. I'm rather enjoying it. Will that do?

If you're playing Brotherhood online you're officially awesome in my book.

Well, once Skyrim comes out, online traffic will cease to exist Speaking for myself, of course.

I do wonder what kind of an impact Skyrim will have on the Xbox Live numbers.

Just going to toss this out there. Im pretty sure Xbox Live activity is based on Online Multiplayer Games that people are playing correct? (( i will assume i am and continue )) SO even if you drag people off of those games and slap every single player game you mentioned into their hands it still wont effect those stats. Taking this into consideration you also have to imagine that with a single player game the experience doesnt continue past the ending (( excluding games with multiple endings or various Good/Bad playthroughs you can give...and that the average gamer doesnt have the attention span past a gnat when it comes to playing the same game again twice )) thus the reason Online games such as World of Warcraft, Rift and the Call of Duty games continue to see more players online as they all are built off a rich online community.

The Xbox Live activity charts games based on Unique Users. This means that if you're online and playing ANY game on Xbox Live, you\'re tracked for that. If you keep playing that game all week, you won't affect the numbers. Call of Duty is ranked so high because it has the most unique users, whether they play all week or for 15 minutes on one day.

I'm a bit confused by this. Is it only if your playing the game on live (as in multiplayer) or do you mean if I'm logged into live while playing say Dragon Age, that's a unique hit for DA?


Usually once I finish one of my other games that aren't multiplayer (alan wake, oblivion, fallout etc) I go back to something that's going to provide a unique, dynamic experience everytime - multiplayer shooters mainly Reach and Black Ops. I would play Brink alot more but last I checked it was still broken. So I guess it doesn't matter what else I'm playing, I fall back on Reach or Black Ops when I'm between game fly rentals or just not in the mood for anything else.

splinter cell series, sort of bogged down at hte moment with work and summer fun. but definitely no multiplayer FPS garbage

And honestly... I thought netflix would of been at the forefront of that list with the recent Bandwith studies that were done.

Same. I guess Black Ops and Netflix as 1 and 2. Forgot about Reach, but Modern Warfare still being up there surprises me...sort of.

Sorry to burst your bubble Daniel but my fiance is the manager of the local gamestop in my town and believe it or not they will still take games in for trade even if the barcode is missing although i like how you think lol

Then I've got some games for that Gamestop! HAHA

hahaha im playing lost odissey, i never finished it.

I dusted off Oblivion and fell in love with it once again. Such a good game.

I'm playing Oblivion now too.

You have to remember that there is a difference between the narrative-driven art of games like Red Dead or Bioshock (which appeals to adults more than younger gamers) and the competition-driven online FPS "Sports" (if I may borrow from that recent Cracked article). Ultimately, I can't stand online games for the most part, but for the younger generation that is the popular thing at the moment, so it shouldn't be a surprise that shooters are dominating the market.

What's wrong with playing CoD? It's fun. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't play it to the exclusion of all other games, but to say it's horrible **** is being fairly silly. Especially considering how well those three games mentioned have been reviewed on this very site. Single player games only last until you finish them, then you either sit on a shelf until you want to play the same game over again or sell them.

Multiplayer games generally last much longer and only really die off when something better gets released. I personally spent over 80 hours on Oblivion, but I also spent over 80 hours just playin Soldier and over 60 as a Demoman in TF2. If I were to add up all the time I spent on the other jobs, I'm sure my total playtime would be fairly disturbing. Don't even get me started on how many hours I spent on FFXI before I finally broke that habit.

Nah, I like Call of Duty and shooters in general but I just wish there was some change in the Xbox Live stats.

I don't know how much time I've actually played in Black OPs, but it's probably a lot longer than it took me finish off Dragon Age 2 and New Vegas (which I played through twice) combined. It's not because it's a better game, but because each time I play it, I know I'm for a fresh challenge. Someone will always be better than me, or someone might come up with a new strategy or fine a new hidey hole to pop out of, or a better angle to defend from. The game mechanics stay the same, but the game play itself evolves. That's not something that can be said for single player games.

mass effect? yes. red dead redemption? yes. fallout on on the other hand should not be a replacement for any game. i get that it's an rpg and all and that im not an rpg fan, but then game just feels so old! the shooting mechanics just feel extremely dated and it all feels (and even looks close to) like a ps2 game. as far as shooters go i agree that cod should, at some point, be replaced in peoples collections, but fallout is not a good way to go about it. im not saying bethesda did a bad job, but can all critics honestly say that the dated feel of fallout isnt a massive turn off? that alone is the reason i found it so boring

You're a graphics whore. Got it. Your opinion on all things gaming is now irrelevant.