Confession: I buy a lot of games. Okay, you all probably knew that already, but it’s time for me to own up to my massive, unwieldily backlog. Well, that day – I mean, year – has finally come, and I’m going to invite all of you to join in my pain plan! The task, should you choose to accept it? Play (and beat, if possible) one game from your backlog every month for the entirety of 2013.
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| Year of the snake, year of the backlog! (source) |
I figure the only way I’ll ever really make a dent in my overflowing collection of games is to buckle down and force myself to play things, so that’s going to be the ongoing theme of 2013. “2013: Year of the Backlog” has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Of course, you don’t have to literally join me, you could do so in spirit or just follow along as I chronicle my journey and laugh as I try to cram a 20+ hour game into the last weekend of every month (I’m going to pray, for my sanity, that it doesn’t come to this). But, if you’re a fellow game hoarder and have a looming backlog you’d like to conquer, by all means, make it your goal to play at least one of them! The more the merrier! It is a club, after all. (Speaking of which, my friend and fellow blogger The Gay Gamer unwittingly pledged his membership with his recent “Bye-bye backlog” post, so we’re already at a whopping two members)
There will be just a few (loose) rules:
1) Each month you must start a new game
2) The game must be one you already own
3) Play as much of the game as you want during the month, but try to push yourself to beat it!
4) Share your attempts to clear your backlog with others! This can be on social media outlets (Twitter, Facebook), your own personal blog, or in the comments here!
That’s it! Easy, eh? I really want this challenge to be a fun way for everyone to knock a few games off our backlogs without feeling pressured to reach any certain goals. I plan on writing weekly update posts to keep myself honest about my progress, so I encourage anyone who’s interested in giving the Beat the Backlog Club (or BBC, for short!) a go to comment with your own progress when those posts go live.
And if you think 12 months sounds a little too overwhelming, why not just start with one and see how it goes? The most important thing is to have fun – I know I won’t be losing (too much) sleep over it if don’t make my monthly goal.
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| Just a small sample of games I own but haven’t played. Most of the Wii games were acquired during my trip to the US. |
But a backlog-beating plan isn’t anything without a list of potential game candidates, right? Luckily, I’ve come prepared! Here’s just a sample of some of the games I’m thinking of tackling over the course of the year: Harvest Moon: A New Beginning 3D, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Rune Factory Frontier, Ghost Trick, Nier, The Last Story, Muramasa: Demon Blade, Gravity Rush, Fossil Fighters, Atelier Annie, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
You know what? That looks downright daunting. Some of these games may just be too long to even attempt to complete in a month, so this list is definitely not set in stone. If anyone has any suggestions as to which of these might be most doable in month (I’m thinking ~20 hours long), please let me know in the comments!
But since it’s already mid-January, I’ve already gotten started on this month’s backlog pick: The Legendary Starfy! Okay, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you heard me talk about attempting to beat Starfy before, right? Well I did, and just recently, at that! Unfortunately I found myself overwhelmed by other things over the holiday break and didn’t even really attempt to play it or Ghost Trick and Atelier Annie as was originally planned, hence why they’re now on this list. I hope I have enough motivation to make it through them during this challenge!
So, who’s with me? I know it’s a little late in January already to start playing a game, so if you’re interested in joining in, how about choosing a game you played for a while but never got around to beating? Look forward to an update from me next Monday, and happy gaming!
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| “Play those games! That’s an order!” |
Yay! It has begun 🙂
Thanks for the shout-out, by the way. Here’s hoping both of us–and anyone else who decides to join the ‘club’–can stick with it to the end.
I’ll definitely let you know when I’ve updated folks as to my progress (I’m planning to do so weekly), and of course I’m already looking forward to hearing about your progress.
I’m especially interested in hearing your thoughts on Fishing Resort, by the way. I nearly bought the game today (while using up a $100 Amazon gift card), but in the end decided to go with a few other games I’ve been meaning to buy for even longer. Still, I’m curious about it and plan to pick it up should you find you like it.
I would try tackling my backlog in earnest, but considering that I’m still pecking away at Xenoblade Chronicles, I’m pretty sure it’d be a losing battle. It certainly doesn’t help that there are new games that need attention (and blogging, potentially); I feel like I have to put DmC: Devil May Cry under the microscope to see if the hate it’s earned is justified…
But in any case, I hope you can get through all the games your body will allow. And if you’re looking for recommendations on what to get through first, I say Muramasa or Sin and Punishment. I’d assume that Muramasa is pretty doable, and Sin and Punishment can be beaten in about a day if you have the reflexes of a cheetah on some sort of super soldier serum (if not, then get ready for the hardest game of your life). I also notice that you’ve got Tales of the Abyss in that picture; considering that a file I have clocks in at seventy hours, I’d be wary of that one.
But whatever. You’ve got a goal, and that’s just as important as getting in deep with your backlog. So go in all guns blazing, yeah?
I’m really happy it’s finally underway! Sharing weekly progress updates is a little daunting for me, as I probably don’t play games nearly as much as I write about them. It’ll be a bit embarrassing to own up to that!
I’ll definitely have to do Fishing Resort one month, I think. I was originally thinking it’d be a better “relaxing” game that I could just have going on in the background for whenever I’m sick of playing other games (that happens to me quite a lot, so I usually have a few games going at the same time), but it might be fun to dedicate a whole month to it.
I can’t wait to hear what games you ended up picking up with your gift card!
Hi Voltech! I dare say I haven’t seen you comment before, so welcome! I went over and checked out your blog – I’ll definitely need to sit down and spend more time reading some of your individual posts!
Is Sin and Punishment really that hard? If so, I might be in for some problems! As for the picture, that doesn’t necessarily represent games I’m actually going to play for this challenge, just some things I have lying around that I haven’t been able to get to yet. As such, I think I agree with you that doing Tales of the Abyss in one month is a bit of a tall order 😉
Actually, I had originally wanted my theme for 2013 to just center on RPGs and make it my goal to play through as many as possible, as the 12 month challenge doesn’t work so well for longer games, especially when you’ve got work/other things going on. But when I thought about it, I figured it might be more productive to try a more concrete goal like one game per month and see how that goes, because it’s easy to get sucked into RPGs for weeks and months on end (it sounds like you have with Xenoblade Chronicles!) I do have a HUGE RPG backlog, though, so it’s a bit of a shame that I can’t work them in somehow!
I definitely will prioritize Muramasa! I’ve wanted to play that for a while. And I’d be really interested in your thoughts on DmC – I’m a bit of a DMC fan myself! I tried DmC’s PSN demo and didn’t think it was all too bad, but I’m saving my pennies for the likes of Ni no Kuni, Fire Emblem, and Etrian Odyssey 4, so I probably won’t be getting to it any time soon.
You know what? I’m going to play this game too.
Unfortunately I don’t see this ending well for me, since most of my backlog are RPGs.
OH WELL!
Don’t feel the need to tackle Fishing Resort if it doesn’t feel right as part of this project, Anne. I just want to hear your thoughts about it eventually–some way, some how, etc.
Also, don’t feel bad/weird about not being able to play games as much as you write about them. I’m sure that’s true of a lot of us gaming bloggers who are out of college!
I still have all my Christmas games to complete Anne, hardly touched them yet so this will be a good opportunity to combat that!
P.S. That your cat Anne? He/she is totally adorbs!
I’m gonna try and finish Pokémon Black and White 2. That’s a backlog, right? I PLAYED IT BUT I DIDN’T FINISH IT OKAY?
Definitions are hard.
The problem for me is, that A LOT of my backlog is due to wanting to play certain games with certain people… I have a backlog of at least 10 Point & Click Adventures I want to play with my bestie. I’ve been playing Portal 2 since over… I dunno… 6 months…? Together with a friend. We rarely find the time to meet up and play… so like every two weeks we continue for an hour or two.. (and I’m talking about singple player, I didn’t even touch the co-op mode yet…) Same goes for Torchlight II – whenever yet another friend of mine and I got some time we’ll play a few hours… I don’t see how I’ll finish either of these two games within the next 6 months. I’ve also got tons of scary games that I don’t dare to play alone and haven’t found anyone to play them with yet…
The rest of my backlog mostly consists of games I once started but was never able to finish (FFIX, which I’m currently playing, Odin Sphere, King’s Bounty: Crossworlds, Recettear, Agarest Senki) most of these games rely heavily on story and aren’t that easy to get back into if you don’t play them regularly.. which is almost impossible since most of them just aren’t games that you play for half an hour or an hour and then you just stop… nah, if you don’t have at least 2 or 3 hours to pour into you shouldn’t even bother starting up any of these games.
And then there’s just too many good games coming this year… Seriously, I haven’t been that excited about that many new game releases since.. I dunno, I can’t even think of any year that had as many releases that were of interest to me. (You can check my blog if you’re interested in all the stuff I’m looking forward to ;>)
I definitely want to get FFIX done within the next few weeks tho (this is the third time I have started it, this time together with my son and we’re halfway through disc 3 of 4… this seems entirely doable, especially since the little one keeps bugging me to continue playing, heh) and maybe I’ll also squeeze in Odin Sphere sometime this year too. But I think that’s about as much as I can do about my backlog this year. 8)
Hi Anne, well I’m in for ‘Zelda Skyward Sword’ and Fishing resort, but considering my low skill level, I won’t at all aim for tackling each of them in a month 🙂
Oh yes, about the length of the games in your backlog list:
Definitely on the no longer than 20 hours side: Ghost Trick.. I finished that in one night. If I had to guess I’d say it took me around 8 hours – but I’m a puzzle addict and a fast reader, so it might be more around the 10 hour mark for others. I already mentioned before that The Last Story is around the 20h mark, same goes for Sakura Wars, which I sadly never finished.. got the PS2 version but I no longer own a PS2.. ;_;
Atelier Annie is kinda on the shorter side as well… under 20 hours for a first playthrough, definitely… I played through it twice in a row in around two weeks. A few hours before falling asleep each night. ;> Loved it very much. But I can say that about almost every Atelier game, haha.
I can’t say much about the others, but there always this side to help with that: http://howlongtobeat.com (I frequently consult it when choosing what game to play next! XD)
“Is Sin and Punishment really that hard?”
Well, let me put it this way: if you want to beat the game — on NORMAL difficulty — you’d better be ready to shoot down no less than five hundred enemy units in one boss fight. Seriously. The game keeps track. To be fair, you can play with a buddy and the game becomes significantly easier, but I’d like to think that you need a hardy soul and fingers like lightning to clear S&P.
But that aside, yeah, I’m pretty new around these parts. (I tend to stumble drunkenly around the internet toward new blogs, you see.) Still, it’s good to be here, and I’m willing to bet I’ll see some marvelous content here on your blog.
And I’ll see if I can whip something up for DmC fairly soon. I’m interested in the game, but I’m also EXTREMELY wary of it. On the one hand, a reviewer I follow and trust gave it a high score. On the other hand, I saw the opening and…uh…it doesn’t inspire confidence.
You can see the review here if you’re interested.
http://www.destructoid.com/review-dmc-devil-may-cry-242002.phtml
Go for it! Knowing you, I’m sure you could knock off a 50 hour RPG in a month 😛
Yay, glad to have you on board!
And yes, that’s one of my cats! She stays with my parents in the US, though, so I only get to see her every year or two 🙁
Oh no, I think Fishing Resort will be a good one for the challenge! It’d work particularly well when I’m starting to feel a little burnt out, I think
Ah yes, I certainly miss my college days! I got a lot of gaming done then 😛
Sure it is! I’m counting games I started but never finished, for sure.
It’s great that you play a lot of games together with your friends! I’d say the fun of that kind of experience trumps getting them out of your backlog quickly. My husband and I occasionally play games together, but our interests are quite different (he’s more into shooters and what I consider to be “dark” games)
You know, I love Odin Sphere, but I never beat it! And I put a good 25 hours into it, too… Wonder if I should add that to my list, haha.
And yeah, I’m not counting games that I have to review/games I want to play that come out this year! There are so many great RPGs coming, too!
I hope you like FFIX if/when you finish it – that’s definitely my favorite Final Fantasy game! The end gets a little weird, but the rest of it is amazing XD
I should play Skyward Sword so we can swap notes about it 🙂 And yeah, I caught Cleo mid-yawn in that photo!
Oh dear, it sounds like I may have to employ the aid of my husband if I want to have any hope of getting through Sin and Punishment D:
As for DmC’s reviews, I find it extremely amusing to see the scores so high and the fan reaction so negative. I am a tad skeptical of the high praise, but as I always say, you won’t really know until you give it a try! Thanks for the review link, by the way
I wonder where the second comment I made about the length of the games from your list went… maybe disqus thought I was spamming… hm…
FFIX is my favourite along with VI too! I played it for a couple of hours hundreds of years ago on a friend’s PSONe, I never had one myself… I didn’t get too far into it back then, but it was so beautiful! *__*
7 years ago I played it again until the end of CD 3, then I noticed my friend who lent it to me didn’t give me CD4… which she seemed to have lost…. so I never finished it. I’m quite curious about the end, since I never saw that. 8)
Yeah, I was just wondering about that! I got an email notification for it (I remember you recommending a few games) but now I can’t find it 😐 I’ll go check and see if it didn’t get flagged as spam or something.
It’s definitely a weird ending! Let me know what you think when you get there 🙂 Who’s your favorite character? I’m a big fan of Freya and Beatrice XD
Hmm very strange, the comment appears somewhere else but not on this page, and I’m not sure what to do to make it show up (or if I even can). I’m just going to paste it here and reply all in one go, if that’s okay!
“Oh yes, about the length of the games in your backlog list: Definitely on the no longer than 20 hours side: Ghost Trick.. I finished that in one night. If I had to guess I’d say it took me around 8 hours – but I’m a puzzle addict and a fast reader, so it might be more around the 10 hour mark for others. I already mentioned before that The Last Story is around the 20h mark, same goes for Sakura Wars, which I sadly never finished.. got the PS2 version but I no longer own a PS2.. ;_; Atelier Annie is kinda on the shorter side as well… under 20 hours for a first playthrough, definitely… I played through it twice in a row in around two weeks. A few hours before falling asleep each night. ;> Loved it very much. But I can say that about almost every Atelier game, haha. I can’t say much about the others, but there always this side to help with that: http://howlongtobeat.com (I frequently consult it when choosing what game to play next! XD)”
First off, thanks for that link! I had no idea there was a site that tracked game lengths. Though I put Legendary Starfy in just to check how it worked, and it gave me some wonky numbers… (total time was longer than total time + sidequests, stuff like that) But I guess it can’t be perfect. Still, it’s a great resource!
And thanks for chiming in on Atelier Annie and Sakura Wars in particular, since I wasn’t sure how long they were. Would you say Atelier Meruru could be beaten in about 20 hours, too? I seem to remember taking a bit more than that for Rorona.
It’s the only FF game where I actually like all characters almost equally… no one annoys me, even Eiko gets fun in the end even tho she seemed to be a bit annoying at first. Everyone does have their up and down times, but in the end I loved them all. I can’t really decide on one favourite character, but my favourite team is Zidane, Vivi, Garnet & Freya. Beatrix is utter love! I wish she’d be a regular party member. ;_;
Meruru can be beaten in around 20 hours, I’d say. I took my time with it, since I loved it so much and wanted to do as much as possible on my first play through… and I still had tons of stuff to do on my second playthrough… right now I can’t check my total play time for both playthroughs… but I’d guess it’s around 50-60 hours. If you’re gonna play it, I’d suggest having some time tho… it takes a while to get back into the game (figure out what quest to do next, what to synthesize, what region to level up next.. etc) but story-wise it’s really easy to jump back in at least. And it’s so addicting… if you want to save some time, download a save file and play a New Game+ right from the start, since you can only get one of the endings after finishing the game once.. 🙂
That website takes the average of what users enter as their playtime… I’m usually a little faster than the average time, since I read so fast (and usually play lots of text heavy games, haha) – but I find it useful to get a general idea about how long a game is.
Oh yeah, how could I forget about Vivi?! So many great characters in that game 😀
Okay, thanks for all the info! Realistically I’ll probably only do one Atelier game for the challenge, and I think I’ll go with Annie. I’ll try to play Meruru slowly over the year, maybe!
Aww man, that sucks! Couldn’t you go visit your parents more often? What made you want to emigrate to Australia anyways?
Well, tickets from Australia to the US don’t come cheap, unfortunately! That and it’s hard for my husband to get leave from work, so we certainly wouldn’t be able to go more than once a year.
Speaking of which, he’s the main reason I’m here 😉 He’s Australian so I decided to move over when I graduated from college. It was either that or he would’ve come to the US, but I was interested in studying at the University of Queensland, so it worked out better this way!
Oh wow, that’s pretty amazing! Wish I could meet a stranger from a far away land and elope with them! That’d be so cool… Except it was only you who moved, so the word elope doesn’t really apply in this context… But I just wanted to use the word elope cos it sounds so romantic! :D.
Anne, so I’ve suddenly realised that I rarely ask about your life and how things are going with you and such, and being a regular(ish) reader of your site for many months now, I feel quite bad about this – plus I feel that I deserve an update on you every so often, so allow me to demonstrate how this might go…
i.e. ….
Update on my life n stuff!:
So this week-end I have been a very busy bunny, helping out around the house as my Mum has been very weak on being released from hospital after an operation. So that happened… But I managed to have a little fun at least on Friday night and yesterday I went to a friends’ house to attempt at doing some more vlogging… Unfortunately I freeze up immediately when being recorded and find it near impossible to convey my interest for the topic matters that I wish to discuss. Show biz is hard stuff Anne! :D. Saying that, I did go to drama school for near 10 years, so surely I should be more confident if anything?
Your turn Anne, your turn!