I never really make specific goals at the beginning of the year in regards to gaming. I always make a few personal goals for myself (which a lot of people call their “resolutions”) but I never really do a separate gaming category, but this year I decided to do things a little bit differently.

2009’s main gaming goals were to:
1) Finish more games than I did in 2008
2) Finish more games than I buy in 2009

My goals were met and I was satisfied. At the end of 2009 I turned 30 and saw that the number of games I finished (completed the single player story mode, not necesarrily getting 100% achievements or trophies) was28. So I figured my main gaming goal for 2010 would be to finish 30 games in celebration of my 30th year, but I am taking that several steps further by giving myself specific criteria. This will help broaden my focus, and hopefully help eliminate a bit of my backlog as well. So here is my 2010 goal list:

Gaming Goals of 2010:

Complete 30 Games

• 5 games must be Xbox 360
• 5 games must be PS3
• 5 games must be Wii
• 5 games must be handheld (DS, PSP, GBA)
• 5 games must be retro (anything from Dreamcast and back)
• 5 games must be 100% complete (All Achievements or Trophies earned)

Furthermore

-Games working towards individual system goals must be games I have not beaten before. It’s fine to play through and beat games to add to the overall list total but I will not count them in the 5 required games per category. For example: I finished Mass Effect’s main campaign on Casual in 2009, and I finished it again on Hardcore in 2010. Mass Effect will go on the list of games completed but cannot count towards the 5 games that have to be completed for the 360 in 2010.

-Games in the 100% Complete category CAN be games from previous completed games lists. For example: If I am able to earn all achievements in Mass Effect this year, I will add it to the list of 100% complete (but not to the 360 list as stated above).

Thoughts

I feel that some of the games I finish this year will end up on both the 100% list and the PS3 or 360 list, which would in theory bring my total short of 30. However at the time of this writing I have already finished 2 games that cannot count towards system totals (Mass Effect and NES Contra which I have completed both of previously). I expect to actually finish more than 30 titles this year, just looking at what I have planned to play.

The only issue I see is that I put the 100% complete requirement for 5 games on myself, which will take away much of my time getting through other games. Focusing more of my attention on those games which I require 100% completion. I also plan on playing through a few RPG’s which also consume a bit more of my gaming time than I am used to.

My time will also be divided with Star Trek Online and possibly Lego Universe which are two MMO’s I am quite interested in being a part of. I am hoping to be able to find balance between these and my console/handheld gaming.

Why so serious?

When looking over last years totals, I noticed how many games were 360 games. My other systems were really not getting enough love, and my handhelds especially were neglected. By imposing some requirements on myself it will at least get me to spread my focus to all of my systems to get some gaming done. I am fairly certain that the 360 will still be my dominant system of the year, but I am hoping this will persuade me to play my PS3, Wii, DS, and PSP more.

I am also hoping that this will help me eliminate some of my very long backlog. I do plan on getting a few of the big titles in the Q1 of 2010, so it may be a bit difficult, but I have several Wii and PS3 titles that I haven’t even played yet. I even have 360 titles I haven’t even opened. I’ve also had a desire to take part in more retro gaming so by adding the retro games requirement, I feel that I will dedicate a little more time to that as well.

In closing

I had thought of getting even more ridiculous by stating that 5 games had to be RPG’s, and that I wanted to play more racing games, but I felt that was getting out of hand. Looking at what I have written above it appears that I will already have my hands quite full this year with games. The only unfortunate part of all of this is that if I can be successful in this endeavor it really doesn’t leave much for next year. I either have to ramp it up even more and impose more requirements on myself, or not bother with gaming goals whatsoever.

I really hope I can do this, I think it will help me to broaden my gaming horizons and feel quite accomplished when I look back on this year in 12 months.

Anyone else out there have gaming goals they set for the year?

I’ve been doing a lot of console gaming lately.  Trying to finish the story modes in much of my backlog, as well as pick up a few extra PS3 trophies, or add onto my gamerscore.  This time of year is always rough for a console gamer with all of the big releases set to come out in the October/November time frame, but I am doing my best to try to stay with it.

I have completed 100% of Lego Indiana Jones, and it isn’t often that I can say I earned 1000/1000 gamerpoints on a game, so that is a high point for me.  I’ve also been able to finish the story mode on Little Big Planet, as well as finish a play-through of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.  Today I am working on Modern Warfare 2, which so far is fantastic.  I’m trying to knock out as many games as I can so I can give Fallout 3 another honest shot and maybe get into Borderlands since it looks like a fun time.

My other hobbies and such have left me bored.  I find little interest in collecting these days, and anytime I have the urge to go out looking for anything I can’t find a thing at all.  I look at everything in my house and it just feels like clutter that I should part with, but I can never seem to be able to.  Every time I say I want to give up collecting, or have lost the love for it, I always find my way back to it.  So I ask myself is it a “crisis of faith” that needs to be addressed every-so-often, or is it my subconscious trying to tell me that it is time to let go?

I am certain that come time to leave that part of me behind, that I will still hold on to some items, but I feel that I could probably let go of a lot, and even possibly just stop looking for current things being released.  I have major compulsion issues when it comes to hoarding/collecting and sometimes I wish we could go live in a small apartment where we would be forced to live with less…and get rid of just about everything I own.

*sigh*  If I wasn’t sick right now I would go have a drink…

I hardly find enough time during the day to engage in any constructive pursuits.  I really should be filling my days with house work, bass practice, learning Spanish, and other random hobbies but instead I usually stare blankly at my laptop while the TV drones on in the background.  Occasionally I use this time to game it up, and it almost becomes a chore at times.

The inspiration comes from Toys R US and their damned “Buy 2 get 1 free” game sale that they have every year.  And every year I visit the store and add to my stack of backlogged games to play.  I try to balance it out so I am working on 1 game at a time per system, but then I usually end up getting myself sidetracked and eventually move on to another game entirely.  I’ve got so much to work on in fact that if a game doesn’t completely pull me in within the first 2 or 3 hours spent on it I usually don’t even bother going on.  This happened with both Mass Effect and Fallout 3 (gasp!) which are both really well received by a large chunk of the gaming populous, but for some reason I just couldn’t get into them.  I’ve even tried approaching them again later (even starting the games over) and felt the same about them.  I guess as I get older I get even more impatient and cannot put many hours into a large scale world/rpg.

I used to love playing the Grand Theft Auto series too, but when GTA4 came out I played a bit for the first few weeks and then my interest waned.  I felt like all I was doing was drive to point A (while looking at the onscreen compass/map), do something, drive to point B (while looking at the onscreen compass/map), and repeat.  The only difference came when I strayed off of the mission path to beat up a hooker or run over a pedestrian, and let’s face it, even beating up hookers gets old after a while.

The current works in progress are: Scribblenauts on the DS; Prototype/Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2/Beatles Rock Band/Lego Star Wars on the 360; Kingdom Hearts on the PS2 (actually playing it on the PS3); Ratchet and Clank Size Matters on the PSP; and Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii.  Unfortunately the Wii usually gets ignored, which is why Super Mario Galaxy is still on my “to be completed” list.

I’m still working on making this years completed games list exceed the amount of games that I purchase.  And I have already succeeded in surpassing the number of games completed last year, and I still have about 2 and a half months to go so I hope to add a few more to the list.  I’ve been keeping track on Cheap Ass Gamer which you can see by clicking here.

As far as next year goes…anyone want to do PAX?  PAX East is in Boston in March, PAX Prime is in Seattle in September.  Definitely considering joining some of the people on the Penny Arcade forums for the PAX East train trip if no one I know wants to go/travel together.  Hit me up here or on the cell if you are interested in hitting up one of the PAX conventions with the Fuzz!

Off to Chicago this weekend so hopefully I can work on some portable gaming.