Tales of the Backlog

Hello readers and welcome to this post which is all about my gaming backlog. This article has been written in response to the #LoveYourBacklog tag created by the fabulous Kim of Later Levels and Ellen of Livid Lightning. The aim of this is to get us to embrace our gaming backlogs rather than seeing them as a negative. From my point of view this isn’t difficult as I have never viewed the backlog as a chore, but rather a reminder that the future still has many wonders to reveal.

*First things first! I need to apologise for posting this a day late *holds head in shame* The week of the backlog actually finished yesterday but due to a backlog (geddit?) of non-video gaming tasks I totally failed to get it finished on time. Oh the irony!*

I wasn’t originally even going to take part in this event. Not because I didn’t like it, it is clearly awesome, but because I don’t have much of a gaming backlog. In fact, in terms of games I already own my backlog can pretty much be summed up like this:

I don’t have a Steam library, I don’t really ever download anything on a whim and generally prefer to buy games physically where possible. It might sound strange, but I don’t actually play very many games compared to a lot of other bloggers.

I haven’t finished a single game yet this year, but do you know what? I don’t care! What is important to me about gaming is that each and every game is a meaningful part of my life. I am passionate about the games I play but I’m also very selective. I’ve basically never played a game I didn’t like, and even games I love can still take me a long time to get through (take that look off your face Tales of the Abyss…it’s only been, what? 3 years? 4? Oh dear!)

Having said all that I do have a list of about 30 games on my ‘to play’ list (written on a post-it note, stored in the mouth of a plastic letter-holder shaped like a moose), so including the games from that list as well as the games pictured above, let’s have a look at how my gaming backlog fits into the specified categories!

Game most likely never to be played

Her Story. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this game and would genuinely like to play it. In fact I fully intend to eventually play everything on the list. However, the reason I put this here is that Her Story lacks a hook to MAKE me play it. I’m sure I’d enjoy it if I did, but it isn’t really the kind of thing I usually play and it might be that the time for it has passed, particularly as there is a slow but steady stream of games jumping onto my list and bumping it down each month.

Shortest game

Well, probably Her Story, but since I may never actually play it then I’m going to go with Life is Strange. I had to refer to HowLongToBeat for info on how long it is, and at approximately 14 hours for the main story it isn’t even all that short, but seeing as most of the other games on the list are JRPG’s I thought this was a reasonable guess!

Longest game

Final Fantasy X. Again, since most of them are JRPG’s and I’m not sure how long each of them are I can’t be certain about this, but I’m guessing FF X is above 50 hours (hopefully much longer) and anything above 50 hours is long enough to be considered as the longest.

Game which has spent the most time on the backlog

Grim Fandango…

Actually, does a game you have officially already started count? I received a copy of Grim Fandango on PC from my brother about 20 years ago. I did start it but got stuck pretty damn early and gave up. Actual decades later I found out that my partner had played it and liked it so we decided to pick it up for me to play. We actually bought it quite recently, however it has been on my ‘to play’ list for years, and considering it came out in 1998 I think it deserves the title of ‘Game which has spent the most time on the backlog!’

The person responsible for adding the most entries to your backlog

Me! Sure, my partner buys me games and I buy him games and I occasionally receive them as gifts from friends and family, but at the end of the day I am the one who controls what game I play next. In terms of actually finding out which games I want to play I suppose a combination of games magazines, awesome bloggers and Twitter are responsible but ultimately the decision is down to me, and so if I ever do feel overwhelmed rather than excited by the backlog then I only have myself to blame!

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So there we have it. Even though there are not many games in my backlog, the sheer amount of time it takes me to complete games means that playing every one of them could well take me into old-age. However, I am thankful to live in a time where new things pique my interest all the time. That there is such a wonderfully creative games industry means that I never turn my back on new games and rather than dreading adding to the backlog, I simply cannot wait for my next ‘favourite game’ to be announced (aka the Untitled Goose Game effect).

Do you have a preposterous gaming backlog? If so let me know how you feel about it below and head on over to Later Levels to check out the other responses to the #LoveYourBacklog challenge!

Thanks for reading,

Pix1001 x