Measuring the Game Backlog, aka "the Pile of Shame"

Measuring the Game Backlog, aka “the Pile of Shame”

February 3rd, 2008

There are a great many games that I have intended to play (and finish), but have not yet done so. Some are games that I started but didn’t follow through, and others are games I simply never got to. I’ve done a great job lately in finishing games that I start, and I’m now going back and playing games I’ve missed (as evidenced by the Gearbox Half-Life expansions and now the Brothers in Arms titles). There’s a good chance I will edit this post and add more games in as I think of them.

Nintendo console games:
Super NES:
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2
Super Metroid (was this close to finishing)
ActRaiser
Super Mario RPG

Nintendo 64:
Super Mario 64 (played halfway many times, never finished)
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (played 3/4 the way twice, never finished)
Paper Mario

GameCube:
Resident Evil 4 (GameCube controller aiming was awful, looking forward to playing Wii version)
Eternal Darkness

Other console games:
Genesis:
Shadowrun
Earthworm Jim
General Chaos
Toejam & Earl
Phantasy Star series
Shining Force series
Herzog Zwei
Warsong

PC RPGs:
Wasteland
Ultima series
Baldur’s Gate series
Icewind Dale series
Planescape: Torment
Neverwinter Nights series
Dungeon Siege series
Titan Quest series
Anachronox
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
The Witcher
Fable: The Lost Chapters

PC Action/First Person games:
Thief series (played some of each, never completed)
System Shock
No One Lives Forever series
Brothers in Arms series
SWAT 4
Far Cry
Crysis

PC Strategy:
X-COM: UFO Defense
Starflight
Star Control II
Supreme Commander
Company of Heroes (plus expansion)
Command & Conquer series
Freedom Force series
WarCraft III
Tropico
Darwinia
Uplink

PC Adventure Games (point-and-click)
LucasArts:
Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders
Loom
The Dig
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Sam & Max Hit the Road (never finished it)

Sierra:
(all of them – yes, all)

Others:
The Space Bar
Obsidian
The Last Express
The Longest Journey series
Syberia series
Broken Sword series
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Myst
Zork: Grand Inquisitor

Whew! That’s no small list. Let’s just say that when the spring/summer game release drought hits, I won’t be complaining about it. Probably not during 2009′s summer either.

Noah

The Longest Journey was a weird mix of fabulous and infuriating. Some of the dumbest and most contrived puzzles I’ve encountered in an adventure game, combined with top-notch storytelling and fabulous voice acting. On the other hand, Syberia (at least the first one) has great worldbuilding and puzzles that almost all actually make sense, with a mediocre script and so-so acting. Both are worth your time, though. For TLJ, I recommend the Universal Hint System page, if you have not seen it before, since they are generally very good about giving hints without completely spoiling a puzzle or concept unless you absolutely need it.

I’m not at all sure that I could go back and play Myst, although that’s mostly because I did finish it back in the day. Still, it’s probably pretty cool with the recent graphical upgrade version.

Warcraft III and Frozen Throne are fabulous – I enjoyed the heck out of their single-player campaigns. Also the RPG-style “bonus orc campaign” is very much worth downloading and playing, when you give it a shot. I gather that it sets up a bunch of the WoW background.

Loom is a game I would not mind going back and playing – I tried it for maybe 15 minutes on a babysitter’s PC, way back in the day. I wonder if it is on Gametap in a playable form…

Regarding System Shock, I’ve heard that it’s a pain to get running on a modern system, but worth it. I’ve still only played SS2, alas (and the lack of a machine/box that can run BioShock means I haven’t touched it – or Portal, for that matter).

Freedom Force was pretty cool. I’ve got the second game (…vs. the Third Reich) sitting on a shelf and not getting played, which I should do something about at some point.

Regarding Dungeon Siege, I am not at all convinced that there is any shame involved in not playing it.
http://www.economyofeffort.com *Legion*

Re: TLJ – I’m familiar with the UHS, though sometimes I forget about it and head to GameFAQs instead. I’ll make sure to add it to my bookmarks.

Re: Loom – It’s not on GameTap, unfortunately, but with ScummVM, it’s easy to play it (and any old LucasArts adventure) on modern hardware. ScummVM even runs on my homebrew-enabled PSP.

Re: System Shock – I’ve read that it is a pain to try and run natively, but runs great in DOSBox if you’ve got sufficient processing hardware (I’ve got a Core 2 Duo CPU, so I’m set there)

Re: WarCraft – I was a huge WarCraft fan for the original and especially the second game (which was instrumental in me registering Kali and playing on some ladders). WC3 hit during a gap in my PC gaming timeline, I definitely need to give it and Frozen Throne their due time.

Re: Freedom Force – It’s a Ken Levine game, which makes it essential for me (same with SWAT IV).

Re: Dungeon Siege – It’s a Chris Taylor (Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander) game, which is what gets it on the list. I know from it’s reputation that it’s decent if not essential, but being a fan of Chris Taylor’s other games, I have to at least play it.
Noah

Eh, you’ll probably enjoy Dungeon Siege. I only played a bit of it, but it’s awfully pretty, at least for the time, and reasonably engaging. It’s just… there’s a lot of game, but not a lot of motivation for doing what you do. The idea that someone would make a Dungeon Siege movie was particularly implausible just because there’s even less of a story there than for most games. Mind you, the movie would’ve sucked even if there’d been a BioWare-worthy story on the game, due to excessive Boll.

Incidentally, missed Eternal Darkness on your list, which I too need to play all the way through sometime. I think I played around 1/4 through the game on a friend’s gamecube. Now that I could get a used gamecube for $30ish, possibly I should do that later this year and borrow some games.

Personally, I recently got a PS2, my first console since the Dreamcast, and I’ve been playing many of the last 5-6 years’ worth of games, like Shadow of the Colossus, Soul Calibur III, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and GTA: San Andreas. Good times.

Economy of Effort

Measuring the Game Backlog, aka “the Pile of Shame”

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