I never thought I’d say it but I’ve reached the point in my gaming career where I actually have too many games to play. Like a sponge soaking up water, I’ve been buying games and adding them to my collection left, right and centre but then not even touching them. This goes beyond the “pile of shame” which most gamers seem to suffer from, it’s more like a fucking mountain. I’ve reached saturation point.

At last count there are about 20+ games on my Steam account that I have not played, and at least five or six PlayStation 3 titles on top of that which haven’t been touched either. There are also a large amount of games which, according to Steam, I’ve spent less than a hour or two playing. What makes matters worse, when I do sit down to play I invariably choose to play something else – an old favourite or something I’m very comfortable playing.

In my line of work I am tasked with saving my clients money and making sure they receive best value when having their work carried out. Why then, am I seemingly wasting money on things that I am not getting any value from? Instead of buying a game I may as well go down to the bank, withdraw the cost of the game and then proceed to throw it at the nearest group of pissed-up tramps. At least then I’d get some entertainment value out of it.

So why do I do it? It would be easy to simply blame the Steam sales that we are all constantly bombarded with at increasingly regular intervals. However, it’s not like old Gabe is standing there with a gun to my head and making me click the buy button – that’s probably an article all in itself, and I guess it simply comes down to my own love of games. If I like the look of a game I want to play it, I want to support the industry that I love, and I want people to continue making games for me to try. It’s just unfortunate that other things such as real life and boobs get in the way and are competing for my time, thus it’s becoming increasingly difficult to play them all. Being an adult sucks.

I’ve had a good moan about it, but the question remains, what the fuck am I going to do about it? I’ve come to the conclusion that this can’t go on anymore. I got married last year and we want to start a family in the near future. There is going to come a time when disposable income is going to dry up, only to be spent on nappies and other things for tiny humans. Now is the time to act, and so I’ve decided that from this day forth, I will not buy another new game until every single unplayed game in my collection has been played.

This could, potentially, be a gruelling task, therefore to prevent this being a ballache there needs to be some ground rules. I will make a reasonable effort with every game I play and will attempt to at least complete the singleplayer campaign for each one. If this is not possible, either because it’s a multiplayer-only game, or one of those endless-bastard type games, I will endeavour to put in at least three hours with it. I’m also not going to punish myself if a game is an absolute lemon; I’m not going to force my way through it – my name isn’t Richie and this isn’t the giving up gaming for Lent bollocks all over again. Where possible I want to enjoy my time playing these games; as such I’ll give any such lemons the obligatory three hours and then move on to the next.

I’m not going to set a deadline for playing all these games but, from time to time, I will drop in with a quick update on how I’m getting on and let you know if I’ve come across any hidden gems that I’d bought but had never bothered to play. Same goes for the turds that are inevitably in there as well. I may even quickly review the odd game with a one line review, and I’ll also be challenging my fellow writers here at GamingLives to tackle some of the games that they’ve never got around to playing. Now how’s that for service?

To reiterate the enormity of the task, here is the full list of games on Steam which I fully intend to play. For clarity, the games in bold italics have never been played. The others have been played for less than three hours.

1. 1…2…3.. KICK IT! (Drop that beat like an ugly baby)
2. AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
3. Alien Swarm
4. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
5. Atom Zombie Smasher
6. Audiosurf
7. Bastion
8. BioShock
9. BIT.TRIP BEAT
10. Braid
11. Bulletstorm
12. Chime
13. Cogs
14. Command & Conquer 4
15. Darksiders 2
16. Darwinia
17. Deadlight
18. DEFCON
19. Deponia
20. Empire: Total War
21. Fallout: New Vegas
22. Far Cry
23. Far Cry 2
24. Killing Floor
25. Lone Survivor
26. Metro 2033
27. Multiwinia
28. MX vs ATV Reflex
29. Napoleon: Total War
30. Nexuiz
31. Overlord
32. Penny Arcade 3
33. Planetside 2
34. Pyschonauts
35. Red Faction
36. Red Faction: Armageddon
37. Red Faction 2
38. Renegade Ops
39. Ricochet
40. Rising Storm (Red Orchestra 2)
41. Rome: Total War
42. RUSH
43. Saints Row 2
44. Saints Row: The Third
45. Sleeping Dogs
46. Space Pirates and Zombies (S.P.A.Z)
47. StarDrive
48. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery
49. Super Meat Boy
50. Supreme Commander
51. The Ball
52. The Showdown Effect
53. The Wonderful End of the World
54. Titan Quest
55. Toki Tori
56. Warframe
57. Warhammer 40k Space Marine
58. Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising
59. Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Retribution
60. Zombie Driver

60 games in total, 25 of which have never been played. Fuck me, that was more than I expected. Wish me luck!

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