Research: Halo: Reach September's Most Discussed Game Online

Halo: Reach was the most talked-about game online in September, surpassing previous leader Modern Warfare 2 -- that's according to a new analytics report that tracked conversations on gaming forums and communities. Overtone's GameVoice Analytics report [PDF] logged nearly 25,000 comments regarding Reach across 36 different online gaming forums and communities, and used "machine-learning text analytics" to determine that those comments tended to be slightly more positive than negative, in aggregate. Reach's multiplayer mode, story, graphics and gameplay drew the most conversation, according to the report, with all four categories drawing mostly positive comments from posters. The game's cost and pre-orders, as well as the three-week long public beta from earlier in the year, drew the most negative comments surrounding the game, the report said. September saw Call of Duty: Black Ops and Gran Turismo 5 dominated the online discussion surrounding upcoming games, the latter seeing a 52 percent increase in online chatter for the month, possibly owing to the recently announced delay for the title. October releases Medal of Honor and Rock Band 3 also saw strong discussion volume and "intent to buy" interest in the report, which Overtone says may suggest strong first month sales for the games. Among upcoming games, Vanquish and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West earned the most generally positive online commentary in the report, followed by LittleBigPlanet 2 and Mortal Kombat. The report found the PS3 continued to be the most discussed console online in September, though comments about Sony's system were slightly more negative on the whole than those for other systems. Though Nintendo's upcoming 3DS generated little discussion compared to current systems, talk of the 3D portable ticked up slightly around the release of details for its Japanese launch. General online sentiment surrounding the system is running relatively positive, according to the report, matching closely with the general positive discussion surrounding the DS.