GameFly Rental Chart Highlights: Week Ending December 5

This week's GameFly video game rental charts for North America, specifically relating to games rented via the games-by-mail service for the week ending December 5th, show popularity over multiple game formats. The Xbox 360 is still at the top of the cross-platform charts, though gamers have now enshrined Sega's Condemned: Criminal Origins over last week's Perfect Dark Zero. In second place is Star Wars Battlefront II, demonstrating the long-lasting appeal the Star Wars franchise can still command, and in third is the surprise resurgence of Dragon Quest VIII, possibly due to the positive word-of-mouth on the series' PS2 debut. Indeed, Dragon Quest VIII has leveled up to #1 on the PS2-only chart, where it vaniquishes Activision's Gun in #2. It seems it's generally a week of surprising returns, as Shadow of the Colossus actually increases its position from last week's #4, and reenters the top three PS2 games at #3. On the Xbox, however, it's mostly old favorites: Star Wars Battlefront II is again #1, and Shiny's The Matrix: Path of Neo may not be the One, but it can at least settling for being the Two. Third most-wanted is Activision's Gun. On Xbox 360, Condemned: Criminal Origins is on top of the next-gen heap, helped by being one of the relatively few games on the system that's not an enhanced port of an existing multiplatform title. The other two games, Call of Duty 2 and Project Gotham Racing 3, are similarly seen as "Xbox 360" games, though Call of Duty 2 is also on PC. Nintendo's GameCube continues to take a hit from the movement of Zelda: Twilight Princess into next year, as the same three games head up the GC chart in the same order: Mario Party 7 at #1, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance at #2, and Shadow the Hedgehog at #3. On Game Boy Advance, Pokémon Emerald is still at #1, now trailed by Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap at #2 and Gunstar Super Heroes in third place. The only thing that could dethrone Mario Kart DS from the top of the Nintendo DS list is evidently another Mario game, which is exactly what's happened as Mario Luigi: Partners in Time takes the #1 spot on Nintendo's dual-screened handheld. Mario Kart DS slips on a banana and falls into second, hoping intensely that third-place Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow doesn't have a mushroom up its sleeve. Finally, the PSP chart is a quite similar to last week's, with Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories at #1, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo at #2, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted: 5-1-0 at #3.