For the seventh straight year, I’m publishing a list of all the games I started playing in the past year and all the ones I finished. My totals have dropped yet again. I started 139 games, finished 23 of them.
When I started keeping track of this, back in 2006, the idea of finishing games was more relevant to me. I always liked playing games. I love trying new ones. But the concept of finishing them — which I’ve always indicated means simply reaching the game’s storyline conclusion and/or the end of its standard levels — was something I cared more about. I have long preferred single-player games, and I’ve favoured narrative or progression-based games over those that can be played more as a test of skill. I’ve preferred gaming’s books over its sports, as it were. I grew up on Nintendo and favoured Metroid and Zelda over Mario Kart or Street Fighter II. It mattered to me to reach the ends of games, because I wanted to see what developers put there. I wanted to see games through.
These days, I care more about playing the best, and so finishing games has decreased in importance. Plus, life’s too short, right?
What follows is a list of all the games I started on various platforms this year. Some of the games that I started I only played for an hour. Others, like Far Cry 3 or The Walking Dead, I’m many, many hours into playing.
I bolded the games I finished. As always, I’ve excluded games I only played out at trade shows (i.e. the games I played while on the job). I play most of my games at home in my spare time or during commutes.
The numbers below confirm a number of notions I’ve had in my head about my habits this year: I’ve dabbled more with Facebook games, enjoyed the easy access to new games on iOS and diminished my playtime with the Xbox 360. I’ve also shifted to playing lots of the blockbuster games on PC instead of console. I could use a few more games to play on Wii U! And PS3 is still a platform where I like finishing games.
Enough setup… on with the list!
My 2012 Games Played/Finished List
(Games I started listed below. Finished games are bolded)
3DS
(20 games played; 4 finished)
- Aero Porter
- Crashmo
- Crosswords Plus
- Dillon’s Rolling Western
- Fluidity: Spin Cycle
- Fractured Soul
- Ketzal’s Corridors
- Kid Icarus: Uprising
- Liberation Maiden
- Mario Tennis Open
- New Super Mario Bros. 2
- Mario & Sonic at the London Olympic Games
- Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
- Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
- Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
- Resident Evil: Revelations
- Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword
- Spirit Camera
- VVVVV
- Yoshi (Virtual Console)
(10 games played; 0 finished)
- Bubble Safari
- Chefville
- CityVille
- Farmville 2 (one of two games in this section that I played for several hours)
- The Friend Game
- JetSet Secrets
- Outernauts
- Ruby Blast
- SimCity Social (this is the other one)
- Zuma Blitz
iOS
(34 games played; 2 finished)
- Amazing Alex
- Angy Birds Space
- Angry Birds Star Wars
- Anomaly Korea
- Bad Hotel
- Beat Sneak Bandit
- Beeing
- Coco Loco
- Count to a Billion
- Crow
- The Dark Knight Rises
- Demon’s Score
- Dynamite Jack
- Fieldrunners 2
- Fire and Dice
- Flight Control Rocket
- Gasketball
- A Gay Dragon
- Hax Attacks
- Kingdom Rush HD
- Letterpress
- McPixel
- PuzzleJuice
- Spellwood
- Super Hexagon
- The Room
- Run Roo Run
- Tiny Tower
- Triple Town
- The Walking Dead
- Waking Mars
- Where’s My Water?
- Words With Friends
- Zombie Wonderland 2
Mac
(1 games played; 0 finished)
- Diablo III
PC
(14 games played; 1 finished)
- Borderlands 2
- Botanicula
- Crusader Kings II
- Dishonored
- Far Cry 3
- FTL
- Hotline Miami
- Jamestown
- Orcs Must Die 2
- Perfect Distance
- Sleeping Dogs
- STAVKA-OKH
- Torchlight II
- X-COM: Enemy Unknown (Six hours of it and the world was destroyed; I don’t think that counts as finishing it.)
PS3
(16 games played; 7 finished)
- Assassin’s Creed III
- Closure
- Dragon’s Dogma
- Dyad
- Journey
- Lego Batman 2
- LittleBigPlanet Karting
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted
- Papo & Yo
- Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault
- Resident Evil 6
- Resistance 3
- Sorcery
- Syndicate
- Tokyo Jungle
- The Unfinished Swan
Vita
(15 games played; 1 finished)
- Fuel Tiracas
- Lumines: Electronic Symphony
- Rayman: Origins
- Rebel
- Resistance: Burning Skies
- Retro City Rampage
- Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (preview copy of this 2013 game)
- Sound Shapes
- Super Crate Box
- Super Stardust Delta
- Touch My Katamari
- Uncharted: Golden Abyss
- Velocity
- Wipeout: 2048
- Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward
Wii
(1 played; 0 finished)
- Rhythm Heaven Fever
Wii U
(9 played; 2 finished)
- Chasing Aurora
- Little Inferno
- Madden NFL 13
- Mighty Switch Force HD
- Nano Assault Neo
- New Super Mario Bros. U
- Nintendo Land
- Trine 2
- Zombi U
Xbox 360
(19 played; 6 finished)
- Asura’s Wrath
- Call of Duty: Black Ops II
- Fable: The Journey
- Fez
- Gears of War 3
- Halo 4
- Hybrid
- I Am Alive
- Kinect: Star Wars
- Lego Lord of the Rings
- London 2012
- Mark of the Ninja
- Mass Effect 3
- Max Payne 3
- Spelunky
- The Splatters
- SSX
- Trials Evolution
- Warp
The final 2012 tally is: 139 games played; 23 finished
That compares to:
2011: 161 played; 28 finished
2010: 195 played; 52 finished
2009: 165 played; 48 finished
2008: 135 played; 37 finished
2007: 118 played; 35 finished
2006: 102 games played; 21 finished
So… what did I miss this past year?
A social life maybe?
That wasn’t a dig, thats a massive amount of gaming. Huge amounts. I understand you’re a journalist in the industry so its expected but… Just adding up the retail cost of those games, let alone the time expenditure, makes me 0.o
p.s…. Jealous ;(
How does one actually complete Little Inferno?
And will you be doing a review of Thieves in Time?
@dc – I’m lazy, please go find the lists we wrote 😛Thanks!
A friend and I did this a few days ago for games we’ve beaten:
Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation
Assassin’s Creed III
Beyond Good & Evil HD
Borderlands 2
Darksiders II
Dear Esther
Diablo III
Dinner Date
Dishonored
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Halo 4
inFamous 2
Intrusion 2
Journey
Kid Icarus
Left 4 Dead 2
Mark of the Ninja
Metal Gear Solid 3
Nintendo Land
Rayman Jungle Run
Renegade Ops
Resident Evil: Revelations
Saints Row: The Third
Space Marine
Spec Ops: The Line
Super Mario Bros. U
Tales of the Abyss
Terraria
The Binding of Isaac
The Last Story
The Walking Dead
Theatrhythm
Thirty Flights of Loving
Trials Evolution
And many more I’m either forgetting, or don’t remember whether I beat in this year or in others
Here you go, Greenius ol’ pal.
Friend? :’)
Doofus 😛
(@strange)
— Deponia
— Chaos on Deponia
— Gemini Rue
— Resonance
— Primordia
— The Walking Dead
— Anna’s Quest
— Egress
— Mass Effect 3
— Sleeping Dogs
— Scratches
— Spec Ops: The Line
— Dishonored
— Borderlands 2
— Kingdoms of Amalur
— SSX
— Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
— I Am Alive
— Beyond Good & Evil HD
— Rayman Origins
— Max Payne 3
— Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
— The Force Unleashed
— Batman Arkham City (PC)
— Quantum Conundrum
— The Dig
— Beneath a Steel Sky
Arkham City
Far Cry 3
MK 9
Soul Calibur V
Games I got about 75% through? My god…
Funny thing is though that those 4 in no way reflect my favourite games this year. I guess its just circumstance that allowed to finish them. Oh, and SC V is about 8 minutes long.
How do you define “finished” or “completed” a game? I only classify a game as completed only when I have all the achievements/trophies. If there are achievements left to do, then for me, it will always be unfinished.
Just playing through the story on the easiest setting, not doing any side missions nor obtaining any collectables etc doesn’t feel complete to me.
I’d have to say it’s finished when you are satisfied that it’s over, I got every achievement in Oblivion but one. After doing everything possible in the game I was moments away from fighting Jyggalag and I somehow lost my saves, I could not in good conscience start a new game and go directly to the very endgame to defeat a possibly level-scaled final boss with a noob character just for the achievement, not without an entire playthrough under his belt.. so I declared it complete and moved on.
What I can see here, despite the statement of having moved away from consoles, is that with very little exception the only games he actually sat down and beat were on the consoles. That says something about something doesn’t it?
Anyway I agree life is too short. For me too short to throw away an hour at a time on mediocre games that I’ll most probably never see the end of or really care to. I’d rather take the time for a full experience in the bestest of the best games instead.
I am pretty happy with my effort, as I spent most of the first quarter of the year on holiday in China and the last quarter playing GW2.
For 2012 I finished:
– Dragon Age 2
– Mass Effect
– Mass Effect 2
– Fable 3
– Kingdoms of Amalur
– Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
– Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
As of 2013 I have finished:
– Far Cry 3
Nice He finished MAX PAYNE 3. I spend quite some time playing and completing the campaign as well. And then I complete it for a second time on harder difficulty which took me longer.