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I Finished These 23 Video Games In 2012

Stephen Totilo Avatar
Stephen Totilo


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)

  1. Aero Porter
  2. Crashmo
  3. Crosswords Plus
  4. Dillon’s Rolling Western
  5. Fluidity: Spin Cycle
  6. Fractured Soul
  7. Ketzal’s Corridors
  8. Kid Icarus: Uprising
  9. Liberation Maiden
  10. Mario Tennis Open
  11. New Super Mario Bros. 2
  12. Mario & Sonic at the London Olympic Games
  13. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
  14. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
  15. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
  16. Resident Evil: Revelations
  17. Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword
  18. Spirit Camera
  19. VVVVV
  20. Yoshi (Virtual Console)

Facebook

(10 games played; 0 finished)

  1. Bubble Safari
  2. Chefville
  3. CityVille
  4. Farmville 2 (one of two games in this section that I played for several hours)
  5. The Friend Game
  6. JetSet Secrets
  7. Outernauts
  8. Ruby Blast
  9. SimCity Social (this is the other one)
  10. Zuma Blitz

iOS

(34 games played; 2 finished)

  1. Amazing Alex
  2. Angy Birds Space
  3. Angry Birds Star Wars
  4. Anomaly Korea
  5. Bad Hotel
  6. Beat Sneak Bandit
  7. Beeing
  8. Coco Loco
  9. Count to a Billion
  10. Crow
  11. The Dark Knight Rises
  12. Demon’s Score
  13. Dynamite Jack
  14. Fieldrunners 2
  15. Fire and Dice
  16. Flight Control Rocket
  17. Gasketball
  18. A Gay Dragon
  19. Hax Attacks
  20. Kingdom Rush HD
  21. Letterpress
  22. McPixel
  23. PuzzleJuice
  24. Spellwood
  25. Super Hexagon
  26. The Room
  27. Run Roo Run
  28. Tiny Tower
  29. Triple Town
  30. The Walking Dead
  31. Waking Mars
  32. Where’s My Water?
  33. Words With Friends
  34. Zombie Wonderland 2

Mac

(1 games played; 0 finished)

  1. Diablo III

PC

(14 games played; 1 finished)

  1. Borderlands 2
  2. Botanicula
  3. Crusader Kings II
  4. Dishonored
  5. Far Cry 3
  6. FTL
  7. Hotline Miami
  8. Jamestown
  9. Orcs Must Die 2
  10. Perfect Distance
  11. Sleeping Dogs
  12. STAVKA-OKH
  13. Torchlight II
  14. 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)

  1. Assassin’s Creed III
  2. Closure
  3. Dragon’s Dogma
  4. Dyad
  5. Journey
  6. Lego Batman 2
  7. LittleBigPlanet Karting
  8. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
  9. Papo & Yo
  10. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault
  11. Resident Evil 6
  12. Resistance 3
  13. Sorcery
  14. Syndicate
  15. Tokyo Jungle
  16. The Unfinished Swan

Vita

(15 games played; 1 finished)

  1. Fuel Tiracas
  2. Lumines: Electronic Symphony
  3. Rayman: Origins
  4. Rebel
  5. Resistance: Burning Skies
  6. Retro City Rampage
  7. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (preview copy of this 2013 game)
  8. Sound Shapes
  9. Super Crate Box
  10. Super Stardust Delta
  11. Touch My Katamari
  12. Uncharted: Golden Abyss
  13. Velocity
  14. Wipeout: 2048
  15. Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward

Wii

(1 played; 0 finished)

  1. Rhythm Heaven Fever

Wii U

(9 played; 2 finished)

  1. Chasing Aurora
  2. Little Inferno
  3. Madden NFL 13
  4. Mighty Switch Force HD
  5. Nano Assault Neo
  6. New Super Mario Bros. U
  7. Nintendo Land
  8. Trine 2
  9. Zombi U

Xbox 360

(19 played; 6 finished)

  1. Asura’s Wrath
  2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
  3. Fable: The Journey
  4. Fez
  5. Gears of War 3
  6. Halo 4
  7. Hybrid
  8. I Am Alive
  9. Kinect: Star Wars
  10. Lego Lord of the Rings
  11. London 2012
  12. Mark of the Ninja
  13. Mass Effect 3
  14. Max Payne 3
  15. Spelunky
  16. The Splatters
  17. SSX
  18. Trials Evolution
  19. 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?

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