Unclogging The Backlog Via My Blog

Alas, I am the latest victim of Xbox 360 hardware failure. No, I didn’t get the dreaded red ring, but I have no sound or picture, which doesn’t make the fact that my lights are still green any more reassuring. While I am currently investigating what steps I could take that may hopefully lead to a solution that doesn’t involve mailing my system to Microsoft and/or paying half to fix my old console what I could use toward a brand new (and better) one, the fact remains that as of this moment and for the near future, I am without an Xbox 360.  What ever will I do!?

All sarcasm aside, having my 360 go dark did get me to thinking about the obscene number of games I own that I’ve either never finished, only dabbled in, or have flat-out never even turned on (the last grouping of which, I am sad to say, numbers in the dozens). So, I’ve decided to issue myself a little challenge…to play every single game that I own, for a measurable amount of time, with no excuses or exceptions, no matter how many months/years it takes. The ideal situation would be to start each one and play only that game until I finished it. Well, that ain’t gonna happen. Since this isn’t my “day job”, I only have so much time to devote to this little endeavor. Also, I’m not ready to forsake my “real” game playing; in other words, I’m still going to be playing the games I actually want to play, the games that I’m already in the middle of, the games that I play with other people, the games that I’ve already been wanting to get to, and so on. That said, I have every intention of taking this task seriously, and I will not quit until I can finally, honestly answer “yes” to the ever-so-frequently asked question “So, have you actually played all of those games!?”

Now, as for the matter of how to approach this, I have decided that there is no easier or less biased method of selection than simply going in alphabetical order. Fortunately, that just so happens to be the way my collection is laid out on IGN (I’ll post a link to it later; I’m a little behind on updating it and I don’t want to share a misleading list with the cyber world). So, starting with 10 Yard Fight for NES and finishing up (hopefully before I’m 80) with Zone of the Enders: The 2^nd Runner for PS2, I will play each game for a minimum of…let’s say three hours. I was originally going to say something closer to five or six, but when you are talking certain game types (like old-school game, for instance), often there just isn’t that much content there. Three seems to be a good all-around number for getting the proper basic feel of just about any type of game, and enough time to be able to honestly declare that I’ve “played” a game. That isn’t to say I will necessarily stop and move on the second I hit those three hours; I’m going to give each game as much time as I feel like or am able to. I’d really like to beat as many games as I can, if for no other reason than my own sense of pride that I’ve not only played every game that I own, but have finished a large number of them. However, being realistic, I’m going to have to leave many games unfinished, whether it’s because of time, challenge, or simply because a game just isn’t worth the effort. I must hit that three hour mark at the very least, though.

I haven’t decided yet how to handle  the titles that I’ve already played a fair amount of; I’ll take those on a case-by-case basis. I don’t want to waste too much time replaying games when the point is to get to games I didn’t play in the first place. I still may revisit some anyway, just for fun. What I likely will skip, however, are the all-time biggies: I don’t need to remind myself of Super Mario Bros. 3 or Street Fighter II any more than anybody else needs to read my half-assed take on them.

So now that the groundwork has been laid, I will be sharing my thoughts on 10 Yard Fight soon. I know I played this one a fair amount with my brother way back when, but it still seems like a good place to start, and I don’t want to invoke a skip on the very first entry on the list. This project won’t be the one and only thing I blog about; this blog will still consist of my random daily-ish musings on whatever else I’m playing, doing, reading, watching, or thinking about. But I will keep the writings on the project in their own separate entries, and I’ll label them as…well, whatever I end up calling this little experiment. Hopefully this ends up being more fun than torture, but either way, I’m sure it’ll be a unique and interesting experience.

UPDATE: My Xbox 360 is now repaired and back in my possession, $100 and 8 business days later.

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