You know the thing I hate most about my O/C affliction? It’s that the backlog of The List makes me very conscious of any new purchases (well, most of the time, anyway. Sometimes I just need a little retail therapy). I’ve always got one eye on The List, trying to chip away at stuff, whilst still managing to get a look at all the Shiny New Things my chums are talking about.
Because I love a new game, I really do. Just before Christmas I was getting a pressie for my nephew – fuck The Simpsons Game, he’s getting Super Mario Galaxy – and I picked up the new Prince of Persia game and just stood there, holding it in my hands. I wanted to buy that bugger, I really did… it looks lovely and quite doable and O/C-friendly. But then I reminded myself about the sixty-five other games that I hadn’t yet Completed and asked myself, in an overly rational manner, whether I really needed that new game.
I tried convincing myself that it was a good opportunity to snaffle another 1000 GS on the 360, but I’ve seen that argument before; I quickly countered with “Why don’t you buy Avatar, then?” which quickly shut me up.
Anyway, before I let you all in on way more of my internal dialogue than you care about, the point is that my New Year’s Gaming Resolutions are going to revolve around clearing that backlog and making room for a bit more modernity.
To that end, I resolve…
- …to Complete at least two Zelda games. I want to play through them all in release chronological order, and (as I indicated last week) I’m getting close to wrapping up a 100% run on Ocarina of Time. But then what – do I go on to Majora’s Mask (which I’ve never played) or follow-up with the Ocarina Master Quest? Decisions, decisions.
- …to Complete at least two PS2 games. This scares me a little, really – of the eight games there, three are rhythm action games (which I’m notoriously bad at), the Katamaris are O/C collection nightmares, and Bujingai is as hard as nails on the higher skill levels.
- …to Complete at least four(!) from the PC, Nuon, Dreamcast, and Jaguar groups. Holy shit!
- …to keep on top of stuff obtained through the year. In 2008, I managed to Complete 11 of 18 new purchases – let’s aim for a similar target of 60%
So now they’re out there. My Resolutions.
What are your Gaming Resolutions for 2009?
“But then what – do I go on to Majora’s Mask (which I’ve never played) or follow-up with the Ocarina Master Quest? Decisions, decisions.”
While technically Master Quest was released first (in Japan only though of course), I would suggest you continue on with Majora’s Mask instead. For two reasons: first of all if you were to follow Australia’s release schedule then we didn’t see Master Quest until the release of The Wind Waker on the Gamecube. The other reason is that, Majora’s Mask is epic. I don’t know if you have played it or not but personally I hold it in very high regard and quite possibly my favourite Legend of Zelda game to date (if not, then TWW would take that honour).
As for resolutions, well honestly I haven’t made any specific ones to commit to but at the same time there are certain goals I have in mind for the year. They are:
– To keep my 360 completion percentage on or above 80% throughout the year and to not allow it to drop below, something which happened a few times last year unfortunately.
– To keep an overall completion percentage across all consoles at 70% (rough estimate) or higher throughout the year. Somehow I see this dropping though because of the recent PS3 purchase and the forthcoming Wii purchase as well as continuing to catch up on some old games that I have missed over the years.
– To hit 60,000 Gamerscore by the end of the year. Something I should be able to manage no problem as I have a fair amount of 360 games waiting to be played, so perhaps, depending on my progress, you can change that figure to 70k instead.
– To update my blog more regularly than I do and to also keep on top of the ones I read with a bit more consistency. Time management for me in ’08 wasn’t as good as it could, no, should be and I aim to change that for 2009.
I am sure there are many more than that but for this comment, those will do because I don’t want to bore you too much. ;)
Steven – I’ve not touched Majora’s Mask (are you saying that Ocarina isn’t epic?), but have played every Zelda since. And, to be honest, I’m hankering to get past Majora so I can get back to Wind Waker – I blasted through that in a week the first time I played it, and that’s probably not doing it justice.
Nice list of Resolutions! I didn’t mention any 360 Completion percentages (I’m currently hovering just below 89%), but obviously I’d like to get that back to my peak of 91.8%. On all consoles, though… wow. I’m currently sitting at 47.6%, which is a bit rubbish, isn’t it? ;)
As for the blog – all I can do is recommend that you force yourself to post to a schedule. For me, I decided a decent schedule was to post something once a week – that’s what started my weekly-update-style posts, which I’ll often forgo if there’s a longer piece in gestation. Whether or not that type of schedule works for you is something only you can decide; keep writing, though: your blog is a damn good read :)
Oh no don’t get me wrong, Ocarina is epic and easily one of the best games I have ever played. It’s just… Majora’s Mask resonated with me more. It is weird actually; the first playthrough of the game was brilliant because it took place after the events in Ocarina. That continuation was exactly what I needed at the time and I thought nothing more of the game beyond that. I was still quite young back then so really that is all it needed to be. It wasn’t until a couple of playthroughs when I was older that the reality of why it resonated with me more came to fruition though. Without spoiling it, I connected to it on an emotional and even perhaps intellectual level and that just completely blew me away. Those two playthroughs were within the same month with the second being a run through to confirm the thoughts I was having about the game at the time. As I said, Ocarina was epic and also managed to overwhelm me with various thoughts in subsequent playthroughs but still to this day I maintain that Majora’s Mask was a more significant experience when compared to its older brother. I try not to compare the two (or any other games for that matter) these days though because really, both are really important installments to the franchise and also to the gaming medium as a whole. I could go on about this forever though…
Heh, how did you come up with your percentage for all your games? I pulled the figure out of my arse last night because I am not actually sure what it is. I can check the 360’s one via MGC but yeah my overall one is, well I don’t even want to know what it is. It isn’t good though and continues to get worse as more and more games join my collection.
As for writing on my own blog, a schedule of sorts was trialed very briefly a couple of months ago when Chris was also writing but since he hasn’t done anything recently (and I slacked off due to being sick in a few different weeks), that schedule has gone out the window and I have just been publishing content whenever I have been able to get around to it. It annoys me but I know it is my own fault as well for not managing my time better, so in the past week or so I have been focusing on trying to get into a position where I am managing the various things I want to do at a more consistent pace than before. I am getting there slowly and hopefully that means content becomes more regular for RR, but it is still going to take some more discipline on my behalf before my goal is met. It of course does not help when I have like 30 games that I want to play right here, right now, either. ;)
Steven – the percentage for all my games is based on The List, which currently shows 61 of 124 Completed. MGC’s good for getting an idea of how your GS is tallying up, but you’ll note that there’s a few games on The List that I have all available GS for, yet don’t consider Complete – Rez HD and Ninety-Nine Nights spring to mind. That’s because of my bloody conscience ;)
You bring up a very good point in that, while a game could be fully completed Achievement wise it still may not be completed literally. A good example for me would be something you have been playing lately and that is Burnout Paradise, I obtained all the Achievements (save for the recently added ones of course) but still do not regard that game as being completed due to needing to finish off the Bike content and a few other things. I have many games like this so in reality that MGC percentage means nothing, but it is a nice indicator into how I am faring with my progress so I still use it fairly regularly. I have many games waiting to be played like Dead Space for example for in the recent weeks I have realised that I am more interested in completing the games already on my card and improving that percentage so that has been my recent goal. Originally I was going to load up Dead Space once I got back above 80% but no it can wait.
Also Rez HD remains on my list too, purely because of Area 5. Must. Get. 100%. On. That. Level. It’s compulsory. ;)