The Video Game Archive

I play a lot of games—more than I can normally count. In 2012, I decided to try tracking my playing habits across the year. It didn’t work out exactly as planned; I forgot to update my list of games played for months at a time. But I managed to take note of nearly every game I spent meaningful time (i.e., more than a few minutes) with over the past twelve months.

It turns out that I played approximately 178 games, give or take a few, that I remembered long enough to write down. My guess is that I missed 40-50 titles in compiling this list—with nearly all of those being games that I played at events like Freeplay Independent Games Festival or ACMI Game Masters.

Here they are, in no particular order (although the ones listed lower were generally played later in the year). I’ve included the platform I was on, and anything I am sure I completed is in italics (many of these don’t have an ending, mind).

• Football Manager 2012 (Mac)
• MacGuffin's Curse (Mac)
• Reprisal (Web and Mac)
• inFamous (PS3)
• Pixeljunk Shooter (PS3) (completed it in 2012; bought and started playing in 2010)
• TRAUMA (Mac)
• Kaptain Brawe (Mac)
• Descent (Mac)
• Kairo (Mac) (Beta and final versions)
• Spaceward Ho! for iPad
• Zone Warrior (iPhone)
• Spectre 3D (iPhone)
• Harry the Handsome Executive (Mac)
• Kickboxing Manager (PC)
• Mr Angry (Commodore 64)
• Simulation Zoo (Sega Saturn)
• Lemonade Stand (Apple II)
• GameHero (Web)

• Super Mario Kart (SNES) (Yeah, I played it again)
• Mari0 (Mac)
• Donkey Kong Country: The Kremlings Revenge (SNES) (it's a romhack)
• Wasteland (DOS)
• Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity (PC)
• Beavis and Butthead Do U (PC)
• Picross 3D (Nintendo DS)
• Quadratum (Android)
• Godville (Android and iPhone)
• NemoNemo Picross (Android)
• Spirit (Android)
• Where's My Water? (Android)
• Terraria (PC)
• Tongue Tied! (Android)
• Apparatus (Android)
• The Last Story (Nintendo Wii)
• Amnesia: THe Dark Descent (Mac)

• Burnout Paradise (PC)
• Lone Survivor (Mac)
• Arcane Worlds (PC)
• The Kite (PC)
• RetroBlazer (PC)
• Intense Staring Simulator (Web)
• Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation (PC)
• Tomb Raider Anniversary (PC)
• Grim Fandango (PC via ResidualVM)
• FIFA 12 (Mac)
• Glider Classic (iPhone/iPad)
• StuntCopter (iPad)
• Marathon 1 (Mac and iPad)

• Otto Mattic (iPad)
• Robbery Bob (iPhone)
• Oh! Cube (iPhone)
• Go Robo! (iPhone)
• KOTOMON (iPhone)
• Soccer Invaders (iPhone)
• Paint for Cats (iPad) (I tried a couple of the games we got for the family cat)
• Fun and Games for Cats (iPad)
• Dude Perfect (Android)
• Temple Run (Android)
• Doptrix (Android, I think)
• Dino Life (Android)
• Mr Legs (Android)

• Trapball (Android)
• Slice (Android)
• Sparking Lines (Android)
• Claustrom (Android)
• Game Masters - The Game (Android)
• Marble Catch (Android)
• Garfield's Diner (Android)
• Chippers Challenge (Android)
• Stay Dead (Mac)
• Waveform (Mac)
• Follow the Rabbit (iPhone)
• The Act (iPhone)
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (iPhone)
• Spy vs Spy (iPhone)
• Fluxe (iPhone)

• Pocket Planes (iPhone)
• Nova Golf (Mac)
• GL Golf (Mac)
• nexuiz (Mac)
• Violet Storm (Mac)
• Machinarium (Mac)
• The Island of Funk (Web)
• Typeaholic (iPhone)
• Fast Typer 2 (iPhone)
• Typing Hell (iPhone)
• Control Shift (iPhone)
• Typing Maniac (iPhone)
• Font Monsters (iPhone)
• Burning Fingers (iPhone)
• Epic Typing Challenge (iPhone)

• Child of Eden (PS3)
• Kirby's Avalanche (SNES)
• Kirby's Dream Course (SNES)
• Incantation (SNES?)
• The Settlers 2 Gold (DOS)
• Cool Spot (SNES)
• Pro Evolution Soccer 13 (PS3)
• Johnny Upgrade (Web)
• 1000 Amps (Mac)
• Pingus (Mac)
• Sid Meier's Civilization V (PC)
• To the Moon (PC)

• Vib-Ribbon (PS1)
• JezzBall Classic (Android)
• Linefield (Android)
• XonixAttack (Android)
• graBLOX (Android)
• Voxel Invaders (Android)
• Dungeon Village (Android)
• The Tiny Bang Story (Android)
• Slice Ice (Android)
• Typing Karaoke (Web)
• Rochard (Mac)
• Sleepwalker's Journey (Android)
• Paper Monsters (Android)
• Lep's World (Android)

• Super Androix (Android)
• Rufio Adventures (Android)
• Giana Sisters (Android)
• Stardash (Android)
• FIFA 13 for iOS (iPhone)
• NBA 2K13 for iOS (iPhone and iPad)
• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (iPad)
• Tribes (iPhone)
• Babel Rising 3D (iPhone)
• Cute God (iPhone)
• GodFinger All-Stars (iPhone)
• The Sims FreePlay (iPhone)
• The Sandbox (iPhone)
• Super Fire Pro Wrestling (SNES)

• The Fool and his Money (Mac)
• Beyond Heretic (Mac)
• Book of Unwritten Tales (Mac)
• Shufflepuck Cantina (iPhone)
• Super Mario 2600 (Atari 2600)
• Xenophobe (ZX Spectrum)
• Dune 2 Online (Web)
• Babylonian Twins HD (Android)
• Civilization I (DOS)
• DinoPark Tycoon (DOS)
• Picross e (Nintendo 3DS)
• Rayman Origins 3DS (Nintendo 3DS)
• Ridge Racer (Nintendo 3DS)
• Bean's Quest (Android)

• Giana Sisters (Android)
• Rainbow Island (Android)
• Pocket Monsters (Android)
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 (iPad)
• Drop7 (iPhone and iPad)
• Shove Pro (iPad)
• Picross HD (iPad)
• Galaga 30th Anniversary Edition (iPad)
• Triple Town (Android)
• Punch Quest (iPhone)
• Letterpress (iPhone)
• Steambirds (iPhone)
• Bejeweled 3 (Mac)
• Spin Doctor (iPhone)
• Crystal Quest (iPhone)
• Super Soccer Champs (iPhone)
• A New Beginning - The Final Cut (Mac) (currently reviewing this for Mac.AppStorm)
• Rez (Dreamcast) (revisited for the umpteenth time)
• Grand Theft Auto V (PS3)

• Worms Crazy Golf (Mac)
• Mario's Picross (Game Boy Color) (How did we cope with those tiny screens back then?)
• Demolition Physics (Mac)
• Freeciv (PC)
• Widelands (Mac)
• Four Keys (PC)
• Hubris (PC)
• Retro Racing (Android)
• Zineth (Mac)
• BlindSide (Mac)
• At The Carnival (Mac)
• Dig Dug (NES)
• NBA Jam (Arcade)
• LEGO Batman (Mac)

A few things jump out at me. I don’t often finish video games. In fact, I seldom do. Most of the 30-or-so “completed” games here were played for review during the second half of the year. Even if you take the open-ended titles out, my ratio of played to finished is still way less than half. That’s great, because I get to experience more of this wonderful, expansive medium. But it’s terrible, because I don’t see all the effort put into the latter stages of most games and I don’t get a full appreciation of their qualities and shortcomings.

I expect my 2013 list to be longer, since I now spend more time writing about games than doing anything else (except maybe sleeping, but that inconvenience is a different story altogether). I wonder, though, whether the ratio of played to completed will be any different. Will I manage to “finish” more than one in six games picked up?

On another note, will I actually shrink my backlog—which has doubled in size this past year, despite the great length of the above list? (I doubt it.)

The other big thing here is that I barely touched my consoles. One game on the Wii (well, so far as I remember). And half a dozen or so on the PlayStation 3. Everything else was Mac, mobile, tablet, or retro. I could make excuses about the high cost of console games (especially here in Australia) compared to other platforms, but I don’t think that’s getting to the core of the issue.

Console games just don’t appeal to me like they used to. I’m not interested in the big budget, no holds barred, extravagant shooter filled with slow-motion blood splatter and egregious shooting of dudes played to the sounds of Linkin Park or dubstep. I don’t care about big burly marines (be they “space” or otherwise), nor am I interested in scantily-clad women with impractical boob armor. I like games that make me think. I like games that give me something new or different, rather than the same tired rehash. I like games that aren’t afraid to experiment. And I like games that I can play just as easily for five minutes as five straight days without showering. I don’t get that from console games as easily, or as reliably, as I do from smaller PC/Mac or mobile/tablet experiences.

I suspect I’m not alone.

Of course, there are plenty of brilliant and unique titles on consoles. On the PS3 alone, 2012 saw Journey, Tokyo Jungle, The Unfinished Swan, and Papo & Yo, plus several multi-platform releases. I hope to get to them all in 2013, and I’ll probably only finish Journey (because it’s short), but will they turn me back into a console gamer? It doesn’t seem likely—there’s just too much great stuff happening on mobile and in the indie PC space that you could never see on the big three consoles.

2013 will be a big year in gaming. Let’s see if I still feel this way a year from now. I can hardly wait.