Yes, I know. You are probably reading this article shaking your head from side to side. The answer is yes; I do dare resurrect this feature. For those of you reading this and are unfamiliar with the backlog challenge, I’ll summarize it briefly:
I will not buy any new games in 2012 and I will try and finish games from my backlog.
The challenge was started back in January of this year. I started with a few set of rules and some exceptions. Some of these have been upheld and others have been broken. I kept posting about this challenge roughly in a monthly basis; then the summer came. Summer put a big dent on my available time, since I decided to go to summer school while working full time.
This was a blessing and a curse. Because I had limited free time, I never had a chance to pay attention at what was being released during the summer. However, this also meant that I had less time to sink my teeth into my backlog. This was rather unfortunate because since the beginning of the year, I had been finishing games at a rather sluggish pace. I had planned to finish at least one game per week for the entire duration of the summer. This, of course, did not happen. I ended up finishing two games over the summer: Bioshock and Portal 2. Both games are amazing experiences from beginning to end.
I wish I had invested the little time available I had into comparable experiences. Unfortunately, I was playing 3 MMO’s at the time. First up was my return to Final Fantasy XIV, which reminded me why the game is getting a reboot. The original build of FFXIV was so atrocious, it will be remembered as one the worst MMO’s releases in videogame history. Then was the death of Star Wars: The Old Republic. This MMO falls into the category of “gaming wounds.” It is one of those games that you want to be successful, but ultimately they fail. I knew it was over when I decided to take the game for a spin and my game character “woke up” to find a deserted capital city. Every player was gone. I was completely alone. Last but not least is the original Guild Wars. When Arenanet announced that they would be releasing Guild Wars 2 in August of this year, I was flabbergasted. I simply had to get more points into my Hall of Monuments; and with that the grind for Hall of Monument completion began.
It is now early September and I do not play FFXIV or SWTOR. Even Guild Wars has been cut from my gaming list. Now I only play either Super Monday Night Combat or Guild Wars 2. Currently SMNC is only used as a palate cleanser for those rare of occasions when I get temporarily tired of Guild Wars 2. The challenge now is not to avoid buying new games because, quite honestly, I have enough games to keep me entertained. The challenge now lies in leaving the wonderful world of Tyria to play any other game. The Gauntlet has been thrown!
So here are my updated objectives: A) Play more games B) Play less Guild Wars 2 C) Try not to use giftcards until I have finished a few games. D) Post an update every two weeks, even if I’ve slacked off. That is all for this entry! See ya soon!