Backlog: Your "Unfinished Games" list

[The NZA]

 

Game sites & devs alike say you really oughta finish your games, or at least, the ones that are finishable (not like NES tetris and shit). i actually feel a little bad buying too many new ones when there's a fair number of games i do intend to finish - not the ones i lost interest in, or got impossible/undesirable to play, or even some of those ps1 games that just dont age well and its fucking painful to try to drudge through them now for a week or two just to say i did. But real, fun/good games that i oughta play to completion and see how they end, especially before endorsing them so.

 

Here's the list i drew up while very, very bored at work early in the year, as a mock-new year's resolution of entertainment, given that there's only a small handful of titles i wanna buy this year anyway:

 

2009/2010 Games

 

Psychonauts (forget where i was, but too far to start over...)

Beyond Good & Evil (same deal, but a sequel's comin!)

Persona 4 (i cant wait to get into this one, loved 3)

Tales of Vesperia

Lost Oddysey (i dont know that ill finish this one, depends on how much i take to it/feel like overdoing J-RPGs this year)

Killer 7 (after NMH, i wanna give it a second chance, but fuck is it not easily approached)

Zone of the Enders 2 (as a kojima fan, i really oughta)

Godhand

Fatal Frame 2 (why must she run so slowly?!)

Eternal Darkness (i keep restarting this one)

Mother 3 (even got the guide now!)

No More Heroes

Valkyria Chronicles

Fable 2

 

Possibly maybe/rainy day games

Odin Sphere

Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction

Mario Galaxy

Berserk (PS2 import)

Punisher (still stuck on the 2nd fight with the Russian)

 

PC games to finally try out

Grim Fandango - i loved what ive played in the past of it, and i wanna play more shafer before brutal legend comes out.

Maniac Mansion/Day of the Tentacle/Sam & Max/SCUMM games - i love these. i should run through more monkey island too.

Fallout 1/2

System Shock 2

Deus Ex

Planescape: Torment

 

Games to borrow & try if this list turns out sucky

Web of Shadows

Condemned 2

Devil May Cry 4

GTA IV

Afro Samurai (rent?)

 

its daunting, sure, but if i could somehow play a few at work, as is my current aspiration, who knows.

there it is, we'll see how much actually gets tackled - if i beat half of those, itll be something. what about you?

 

also, if you wanna stress any titles on there over the others, lemme know. im still inna mood for rpgs but anything goes.

 

and no, maldron, this doesnt count uncharted 2, brutal legend, ghostbusters or all the other good-looking shit coming this year, but you know, you make these lists when youre broke, too, heh.

[Thelogan]

See, I'm not like that at all. I devour games. It's a rare occasion that I don't beat it once I start playing it, unless I just don't like it. Shit, I even beat a fair share of those (achievement whoring thread, coming soon).

It's weird you mention Psychonauts, that's one of the few that I was enjoying and just stopped playing somewhere around (I estimate) halfway though. Dunno why, just other shit I wanted to play I guess. It's been so long I'm gonna have to start over at this point.

I never beat The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Played that game for over a hundred hours with a bunch of different characters, never beat the main campaign. Always got sidetracked or murdered an integral character. I should do that someday.

[The NZA]

its weird, right?

i mean, not finishing RPGs in the homestretch of like 80 hours of work, as bish and i have hypothesized, is like a syndrome. some games ive put down and accepted later that i wasnt enjoying them as much as id really wanted to at that point (Zelda: Twilight Princess, sadly) but some of those, like Psychonauts, were great...i just got caught up in something and put it down, and that's a shame.

 

i did this last year with Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and a few others and i was really glad i did, they lived up to the underground hype. i hope more on this list do, too.

 

looking forward to your achievement whore thread, ive shit to add to that, too. heh.

[Jables]

I'm such a commitment-phobe when it comes to completion of games. If I smell the ending coming I'll generally switch to something else unless I'm ethereally compelled to play, as is the case with games like Bioshock & Fallout 3. Oblivion will never be done for me.

[Newtype]

I have such a massive backlog of games to finish that it will take a good few months of playing non-stop and if you seen my collection you know I'm not kidding.

[Acalis]

These are pretty much the games I have that I never finished:

 

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy X-2

Arc the Lad 2

Arc the Lad 3

Star Wars: Force Unleashed

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Rebel Raiders

Chrono Cross (not mine, but borrowed and never finished)

[Boogie]

Wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that you have Berserk: chapter of the millennium falcon for PS2 Nick, and nobody send me a copy? I wasnt informed?

 

I've been wanting to play it so bad now.... Shame on you, buddy

[The NZA]

ah, but you know its not translated, right? games harder than the Dreamcast one, and the first level's a bit shit, but past that it goes right into the manga stuff! just sucks that there's clearly some kinda shop thing for stats that ive not sorted.

 

also, ive got it downloaded/bootlegged to my PS2 hard drive. i can happily burn you the disc, sir (it mostly works) but youd need a way to play it!

[Iambaytor]

Man i finished Shadow of the Colossus in 3 days and that extra day was only because the last Colossus is so fucking hard to get to. Okami did take a while but that's mostly due to the obscene (but yet still too short) length and the fact that I was trying to collect all the beads before realizing that the race in the frozen forest was way too fucking hard and the Spider-battles were far too tedious and saying "fuck it."

 

I am trying to get 100% on some of my games, I was almost done with Psychonauts but collecting all the figments in the meat circus is a nightmare so that's shelved for now, currently I'm working on Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, which is a lot easier than I thought it would be, I think it's going to be the ammunation gun range and the street races that really keep me from my goal.

 

I should also finish Final Fantasy XII sometime but I'm stuck because I'm apparently about 6 levels below where I should be despite my constant power-leveling and these groups of rapidly-multiplying flans that keep falling from the ceiling when I hit door switches are holding me back.

[The NZA]

Nice, i picked up Psychonauts again but the platforming felt...clunky and uninviting. im early on, mind you, still stuck in some teacher's brain/tutorial thing? buncha rooms, one's a disco.

 

same with Shadow (that guy was a bitch) and Okami, i did a lotta sidequests but some of that shit wasnt happening. I did finish Tales of Vesperia last night though, so that's one off my list. if Sen doesnt take her laptop on her trip, im thinking of mounting Grim Fandango and playing that one here at work, i hear its on the short side and its been on my list for too may years now (at least since the PC Gamer demo disc, heh).

 

if you need help in FF XII, a few of us've conquered & loved that one, so holla.

[Iambaytor]

I don't know how many times I climbed up that last Colossus, that thing puts your grip to the test even if you have killed a shitload of those fucking lizards.

 

Psychonauts picks up once you finally finish with Raz's brain and get to Lungfishopolis, so far Coach Oleanders Spinng Log Tunnel of Death was the worst place to collect figments though Waterloo world was a chore as well. The Milkman Conspiracy and Velvetopia still remain 2 of the finest levels ever in both gameplay, design, and aesthetic I have ever played. I swear I could play those forever.

 

Well I just got to the village of the werid people with horns and rode the Chocobo to the forest where Fran's people snub you and went into that cave nearby for some reason (I forget) and I have to hit these door switches and every time I do a group of blue Flans drop down, now this shouldn't be a problem but for some reason all my characters aren't doing shit by way of damage to them and the only way I can plow through them is by summoning that big psuedo-Ifrit thing but the problem is the second time I have to face them they always end up swarming the summoner and killing her. I know power leveling is probably my only option, I've just been lazy since I spent several hours getting all my characters up 4 levels before going there in the first place (With Vaan, Bosch, and Balthier it's always easy but for some reason Fran is moderately diffcult and Ashe and Penelo are obscenely hard to level up. Part of it is I need to get Penelo off of daggers, those things are fucking worthless and I've got everybody on swords except for Balthier and Fran.

 

On a somewhat related note I stated this before but I have so far found Final Fantasy XII to be the best game in the series since 6. We've finally got a cast of characters that I love (even if the differences between them are purely cosmetic), a story that's involved but not too complicated, a battle system that's fun (though getting swarmed by enemies feels kinda cheap sometimes), and the voice acting is awesome. I swear I could listen to Balthier and Fran talk for a week straight, especially Fran. Hopefully 13 will be able to live up to this one (I already know 14 won't as it's apparently going to be 11-2 or some shit)

[The NZA]

see, that makes me wanna try Psychonauts again, but its the same dillema as Beyond Good & Evil: i dont know what the goal is where the fuck i am, and dont even know that enough to find it in gamefaqs. plus, i dont wanna start all over again. piss.

 

i never really used penelo, baksh (sp?) and ashe (also sp?) felt better options, unless the game's forcing you to bring her. then again, sen made her good - like you said, differences are aesthetic, so i always bench the non-protagonist kids. power-leveling sounds the way to go, keep avoiding elementals though.

 

100% agreed about XII being the best since VI, but dont tell the internets...game gets a lotta hate, mostly from kids who want the decades-old Active Time Battle back. i quietly hate them.

[Iambaytor]

see, that makes me wanna try Psychonauts again, but its the same dillema as Beyond Good & Evil: i dont know what the goal is where the fuck i am, and dont even know that enough to find it in gamefaqs. plus, i dont wanna start all over again. piss.

 

i never really used penelo, baksh (sp?) and ashe (also sp?) felt better options, unless the game's forcing you to bring her. then again, sen made her good - like you said, differences are aesthetic, so i always bench the non-protagonist kids. power-leveling sounds the way to go, keep avoiding elementals though.

 

100% agreed about XII being the best since VI, but dont tell the internets...game gets a lotta hate, mostly from kids who want the decades-old Active Time Battle back. i quietly hate them.

 

Psychonauts is good once you get past that hump which was less daunting a task than I remember. Beyond Good and Evil is still on this list as well as that last boss is so fucking cheap, if I'd known I would have bought like 100 boxes of K-Bubs beforehand. As it stands I have 4 and no way to go back and get more from my save and after I spent all that time collecting all those pearls I don't wanna start over.

 

Well I like to keep all 6 characters up there so if I lose a part member and am low on MP and have no phoenix down I can just bring in the second stringer. Penelo is my 4th stringer healer (Fran, Balthier, Ashe, Penelo) but when I need her I need her bad. And yeah, I wasn't crazy about the active battle system because I thought it was going to be like Crystal Chronicles but I like what they've put together here. I think it's the VII fanboys who do the most hate-mongering.

[The NZA]

For those who wanna keep track & share notes, this site is awesome.

You can find me here

[HypnotizinChikns]

Fallout 3, still have the DLC to finish!

Rockband 2- still trying to go plat. as a solo vocalist, can't be too fucking long as I've gone 100%+ on over twenty songs!

[The NZA]

damn! which ones are giving you a hard time?

[HypnotizinChikns]

none. but i don't play often enough to make a bigger dent. i love the DLC stuff more than the actual RB2 disc stuff, not sure if that makes a difference, plus many of the challenges...too many to name! I also started on drums, which is hindering me becuase i don't play often as it is and bangin on the drums takes up time i could be going for my goal. At one point i was #1 for 6 songs, all DLC. still no plat stats tho.

[The NZA]

 

not quite tossing it into my sig yet (my page needs work), but ive got my full backlog up there - any other gamers down, sign up there & add me! ive got a few people from kotaku & GAF on there, its cool to see how bad everyone else's queue looks, as well as who's playing what. check it out.

 

[bishopcruz]

Quick list of games I own but did not finsih:

Phantasy Star Online

Lost Odyssey

Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter

Lost Planet

The Simpsons

Last Remnant

Operation Darkness

Project Sylpheed

Forza 2

Guitar Hero 3

Tomb Raider: Legend

Blue Dragon

Sneak King

N3

PGR3

PGR4

Condemned 2

 

PS2

FFX2

ICO

Katamari

Xenosaga II

Amplitude

Shadow of the Collosus

Black

Yakuza

THUG

Persona 4

Suikoden 5

Okami

 

Wii

Zelda

Metroid Prime 3

SSB Brawl

 

GCN

Skies of Arcadia

Metroid Prime

 

More to come...

 

PS3

Valkyria

Resistance 2

Infamous

 

Also, to be fair quite a few of the PS2/3/GCN ones are owned by gusmithx, but they are in the collection anyhow.

[The NZA]

Ico, Shadow, Suikoden V and a few on your list make me openly weep.

 

join the backloggery when you can, man - we can totally monitor progress and shit from there!

[Newtype]

Just started using this as well.

 

Just going to do the PlayStation games first and add the rest later.

[The NZA]

its looking good so far, man. again, youve got like a thousand hours of grinding when you're so inclined, heh.

 

i put like every game that came to mind on mine, looking back at my collection - now that i put the dreamcast games up as well - there's plenty to add, but not as many that i intend on finishing rather than casually playing anyway. im getting back into an RPG mood, so between Persona 4 (which is gonna suck my soul) and Planescape (bish just put the most current version on sen's laptop), i should be golden here, long before Persona comes to PSP. i still wanna take down KOTOR and some more of the Schafer collection (at least before Brutal Legend) this year.

[The NZA]

Backlog updated

hah, was bored, but that was fun - tried to think up every game ive beaten, even as a kid. i also revised my unbeaten game list to only reflect those i truly intend to finish one day - if i lost interest or its so difficult id have to c heat, i put it as "null". i dont think gaming should be a tedious chore, but i do want to keep track of what i havent knocked out yet.

 

turns out, it looks like ive finished at least 247 games so far (!). that'd be sad if it wasnt my primary hobby (alright, still kind of sad but i look forward to topping 250). i also changed games id beaten mostly from others' help or any other hollow victories from "completed" to lesser status of "beaten" (i.e., sure i beat Mario 64, but i never got all 120 stars. or beat contra without the 30 man trick, etc).

 

currently, ive got 23 unfinished games. i think i can take that down to under 20 by the year's end, we'll see.

[Newtype]

Backlog updated

 

Was able to put away 5-15 games away the past month.

 

I'll add the other systems at some point.

[Keth]

Just booted up Psychonauts again and I'm gonna finish it dammit.