For the previous two years, I have influenced the types of games I played through the use of a rather overlong backlog which at its peak was over 200 games. While I have used this backlog to shape the games I would play, I still allowed myself to play games not on the list, mainly games I wanted to play after crafting the backlog two years ago. Over these two years, there are number of things I have learnt.
Variety is indeed the spice of life
One of the main things I discovered when crafting my backlog and then subsequently choosing what to play was that there was more variety in my backlog than I had previously realised, creating this list I has really given me the push to finally go and play them or to finish off a series. One of these games that I kept meaning to getting round to playing was Ratchet and Clank (2016). There were multiple times since its appearance on PS Plus in March 2018, that I got close to playing the remake/movie tie in for the preceding seven years. I guess like many games on this list, there are many games I almost played multiple times. Another one of these examples was Rise of the Tomb Raider which in 2025, I finally got round to playing it, 12 years after playing the first title in the trilogy. Rise was an excellent experience, the only thing that annoyed me was the fact that I took me so long to get round to playing it.
Another part of the variety that list has created is that it reminded me of the interesting shorter titles I that I had sitting around. This impact of the Backlog was there from the start as the very first months I played was the wonderful Burly Men At Sea, Journey as well as Rocketbirds 2: Evolution and The Unfinished Swan, a rather touching title. This trend of playing intriguing indie titles has continued over these two years. They were and are these little bursts of experiences which are outside the realm of the Triple A blockbuster games which has made up a decent amount of titles I played.
Variety was also developed through playing through a good number of first party titles from both Playstation and Xbox. What I can say about the first party titles I have played in the last two years, is that while Xbox may not have had much variety as I played the first two Halo games, five Gears of War and one original Xbox title – Grabbed by The Ghoulies. While Grabbed by The Ghoulies stands out of these titles, it is a solid 3D platformer which benefits from the touch of British humour sprinkled in by Rare. Halo CE and Halo 2 have stood the test of time and are still punchy and tight titles despite their age. Playing through The Gears of War original trilogy showed to me why they are seen as the gold standard of cover shooters. Judgement and Gears 4 do put little spins on the formula established by the trilogy in their respective titles. Gears 4 has the largest break with the preceding trilogy as while the underlying gameplay loop is pretty much unchanged, Gears 4 has two important changes, the game is a more lighter mood which I believe has been influenced by Uncharted as the cast cracks jokes throughout and the mood is much lighter. The second change is introduction of environmental gameplay as there are levels where strong winds blow changes how combat is carried out or windstorms where the player has to deal with environmental electrical strikes.
The first party Playstation titles I’ve played over the past two years have been more varied than those of the titles on Xbox. This is an advantage as they provided a wider range of experiences. The first party titles I played included platformers through Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Tearaway Unfolded and Ratchet and Clank (2016). While technically all platformers, they are very different in design and execution. I also finally experienced Resistance Retribution via a port released on PS4 and PS5 which was an interesting and enjoyable experience despite its origins on the PSP with the limitations which comes with it. While it is a more varied set of games, they work well alongside those on Xbox as they offer very different set of experiences which work well in unison and offset any limitations in the respective libraries. It also showed the nature of the respective libraries. As despite Xbox offering a smaller range of experiences but these experiences are well designed and very enjoyable to play through. Playstation offers a larger range of experiences compared to those available on Xbox and much like those on Xbox are also of an exceedingly high quality. What I also learnt is the importance of these first party titles in defining the vibes of the console.
Lets a Lego
Over these two years, one constant was Travellers Tale’s Lego games. As I have played five of these titles over these last twenty four months. I have enjoyed these titles since Lego Star Wars was released in 2005 and I do still enjoy these solid, if slightly unremarkable titles to this day. But I have realised through playing a larger number over them in a smaller time frame that they do one thing very well. That is they work very well as games to play if time is limited or as a palate cleanser or alongside longer or more mature games. I also learnt that while there are a large number of similarities between the Lego games, they still contain some defining differences which ensure that each one is distinct from each other despite the underlying groundwork being the same from each title to the next.
This groundwork which while being similar to the first title has been updated or modified to change with the property being adapted or decisions to try and do something new or interesting. An example of these changes is that both Lego Harry Potters Years 1-4 and Years 5-7 technically stick to the near universal 6 levels per film standard; instead there is what could be considered mini-levels in these games which occur between the main levels. These mini-levels cover learning new spells or to cover part of the films which wouldn’t really fit into a standard level, which allows the games to cover more than they could do using just the traditional level structure. As the Lego games are solid enjoyable experiences, the large number of Lego games I have on my backlog to play through, I have a strong suspicion that they will continue to be enjoyable ways to pass the time when I fancy a light hearted and unchallenging game.
Oldies are goodies
One thing has come clear over the last two years that older games have not aged as much as they would do in prior years. There is a clear difference between titles which released say around the start of the 21st century so say between 2000 – 2004 with those titles released from 2006/07 onwards. This was most clear to me with the fact that Gears of War 4 compared to Gears of War is very similar in the foundational way they play despite the ten year difference in release date and graphical upgrades. While a lack of tangible “upgrades” in the last twenty years beyond minor fixes and quality of life improvements may be seen as a negative, I think this isn’t the case as these older games are still pretty close in quality as more modern titles when looked through a more modern lens. Thus Halo 2 even in its anniversary form is still highly playable and enjoyable even with it coming out in 2004, the same could not be said for Red Faction which come in 2001 which is firmly rooted in that era with the way combat is designed and level design and structure. While it was still highly enjoyable it did take me a little time to get use to it. So this means you don’t need to stick to the latest titles to have a good time still plus these older titles are cheaper due to their age.
You don’t have to play everything
The backlog isn’t a set in stone. Over these two years, I have removed some games if I think they aren’t games I am actually interested in or these games may not be enjoyable to play instead being something which requires me to “Git Gud” or other gameplay design choices. An example of the type of “Git Gud” games I removed was Hollow Knight when I discovered it was a Metriodvania which required grinding bosses etc. Another one was Stealth Bastard which I thought was stealthy 2.5D platformer which when playing I realised it was game which required perfect timing. Once this came clear I knew I wouldn’t get on with the game and gave up on it. This was a similar situation with Hotel Miami as I couldn’t get on with the requirements of the gameplay through the way the controls were structured. I also removed games which had gameplay mechanics which I knew I wouldn’t get on with. This included Escape Plan as despite being intrigued by it, the fact it was going to require motion controls meant that I knew I would struggle to play it and get frustrated – which I knew would be waste of time for me personally. So like with every other type of entertainment, play what you want to play instead of games you think you should be playing just to be in with the zeitgeist as there is a good chance that these are games which you aren’t going to get on with and just end up annoying you which isn’t I think a good way to experience an art form. As while it is good to get out of your comfort zone it should still be done so in a way in which the games are those which should give you a little bit of a challenge rather than simply frustrating you.
Short and Sweet
Lastly, one thing that was clear over these two years was that bigger wasn’t always better. While I thoroughly enjoyed Red Dead Redemption II and Borderlands: The Pre-sequel they were both time sinks as I sunk 138 hrs and 70hrs respectively into them to get to what I consider completion, completing the campaign and any DLC campaigns. However those games in the 6-16 hour range were equally as fun to play as while Red Dead Redemption II and Borderlands offer expansive worlds and lots to do, these shorter games offer more streamlined experiences which can be more varied as you can play a wider range of games over a year when playing shorter games than just playing larger ones. As larger games require more time to set aside to see it to conclusion, as in 2024 I started playing Red Dead Redemption II in April which took until December to complete. While there were a few week gaps in between these months I was playing it pretty much most of the time throughout this period. Whereas playing shorter games meant I was able to complete between 2 – 4 games a month on average, which meant that I was able to experience more games and a variety of genres, which if I had to stuck to larger games I wouldn’t have experienced over this two year period.