treading water in 2011

another year and another pile of games played, and it’s time for the annual year in review. last year i played slightly more games overall than the previous year, but only because some of the games i played were very short. this is probably correlated with the fact that this was the first year that i spent somewhat significant amounts of time dabbling in the world of digital downloads, with games played on DSiware, wiiware, 3DSware, and iOS (specifically the iphone). i played slightly less sequels this past year, and due to some revisits of classic grade-A games i had more on my “greatest games of all time” list than last year.

here’s what my year looked like (games listed in approximate descending order) with links to each game’s corresponding blog review:

HIGHEST
– super mario bros. 3 (NES)
– contra (NES)
– the legend of zelda (NES)
– wario land 3 (GBC)
– excitebike: world rally (WW)
– the legend of zelda: spirit tracks (DS)

MIDDLE
– game & watch gallery (GB)
– animal crossing: city folk (wii)
– kirby: canvas curse (DS)
– excitebike (NES)
– contra III: the alien wars (SNES)
– mario and luigi: superstar saga (GBA)
– super mario 3D land (3DS)
– the legend of zelda: phantom hourglass (DS)
– pokemon puzzle league (N64)
– soul calibur (DC)
– pac-attack (GBA)
– mario kart DS (DS)
– mario kart: super circuit (GBA)
– wii play (wii)
– big brain academy (DS)
– chrono trigger (SNES)
– f-zero (SNES)
– face raiders (3DSware)
– yoshi’s story (N64)
– etrian odyssey (DS)
– polarium (DS)
– wario land 4 (GBA)
– warioware, inc.: mega party game$ (GCN)
– yoshi (NES)
– adventure (atari 2600)
– mario vs. donkey kong 2 (DS)
– grill-off with ultra hand! (WW)
– warioware: snapped! (DSiW)
– angry birds free (iOS)
– revenge of the ‘gator (GB)

LOWEST
– tennis (NES)
– pokemon pearl (DS) (1 | 2)
– rampage (arcade)
– pokemon trozei (DS)
– donkey kong jungle beat (GCN)
– metroid: other M (wii)
– mr. ninja (iOS)
– line runner (iOS)
– rampage: total destruction (wii)
– cranium kabookii (wii)

REPLAYS
– advance wars (GBA)

some solid releases mixed in there, but the only real surprises were how much fun the “primitive” game & watch turned out to be (as played in game & watch gallery for the original game boy) and how much fun the controls in kirby: canvas curse for DS were. the 3DS turned out to be a solid new addition to my collection: despite only finishing one actual 3DS game (the fairly safe super mario 3D land), i was more than happy with my purchase (esp. with the ambassador games), distracting myself with the platform’s myriad other features, including the addictive streetpass mii plaza, nintendo video, and face raiders.

the biggest disappointment of the year was certainly metroid: other M, although i appreciated that they were trying to do something different, unlike pokemon pearl which, despite all the hours i spent on it, really didn’t feel like it added anything substantially new to the series.

this year also saw some time spent appreciating wii’s everybody votes channel, and reviewing the top 10 DS games … so far, as well as my completion of the main super mario bros. series, commemorated by my ranking of all (at the time) 13 games.

last year i had decried the “large number of sequels that i enjoyed but felt way too similar to their predecessors” and said that “although my love for video games in general continues and my desire to work my way through the rest of the games in favorite franchises is still fairly strong, my attempts to cut down on time spent gaming overall and to curb my mountain of backlogged games may actually succeed, now that i’ve played through a fair number of the all-time nintendo greats and gotten fairly well into some of their most notable franchises.” i didn’t end up cutting back that much, but a lot of that was because i spent a fair amount of time progressing through the aforementioned nintendo franchises. despite my continued deep love for nintendo, playing so many first-party games actually got a bit wearisome, and one of my “resolutions” this year is to spend more time balancing first-party vs third-party games which no doubt will make me appreciate the first-party games all the more. with only a few exceptions (such as chrono trigger, the original f-zero for SNES, and adventure for atari 2600) i didn’t force myself to focus much on the backlog of greats i should be playing, so that’s another area i should work on more this year. will this be the year that i actually break free of the addiction and decrease my backlog instead of just adding to it? you’ll have to stay tuned, gentle reader. 😉

thanks as always to anyone who’s stumbled across my little patch of cyberspace and found it even mildly diverting, and welcome to another full year of rockin’ video games at video games rock!

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