2008 Year-End Recap & Thoughts

In 2008, I finished 26 games:

Gears of War 2

Oblivion (Main)

Oblivion (Fighter's Guild)

Oblivion (Mage's Guild)

Oblivion (Thieves' Guild)
Crackdown
Assassin's Creed
Diablo II
New Super Mario Bros.
Mega Man X
Bionic Commando Re-Armed
Braid
Diablo
Shadow of the Colossus
Etrian Odyssey
MGS 4
Puzzle Quest
MGS 2
MGS
CC: FFVII
COD4
Jeanne D'Arc
Rez HD
MGS: PO
Ninja Gaiden Black
RE4: Separate Ways

This is a substantial increase from the 2007 total of 15:

Final Fantasy XI (got 3rd 75, all desired gear, quit)
Final Fantasy XII
Gears of War
Halo
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Halo 2
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Prince of Persia Classic
Dragon Quest VIII
Bioshock
Halo 3 (Heroic & Legendary)
Portal
Yakuza
Rock Band
Resident Evil 4

However, the backlog is still epic, and there is much play left to do. I'm off to a decent start in 2009, though, having finally finished up Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on the first day of the year. My starting to play WoW could affect my overall gaming progress in two ways: it could halt backlog-thinning progress by consuming a large chunk of my playtime, but on the other hand, it could also slow backlog accumulation by consuming a large chunk of my attention, causing me to only go out and buy big releases or games I'm dying to play. This remains to be seen.

I bought a staggering amount of games in 2008, and resold a fair number of them. Many of these were never even opened, though often enough I turned a profit on them, so buying them wasn't all for naught. My goal for the year was to by the end, have a list of completed games at least as long as my pile of shame, and through the magic of "game beaten OR game sold = game removed from pile," I am happy to say that I've been able to do that (...at least until I re-populate the Pile of Shame to account for games bought in 2008 and still not played). For 2009, I'd like to have a list of completed games at least as long as games bought. A lofty goal, to be sure. I'm already up by one, though!

An interesting bit of trivia is that the first game I finished in 2008 was actually expanded content of one I finished in 2007, Separate Ways, the Ada Wong standalone adventure from Resident Evil 4. The trend continues with the first thing I finshed in 2009 being Lord of Destruction, Diablo II's expansion and fifth act.

Now that I've finished up the Diablo series to this point, I'm going to shelve it in favor of more WoW, of course, but also Starcraft. It's high time I educate myself on how to play an RTS at least kind of well. This will be concurrent with making progress on other fronts, as well. I have an embarrassing amount of unplayed DS and PS2 games, and not a few games on the 360/PS3/Wii that I want to play. So, I had a blast in 2008, and here's to a rather enjoyable 2009!