It's one thing to have leaderboards with a friends filter. Plenty of games do this. Naturally, you want to see how well you're doing compared to the people you know. But it's quite another thing to put it in your face while you're actually playing a game. Which is the case with Trials HD and Shadow Complex, two recent Xbox Live Arcade releases that know a videogamer's worst enemy is not doing as well as his friends.

This sort of onscreen friendly competitiveness first appeared for me in Geometry Wars 2, which I had to mod because it was messing up my scores (my Geometry Wars Improved Score Mod is here). It's in Shatter, an excellent Breakout variation available on the Playstation Network. But those are score-based arcade games that lend themselves to friendly competition through high scores. I was surprised to see the same dynamic in Shadow Complex and Trials HD.

In Shadow Complex, as you play, you make progress towards various achievements. It's the usual stuff. Get so many headshots, collect so many hidden items, and so forth. From time to time, a notification pops up tracking your progress. It's similar to Gears of War 2, where you know exactly how close or how far you are from fulfilling the achievement. But the twist here is that it also shows the progress of one of your friends playing the game. It's not enough to know that I've melee'd 20 dudes, but I also see that my friend Densebread (not his real name, but it's apparently what he wants to be called on Xbox Live) is close to catching up with me. Which means as soon as I finish writing this, I need to go neckchop some badguys.

Trials HD is even more insidious. See that screenshot up there? At the top center is a needle pointing to a graph. Check it out:

It represents how close you are to beating the time of whatever friend scored closest to you on this level. The guy in that screenshot can't afford to screw up if he wants to beat jorsai2's time. The pressure is on and it's right in your face as you try to control your motorcycle through perilous crumbling fiery obstacle courses.