I Finished These 52 Video Games In 2010

I finished more than 50 video games in 2010. I did not plan to. But here's the list.

As I've done for each of the past four years, I've assembled the list of games I started playing for fun during the preceding year — some 195 of them — and then bolded the ones I finished.

The Necessary Preamble

My tallies went up since 2009, though I had expected them to fall. I've been busier with work and home life. I may not have kids, but I am married. I figured all that would translate into fewer games played. Nope.

As always, the list of games I started playing is imprecise. I try to only include games I've played for fun, which means I exclude games I only played at press events (finished ones like Gran Turismo 5 and unfinished ones like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword). I do include any game I played at home, though some of them, to be clear, I only played because I had to for work (Fighters Uncaged, I'm talking about you!). I include games I've played for only an hour (or as long as it takes to get one's fill of Extreme Baby Maker) and games I've played for weeks.

The main point of the list is to look at what I've finished, since that list is more definite. These "finished" games are games in which I reached some sort of narrative end or final level in a linear sequence. I did not 100% complete these games. And, with games like Photo Dojo where completion is a debatable status, I erred on the side of considering the game not finished.

Two things to note: 1) As a games reporter, I get most of the games I play mailed to me, which makes trying this many games economically easy. 2) I wind up playing the most games on platforms that have good download systems and lots of free games and free demos — iPad, iPhone and Xbox 360.

My 2010 Games Played/Finished List

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

DS
(played 15, completed 5)

1. Dragon Quest IX
2. Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light
3. Flametail DS (One of the many gems on DSiWare in 2010.)
4. Glow Artisan
5. Link ‘N Launch
6. Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem
7. Photo Dojo
8. Picross 3D
9. Pokemon Soul Silver
10. Snapdots
11. Sonic Colors
12. Starship Defense
13. Super Scribblenauts
14. Trajecticle
15. X-Scape

iPad
(played 23, completed 1)
1. Angry Business Man
2. Ash
3. Babylonian Twins
4. Chaos Rings
5. Chu Chu Rocket
6. Defense of The Oasis
7. Galaxy on Fire 2 Lite
8. Godfinger All-Stars
9. The Incident
10. Labyrinth 2
11. Mirror's Edge
12. Rage HD
13. Reckless Racing HD
14. Infinity Blade
15. The Iron Horse
16. Osmos HD
17. Plunderland
18. Quickhook
19. Sword and Poker Lite
20. UFO on Tape
21. Warpgate
22. We Rule
23. Words with Friends HD

iPhone
(played 26, completed 1)
1. Angry Birds Lite
2. Assassin's Creed II: Discovery
3. Colorbind
4. Colorblind (This is the only game I bought this year because of a typo.)
5. Cut The Rope
6. Denki Blocks
7. DoodleJump
8. Drop7 (You can't finish this game! But I play it obsessively.)
9. Dropship
10. eBoy FixPix
11. Edge
12. Espgaluda II
13. Eternal Legacy
14. Flight Control
15. Galcon Labs
16. Game Dev Story
17. Hoggy
18. Karmastar
19. Kometen
20. Monster Dash
21. Shibuya
22. Space Miner
23. Star Wars Arcade Falcon Gunner
24. Tilt To Live
25. Topple 2
26. WordFu+

PC
(played 20, completed 0)

NOTE: Many of these were games I played as a judge for the Independent Games Festival's 2010 awards. I've excluded the dozen or so games I played for the 2011 awards, as that judging is ongoing.

1. AaaaaaaAAaaaaaAAAaaAAAAAAAAAA!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
2. Bejeweled 3
3. Civilization V
4. Closure
5. Cogs
6. Doom (Here's a good place to point out that any game, from any year, that I first played in 2010, goes on this list. So, yes, 2010 was the first year during which I played Doom.)
7. Faultline
8. Farmville
9. Heroes of Newerth
10. Killjet
11. Nidhogg
12. Miegakure
13. Monaco (Technically played this unreleased Independent Games Festival on my Xbox 360 via special code.)
14. Owlboy
15. Rocketbirds Revolution
16. A Slow Year
17. Starguard
18. Trauma
19. Vessel
20. Zuma Blitz

PSP
(played 3, completed 2)
1. Alien Zombie Death (My only PSP Mini of the year.)
2. Invizimals
3. God of War: Ghost of Sparta

PS3
(played 24, completed 10)
1. 3D Dot Game Heroes
2. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
3. Beat Sketcher
4. Dante's Inferno
5. Dead Nation
6. DeathSpank
7. Def Jam Rapstar
8. Echochrome II
9. The Fight Lights Out
10. God of War III
11. Heavy Rain
12. Joe Danger
13. Kung Fu Rider
14. Lost Planet 2
15. MAG
16. Mega Man 10
17. ModNation Racers
18. Racquet Sports
19. Resonance of Fate
20. The Shoot
21. Start The Party
22. TerRover
23. Top Gun
24. Yakuza 3

Xbox 360
(played 62, completed 21)
1. Afterburner Climax
2. Alan Wake
3. Army of Two: The 40th Day
4. Baby Maker Extreme (Yes, this is a real Xbox Live Indie game.)
5. Bayonetta
6. BioShock 2
7. Breath of Death VII
8. Call of Duty Black Ops
9. Castlevania HD
10. Castleviania: Lords of Shadow
11. CheneyStar
12. Chime
13. Costume Quest
14. Crackdown 2
15. Crisis in the Gulf (The only game I played last year based on the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.)
16. Dance Central
17. Dark Void
18. Darksiders
19. Death By Cube
20. DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue
21. Decimation X
22. Dorito's Crash Course
23. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
24. Explosionade
25. Fable III
26. Fighters Uncaged
27. Gyromancer
28. Halo: Reach
29. Harm's Way
30. Hypership Out of Control
31. Kinect Adventures
32. Kinect Joy Ride
33. Kinect Sports
34. Kinectimals
35. Lego Harry Potter
36. Limbo
37. Mass Effect 2
38. Medal of Honor
39. Monday Night Combat
40. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
41. Nier
42. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
43. Platformance: Castle Pain
44. PowerGig Rise of the Six String
45. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
46. Radiangames Crossfire (I bow to Radiangames' amazing 2010 output; I didn't even get to all of their promising Xbox Live Indie releases last year.)
47. Radiangames Inferno
48. Radiangames JoyJoy
49. Red Dead Redemption
50. Shoot 1Up
51. Singularity
52. Snoopy Flying Ace
53. So Many Girls So Little Time
54. Sonic Free Riders
55. Soulcaster
56. Splinter Cell Conviction
57. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
58. Super Meat Boy (I will never finish this game. Too tough!)
59. Toy Soldiers
60. Transformers: War for Cybertron
61. Vanquish
62. YourShape Fitness Evolved

Wii
(played 22, completed 12)
1. Art Style Light Trax
2. Art Style Rotohoex
3. Art Style Rotozoa
4. Bit.Trip Runner
5. Donkey Kong Country Returns
6. Endless Ocean: Blue World
7. Epic Mickey
8. Flingsmash
9. Fluidity (Only game in 2010 where I reached the final level but couldn't beat it.)
10. GoldenEye 007
11. Kirby's Epic Yarn
12. Lord of the Rings Aragorn's Quest
13. Max and the Magic Marker
14. Metroid Other M
15. No More Heroes 2
16. Red Steel 2
17. Silent Hill Shattered Origins (Only 2009 game I finished in 2010.)
18. Sin & Punishment Star Successor (Game whose completion in 2010 made me cheer the loudest, and jump up and down in my living room.)
19. Sonic Colors
20. Super Mario Galaxy 2
21. Thruspace
22. Trauma Team

The final 2010 tally is: 195 games played; 52 finished

That compares to:
2009... 165 played; 48 finished
2008… 135 played; 37 finished
2007… 118 played; 35 finished
2006…102 games played; 21 finished

(Sorry, sports and racing games. I didn't play many of you for fun.)