The last two big holiday titles of the year were released yesterday, and delivered to my door courtesy of Amazon. Yet, after checking out my friends list during prime time last night, it wasn’t quite apparent that these big holiday titles had arrived. Scanning through the dozen or so people online on my list yielded just one guy at the bottom playing Left 4 Dead 2, with no Assassin’s Creed 2 in sight. About half of my friends online last night were playing Modern Warfare 2, which is a pretty respectable number as the night of Modern Warfare 2′s release, about 3/4 of my friends list were playing it. I was surprised to see that even Brutal Legend got more of a spotlight than either Left 4 Dead 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2 last night among my friends. Maybe Left 4 Dead 2 won’t ruin the holidays for me after all and I’ll still have people to play it with when I get to it later.
Modern Warfare 2 is a phenomenal game and my front-runner for game of the year. I can see why people are willing to defer picking up either Left 4 Dead 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2 because one week with Modern Warfare 2 just isn’t enough time. My copies of Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 will probably stay in their shrinkwrap for a while – I don’t know if I can give up my limited gaming time for something else when Modern Warfare 2 is just so fun.
Yet, look at these numbers:
Left 4 Dead worldwide 360 sales: about 2.5 million
Assassin’s Creed worldwide 360 sales: about 4.5 million
Call of Duty 4 worldwide 360 sales: about 7.9 million
The combined worldwide 360 sales of Left 4 Dead and Assassin’s Creed almost compare with Call of Duty 4′s worldwide 360 sales, so now the question is if their respective sequels will also compare similarly. Modern Warfare 2 is already being billed as the biggest release of the year so it will most likely sell more than Call of Duty 4. But will Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 outsell their predecessors when released in Modern Warfare 2′s wake, a game with perhaps the highest potential for playing hundreds of hours?
What’s also interesting to consider is that both Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 are getting good reviews. Not just good – excellent with Assassin’s Creed 2 edging out Left 4 Dead 2 at a current 92 score versus 90 based on Metacritic. The opposite held true in their predecessors – Left 4 Dead scored an 89 and Assassin’s Creed scored an 81. If the reviews are any indication, Assassin’s Creed 2 is going to be much better than the first one. From what I’ve read, practically all of the repetition of the first is gone, and now you can earn money to buy upgrades and the like based on how you want to play the game making the first game seem more like a test demo than anything. I’m definitely more excited that I have it in my possession now and am actually considering playing it next. Left 4 Dead 2′s demo didn’t show much innovation over the first, but with more modes and new campaigns, I am sure it will sell fine and if my friends pick it up, we’ll have another co-op game to blast through.
I am very curious to see how November’s statistics look – we all know that Modern Warfare 2 will top the chart, but will Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 have suffered because of it? People could be waiting for Black Friday sales to pick up Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2. Maybe we’ll see their sales pick up in December, as there’s still over a month left between now and Christmas. In any case, rest assured that I have both and will get to posting impressions about them…when I can take a step back from Modern Warfare 2.
Haha, I wonder who was playing Brutal Legend?
Anyway, I think L4D2 and AC2 are gonna be more of a slow burn. I’m planning on picking both up, but after reviews, I might check out AC2 first (and wait to pick up L4D2 at the same time as the rest of my friend’s list). Another factor is, MW2 has my “party gaming” attention, which is another reason I’m leaning towards AC2 first. Plus…I love Italy.
That’s the main reason I’m not even going to be picking up either of those games before the end of year. Modern Warfare 2 is so fun, that I would likely never get around to playing much of either and they would lay on my shelf, collecting dust. I might pick up Assassin’s Creed 2 towards the end of the year, once MW2 has had time to ‘fizzle out’ (those aren’t the best words, since it will still be immensely fun, but the best I could come up with). I’m just wondering how long it will be before the first thing that comes to mind is MW2 when I’m powering on my Xbox.
Left 4 Dead 2 doesn’t even really interest me anymore. I played Assassin’s Creed (original), but I’m still having doubts about the second. I didn’t get very far into the first one, but I really hated how one assassination sequence was buried underneath hours of cutscenes. I never got far enough to see the repetition, but in games, repetition doesn’t bother me as much as other things. For example, the missions in Borderlands are all very repetitive: “Go to area X where you’ve been before and (kill this many Ys/Get object Z) and return back to this place.”, but yet the enjoyment I get out of them never diminishes. You say grinding, I say progression. But I’m getting off topic.