By Ben Salter
It’s E3 time and that means one thing: the releases dry up. May was much bigger than I thought it would be with the likes of UFC 2010, Prince of Persia, Blur, Alan Wake, Red Dead Redemption, ModNation Racers and Skate 3. Come to think of it, May was a massive month for gaming in 2010 and continued the stellar start to the year. Now, however, as we hit June the releases are beginning to slow and it’s time to tackle the backlog of games that have built up on our shelves.
I’ve got way too many unfinished games sitting in my pile. Last year I wrote an article about the games drought of ’09 and intended to use that time to dust off some unfinished titles. As it turns out, I’m in exactly the same position this year, with another 12 months worth of games that need to be finished.
I’d like to finish every game in my collection, but that’s never going to happen. Instead I’m going to focus on games from the past 12 months, since E3 last year, and try to finish all of them before the end of the year. I’ll list them all in a second, but first I must fill you in on a few of the ground rules and what counts as a game in my collection. I try to play as many new releases as possible but these, many of which are games for review, leave my collection faster than K-Man runs from the sun. Only games that are actually still in my collection will be included in the list to finish by the end of 2010. The list only includes games I’ve acquired in the last 12 months, since E3 last year.
Backlog of games June ’09 - June ’10
- • Mass Effect
- • Uncharted
- • LittleBigPlanet
- • Uncharted 2*
- • Prototype
- • Resonance of Fate*
- • Metal Gear Solid 4*
- • Red Dead Redemption
- • Pokemon SoulSilver
- • Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA)
- • GTA: The Lost & the Damned
- • GTA: The Ballad of Gaetano*
- • Just Cause 2*
- • No More Heroes Desperate Struggle*
- • Bayonetta
- • Alan Wake*
- • Portal
*denotes game is still sealed/yet to be started
They’re all the games (I think) I’m yet to finish in the last 12 months and are still in my collection. Some of the older games are there because I only got my PS3 in October last year with the release of the Slim. I have heaps of downloaded arcade games that have no chance, but I included Banjo-Kazooie because I loved it back in the day and was really hoping to finish it quick smart when I downloaded it - that didn’t happen but I got about half way.
The question is: can I finish all of them by the end of the year? I guess we’ll find out in 6 months. It doesn’t look all that hard, but remember I’ll have a stack of new games to play weekly throughout the year. Finding time for the oldies becomes more challenging by the day once we get past this quiet period, so it’s time to get stuck into them now! That said, I just got Split/Second, will have Samurai Warriors 3 by the end of the week and Super Mario Galaxy 2 early next week. Perhaps it won’t be as easy as first thought.
What about you guys? What’s in your backlog of games? Any chance of finishing them by the end of 2010? The E3 period is the prefect time to get started.