Welcome to the 16th iteration of Backwards Compatibility Voting. As we are surely aware by now, the magic date is November 12th for Backwards Compatibility to begin on all Xbox One consoles. Even more magic is the 9th which is this Monday where we receive “The List” or the document that will list the roughly one hundred titles that will be backwards compatible on the 12th. So, as expected, voting has been cranked up and we get plenty to examine.
If you would like a copy of the file that these votes are stored in, please click here: Backwards-votes
Top 19 Weekly
| Name | Difference Weekly | % | |
| Deadpool | 297 | 4.91% | 1 |
| Outrun Online Arcade | 24 | 3.38% | 2 |
| Crysis 3 | 325 | 2.82% | 3 |
| Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands | 29 | 2.66% | 4 |
| NCAA Football 14 | 283 | 2.66% | 5 |
| Driver: San Francisco | 42 | 2.62% | 6 |
| Diablo III: Reaper of Souls | 86 | 2.54% | 7 |
| Worms: Ultimate Mayhem | 15 | 2.41% | 8 |
| Mafia II | 354 | 2.29% | 9 |
| Burnout Paradise | 270 | 2.25% | 10 |
| Dante’s Inferno | 195 | 2.25% | 11 |
| Dragon Age 2 | 266 | 2.24% | 12 |
| Fable II | 462 | 2.23% | 13 |
| Two Worlds | 20 | 2.21% | 14 |
| Borderlands Pre-Sequel | 113 | 2.18% | 15 |
| Fable III | 624 | 2.18% | 16 |
| Record of Agarest War Zero | 11 | 2.17% | 17 |
| Rainbow Six Vegas II | 213 | 2.15% | 18 |
| Silent Hill Homecoming | 62 | 2.15% | 19 |
We focus again on the top 19 this week. The cutoff marker is 2.15%, but we had 31 titles this week that grew by 2% or more. Deadpool continues to run away with things (even though at this point, I’m secretly waiting for somebody to overtake the Merc with a Mouth even for one week) and Outrun is only a little bit away at #2. NCAA Football 14, the third of three amigos comes back in with a solid #5 finish.
Crysis 3, which I though would be fading back into Crysis 2 (#20) and Crysis (#29) territory is still doing very strong numbers. It is followed by the Tales from the Borderlands title which is still feeding off the energy of its last episode. But as soon as we hit #6, we realize that this list is a little different than what we’ve been used to in most of the weeks.
That difference is the return of the popular games. The whole reason I went by percentage as opposed to total votes was that I had no interest in listing week after week listing, Red Dead, Skyrim and Fallout 3. I wanted a variable list that would represent showers and growers. I didn’t count on the fact that Deadpool, Outrun and NCAA Football would basically replace those three, but even then, Outrun and NCAA have been all around the top 20 and then some.
But this week in the top 19, we had titles such as Mafia II, Burnout Paradise, Dragon Age 2, Fable 2 and 3, Dante’s Inferno, and even mix in Borderlands Pre-Sequel and Rainbow Six II. All what I would consider, popular critically acclaimed games. I think Burnout, Rainbow Six II, Fable 2 and 3 are pretty funny as well since they are automatic shoe-ins at this point since they have been confirmed on other outlets. The other’s are near shoe-ins(except Borderlands Pre-Sequel) due to their vote count, and this week only solidifies that.
Honestly, I was hoping Burnout Revenge (#32) would be in Paradise’s place since that title is not an automatic BC contender. That would be a more powerful statement. But there were a few titles this week that were a little more unexpected.
Driver: San Francisco gets a very strong #6 finish, it’s been confirmed by everybody’s favorite graphic (the one at top of this page) but I guess this close to the end they want to give it a little more oomph. Also Worms: Ultimate Mayhem, Two Worlds, and Record of Agarest War Zero all give respectable finishes to find themselves in the top 20. One of my favorites, Silent Hill Homecoming also makes it back up the list.
Oh, and the usual random PSA for Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. It’s NOT going to be a backwards compatible title, so stop wasting your votes. By the way, I did start my final class, 6th character in Diablo III: ROS this past week, a now level 23 female wizard by the name of Raven. She’ll be an ice wizard, at least right now anyway. Only 47 levels and at least 15 bounties to go.
Anyway, that’s it. Voting is sure to hit a near fever pitch next week, and probably the week after that. Obviously, we’ll have a special analysis column next week when “The List” gets released. But Voting tabulation will probably only last a couple more weeks. Once things go live, voting (if its not stopped by Microsoft) will go wonky since titles will drop off and people will probably start forgetting about voting for a title and just playing it instead. So I’m thinking, next week and then one more following week to put it all together. Then the column will instead focus on new BC titles, and maybe putting together something like a retro BC review every couple of weeks perhaps. Always want to hear the ideas, so feel free to comment. Take care and enjoy one last BCless weekend. (Unless you are in the preview program then all I have to say is “PBBBBBBBT”)
