I Finished These 23 Video Games in 2012

For the seventh straight year, I'm publishing a list of all the games I started playing in the past year and all the ones I finished.

My totals have dropped yet again. I started 139 games, finished 23 of them.

When I started keeping track of this, back in 2006, the idea of finishing games was more relevant to me. I always liked playing games. I love trying new ones. But the concept of finishing them—which I've always indicated means simply reaching the game's storyline conclusion and/or the end of its standard levels—was something I cared more about. I have long preferred single-player games, and I've favored narrative or progression-based games over those that can be played more as a test of skill. I've preferred gaming's books over its sports, as it were. I grew up on Nintendo and favored Metroid and Zelda over Mario Kart or Street Fighter II. It mattered to me to reach the ends of games, because I wanted to see what developers put there. I wanted to see games through.

These days, I care more about playing the best, and so finishing games has decreased in importance. Plus, life's too short, right?

***

What follows is a list of all the games I started on various platforms this year. Some of the games that I started I only played for an hour. Others, like Far Cry 3 or The Walking Dead, I'm many, many hours into playing.

I bolded the games I finished. As always, I've excluded games I only played out at trade shows (i.e. the games I played while on the job). I play most of my games at home in my spare time or during commutes.

The numbers below confirm a number of notions I've had in my head about my habits this year: I've dabbled more with Facebook games, enjoyed the easy access to new games on iOS and diminished my playtime with the Xbox 360. I've also shifted to playing lots of the blockbuster games on PC instead of console. I could use a few more games to play on Wii U! And PS3 is still a platform where I like finishing games.

Enough set-up... on with the list!

My 2012 Games Played/Finished List

(Games I started listed below. Finished games are bolded)

3DS
(20 games played; 4 finished)

1. Aero Porter
2. Crashmo
3. Crosswords Plus
4. Dillon's Rolling Western
5. Fluidity: Spin Cycle
6. Fractured Soul
7. Ketzal's Corridors
8. Kid Icarus: Uprising
9. Liberation Maiden
10. Mario Tennis Open
11. New Super Mario Bros. 2
12. Mario & Sonic at the London Olympic Games
13. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
14. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
15. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
16. Resident Evil: Revelations
17. Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword
18. Spirit Camera
19. VVVVVV
20. Yoshi (Virtual Console)

Facebook
(10 games played; 0 finished)

1. Bubble Safari
2. Chefville
3. CityVille
4. Farmville 2 (one of two games in this section that I played for several hours)
5. The Friend Game
6. JetSet Secrets
7. Outernauts
8. Ruby Blast
9. SimCity Social (this is the other one)
10. Zuma Blitz

iOS
(34 games played; 2 finished)

1. Amazing Alex
2. Angy Birds Space
3. Angry Birds Star Wars
4. Anomaly Korea
5. Bad Hotel
6. Beat Sneak Bandit
7. Beeing
8. Coco Loco
9. Count to a Billion
10. Crow
11. The Dark Knight Rises
12. Demon's Score
13. Dynamite Jack
14. Fieldrunners 2
15. Fire and Dice
16. Flight Control Rocket
17. Gasketball
18. A Gay Dragon
19. Hax Attacks
20. Kingdom Rush HD
21. Letterpress
22. McPixel
23. PuzzleJuice
24. Spellwood
25. Super Hexagon
26. The Room
27. Run Roo Run
28. Tiny Tower
29. Triple Town
30. The Walking Dead
31. Waking Mars
32. Where's My Water?
33. Words With Friends
34. Zombie Wonderland 2

Mac
(1 games played; 0 finished)

1. Diablo III

PC
(14 games played; 1 finished)

1. Borderlands 2
2. Botanicula
3. Crusader Kings II
4. Dishonored
5. Far Cry 3
6. FTL
7. Hotline Miami
8. Jamestown
9. Orcs Must Die 2
10. Perfect Distance
11. Sleeping Dogs
12. STAVKA-OKH
13. Torchlight II
14. X-COM: Enemy Unknown (Six hours of it and the world was destroyed; I don't think that counts as finishing it.)

PS3
(16 games played; 7 finished)

1. Assassin's Creed III
2. Closure
3. Dragon's Dogma
4. Dyad
5. Journey
6. Lego Batman 2
7. LittleBigPlanet Karting
8. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
9. Papo & Yo
10. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault
11. Resident Evil 6
12. Resistance 3
13. Sorcery
14. Syndicate
15. Tokyo Jungle
16. The Unfinished Swan

Vita
(15 games played; 1 finished)

1. Fuel Tiracas
2. Lumines: Electronic Symphony
3. Rayman: Origins
4. Rebel
5. Resistance: Burning Skies
6. Retro City Rampage
7. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (preview copy of this 2013 game)
8. Sound Shapes
9. Super Crate Box
10. Super Stardust Delta
11. Touch My Katamari
12. Uncharted: Golden Abyss
13. Velocity
14. Wipeout: 2048
15. Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Wii
(1 played; 0 finished)

1. Rhythm Heaven Fever

Wii U
(9 played; 2 finished)

1. Chasing Aurora
2. Little Inferno
3. Madden NFL 13
4. Mighty Switch Force HD
5. Nano Assault Neo
6. New Super Mario Bros. U
7. Nintendo Land
8. Trine 2
9. Zombi U

Xbox 360
(19 played; 6 finished)

1. Asura's Wrath
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
3. Fable: The Journey
4. Fez
5. Gears of War 3
6. Halo 4
7. Hybrid
8. I Am Alive
9. Kinect: Star Wars
10. Lego Lord of the Rings
11. London 2012
12. Mark of the Ninja
13. Mass Effect 3
14. Max Payne 3
15. Spelunky
16. The Splatters
17. SSX
18. Trials Evolution
19. Warp

The final 2012 tally is: 139 games played; 23 finished

That compares to:
2011...161 played; 28 finished
2010... 195 played; 52 finished
2009... 165 played; 48 finished
2008… 135 played; 37 finished
2007… 118 played; 35 finished
2006…102 games played; 21 finished

So... what did I miss this past year?