Lunchtime Discussion: Backlog

Today is the day I leave my job. It’s pretty scary, the only time I’ve ever left a job without a concrete offer in front of me. I have a few bits and pieces lined up, but what I really have is free time, time to game. Finally. Time to get through the backlog of titles that I have in the house; Modern Warfare 2 and Assassins Creed 2 were Christmas gifts, and I still have Tomb Raider: Underworld and SmackDown vs Raw 2010 from LOVEFiLM somewhere.

I really hate having a backlog, and there’s not just the games that I have right now, but the games I’ve never owned. If you follow me on Twitter you’ll have seen me debating what games to pickup. It’s mildly embarrassing to admit that I’ve never owned Bioshock, Crackdown, Mass Effect or even Mirror’s Edge (maybe not Mirror’s Edge, people’s feelings seemed to be mixed on the title). There’s probably a whole host of fantastic titles I’ve missed on my 360, let alone games for my GameCube, DS or N64.

I hate getting behind, but I never seem to have the time really. I can easily read a comic or listen to a CD, that only takes an hour or two at most. That’s probably why I got through Shadow Complex, it’s a great game, but only two or three hours long. It’s probably the same reason that I like fighting games, you can play through the arcade mode in about 30 minutes and you can have a dozen matches with friends whilst your waiting for your pizza to arrive.

I can see that the longer titles are amazing, I mean I loved Final Fantasy VII but I never finished it. That game is way too long, as are most JRPGs. The only really long titles I can remember completing are the first two Metal Gear Solids, those must have been about ten hours each. Maybe Jaffe was right, maybe games should be shorter. At the least developers should be trying to put out more of a mix of games, there aren’t many games that I’d class as top-level that are less than five hours. Of course putting these out at normal price would probably cause an uproar, but why aren’t there more on the digital distribution stores?

So what other games do you have lying around that you need to play? Aside from that what do I need to play, now that I have time?