Welcome to the 4th iteration of Backwards Compatibility Voting. Due to Gamescom going on last week, we certainly saw an uptick in voting. As a result we got perhaps the oddest collection of games yet with only a few familiar faces. This sucker is odd, but we also have monthly voting as well which is sure to smooth things out. Let’s go shall we?
If you would like a copy of the file that these votes are stored in, please click here: Backwards-votes
Top 15
| Name | Difference Weekly | % |
| Deadpool | 819 | 28.75% |
| Diablo III: Reaper of Souls | 243 | 9.25% |
| Leisure Suit Larry | 33 | 8.94% |
| Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands | 76 | 8.87% |
| Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments | 20 | 8.77% |
| Gun | 92 | 8.67% |
| Outrun Online Arcade | 41 | 8.33% |
| Capcom Arcade Cabinet | 56 | 8.31% |
| Wolfenstein | 208 | 8.19% |
| Overlord | 100 | 8.01% |
| Overlord 2 | 93 | 7.92% |
| Outpost Kaloki X | 16 | 7.73% |
| Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper | 20 | 7.52% |
| Borderlands Pre-Sequel | 313 | 7.45% |
| Wolfenstein 3d | 99 | 7.11% |
Bottom 5
| Killer is Dead | 41 | 3.30% |
| Deadly Premonition | 51 | 3.30% |
| Alan Wake | 706 | 2.97% |
| Guardian Heroes | 29 | 2.94% |
| Lost Odyssey | 276 | 2.83% |
Deadpool is back again in first, was there any doubt. We are looking at over 3,500 votes now and if it wasn’t Activision, I would say it was a shoe in. I mean, after all Activision are the people who continue to ignore backwards compatibility and simply rerelease games on the Xbox One. Games like Prototype and its sequel, Prototype 2. To the tune of $29.99 and $39.99. They are by every indication, insane. Seriously, on what alternate planet does Activision live on that they think they can re-release two old games at that price and actually get people to buy them? Of course, we know what they say about suckers.
The thing is if Activision wants to re-release the Prototypes and maybe even some Call of Duty titles, I probably wouldn’t sweat it too much. But, Deadpool and to a lesser extent, Gun won’t even be re-released nor make it to the BC pile when they have been quite active in the top 15 every week.
I did notice that NCAA Football 14 dropped off the top 15 this week. It did make it still to the top 20, but it was a drop off of sorts. Same with the Rainbow Sixes and neither Crysis 2 or 3 made it either. However, the 9% uptick in Diablo 3: ROS was a bit of a surprise. Mainly because as mentioned before, all efforts by Blizzard at this point are either on the PC or Xbox One/PS4 versions. No patches, no bug fixes, heck I don’t even think they are doing any special weekends anymore. They certainly aren’t going to release D3:ROS to the backwards compatibility list, right? Still interesting though.
Outrun Online Arcade continues to show a good pace, so much so that I booted it up last night only to find that its still as hard as the old Arcade stand up of the original. Played it for about thirty minutes, and then deleted it off my game history. Maybe I’ll learn how to properly drift in a racer someday.
Interestingly, there were two Borderlands titles in the top 15 this week. But its probably the two you would never pick. The Telltale game which I believe is coming out with its 4th episode soon and then the Pre-sequel which is part of the Handsome collection. If the latter was actually announced tomorrow that it was part of BC, I would literally probably buy a disc copy immediately. But again, I doubt it.
It was also nice to see the two Overlord titles make the countdown as news about the third Overlord game continues to pour in. I really do like the look of the third one and it feels very Diablo influenced which would make me very happy. But then we get to the odd balls (even odder than D3 or Gun).
Leisure Suit Larry appears again! Now it’s #3 and I think somebody is messing with me. Seriously, go back and play this game, it’s bad…super bad. Then we have both Sherlock Holmes games. Those weren’t bad, just uninspired at best. Even the two Wolfenstein games (not talking about New Order here, but the original and the Activision attempt at a reboot) are here. Now, good question with these Wolfenstein games, can they even legally be put through BC since Bethesda owns the Wolfenstein license? Probably not I’m thinking.
The bottom five are really some sad titles, especially in a week like this. Killer is Dead continues to pop up and Deadly Premonition deserves much more praise than it is getting. I pretty much ignore Alan Wake and Lost Odyssey at this point because we are all awaiting the official announcement of Microsoft’s titles all becoming BC. In fact, I would not be surprised to see Lost Odyssey as a Games with Gold announcement. But it is what it is I guess. Among notables that almost made the bottom five? Witcher 2 (ouch), Tales of Vesperia, Nier, and even Red Dead Redemption. I guess in the last case, everybody has already voted for it that wants too. But Skyrim which also falls into that group still had a healthy climb.
By the way, you will notice one thing new this month if you download the spreadsheet, a monthly tabulation. Here are the top 20. I’m not wasting my time with the Bottom 5 since we know Alan Wake, Lost Odyssey and Killer is Dead are in there. I was disappointed that Magna Carta 2 nearly appeared in the bottom five, but that’s another rant.
Top 20 Monthly
| Deadpool | 2606 | 245.39% | 1 |
| NCAA Football 14 | 3781 | 82.83% | 2 |
| Fable Anniversary | 4771 | 52.07% | 3 |
| Outrun Online Arcade | 156 | 41.38% | 4 |
| Rainbow Six Vegas II | 1782 | 26.52% | 5 |
| Rainbow Six Vegas | 1382 | 25.22% | 6 |
| Diablo III: Reaper of Souls | 575 | 25.07% | 7 |
| Overlord | 269 | 24.91% | 8 |
| Overlord 2 | 249 | 24.46% | 9 |
| Leisure Suit Larry | 79 | 24.46% | 10 |
| Gun | 225 | 24.25% | 11 |
| Wolfenstein | 535 | 24.16% | 12 |
| Mafia II | 2572 | 23.93% | 13 |
| Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands | 173 | 22.76% | 14 |
| Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning | 1151 | 22.71% | 15 |
| Crysis 2 | 1193 | 22.65% | 16 |
| Crysis 3 | 1745 | 22.53% | 17 |
| Borderlands Pre-Sequel | 823 | 22.31% | 18 |
| Silent Hill Homecoming | 444 | 22.22% | 19 |
| Batman: Arkham City | 7101 | 22.19% | 20 |
Now this list is quite good. The monthly tabulation certainly smoothes out some of the titles that were only appearing in the top 15 once or twice. Deadpool first, NCAA Football second, Outrun fourth. I still think I messed up that first week of Fable Anniversary but its third. Overlord 1 and 2 are 8th and 9th. Rainbow Sixes, Crysis 2 and 3 (was hoping for the first one to be in there too, but oh well), and Mafia 2 all showed up. Even a Batman game shows up (all three are in the top 30 btw). Finally, Kingdom Of Amalur shows up which was nice to see. I’ll ignore Leisure Suit Larry and the Activision version of Wolfenstein (which I still protest people are voting for on name alone) but this is a good list. I’ll continue to pull this out on a monthly basis.
I know I have been ranting on Activision pretty badly this week and that will probably continue but if ever needed more proof, look at the #’s for Deadpool and Gun. That’s hard proof, and I hope Activision reconsiders their policy. I bet you money that these show up next month as well in the top 20. Take care and keep on voting.
