The Mother of All Backlogs

I don’t think I’m being too controversial if I state that Western civilization peaked in the early 2000’s.

Dominated at the time by the “soft power” of the United States, the roughly ten year period between the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Twin Towers was, overall, a great time to be alive.

Adults could enjoy low college tuition and affordable housing, but it was kids who really had it good. Sure, everyone looks back on their childhood fondly, but objectively, the 90’s were the best.

During the summers you could look forward to visiting the movies every week to see classics like Men In Black and Independence Day, throughout the year there were awesome afternoon and Saturday morning cartoons to keep you entertained (Power Rangers and Batman: The Animated Series just to name two famous examples), and of course, video games were carrying on the momentum generated by the NES, which basically saved gaming following the crash of the early 80’s and led to the start of a Golden Age for the hobby.

My childhood was pretty rough in some aspects, but materially, I was highly privileged. For Christmas and birthdays I could always look forward to (and get) the newest games and/or consoles, and despite the difficulties I faced in my household, I view my youth as a net positive experience due to the memories I made playing those games and systems with my brother and next-door neighbor.

From 1990 to when I started college in 2002, gaming was a huge, integral part of my life: I bought the magazines, traded cheat codes, rumors and fatalities (some legit, some not) on the playground, and, of course, spent hours on Friday nights and weekends playing whatever the latest hotness was I’d been given or we’d rented from BlockBuster.

And then…

Nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

Aside from a few short, pretty sporadic experiences here and there (which I’ll touch on in a future post), I pretty much let gaming go once I started college.

I have a few theories as to why that happened, ranging from focusing on school, to a more pronounced interest in spending time with women (not that gaming and women have to be mutually exclusive, obviously, but in these cases, they happened to be), to just a general feeling that gaming wasn’t something “adults” do.

In hindsight, that last reason is super-lame, and the closer I get to 40 - and I am now very, very close - the less inclined I am to care in the slightest about what others think of how I spend my time.

I, however, spend a lot of energy thinking about how I spend my time, and I do care a lot about every commitment I make. After all, life is short, and now that I’ve set myself up with a decent life, which includes some free time and spare cash, I want to make sure that I put as many of those resources towards things that make me happy.

Not too long ago, the embers I’d kept burning by my few gaming experiences over the years truly caught fire, and I found myself thinking:

“Fuck it, I love video games, they made me really happy as a child, it’s clear to me they still make me happy today, and if I can recapture just a little bit of the joy I felt as a ten year old hanging out with Chris and Matt, then the time and money will be worth it”.

Today, I’m very happy to say that gaming, once again, falls under the category of things that make me happy.

So here I am, smack dab in the middle of the ninth generation of consoles, when really my time seriously involved in gaming last ended before the halfway mark of the PS2.

What does this mean?

THE MOTHER OF ALL BACKLOGS!

Rather than just pick things up now as if nothing had happened, I figured it would be a lot more fun just to start more or less from when my interest was first overridden by other things.

On one hand this feels a little daunting, on the other hand I couldn’t be more excited, because I’ll never - not once - feel like I have nothing to play, and I should be in for some pretty sweet gameplay experiences/surprises.

I mean, think about it.

I haven’t played “The Last of Us”, part 1 or 2.

I also haven’t touched any of the “God of War” games apart from a few hours with one of the PSP games.

Same goes for the “Gears of War” series, which for me is mostly unplayed.

Imagine that you had this much of a blank slate in front of you!

When I had this realization, the child in me was very excited, but the adult in me figured I should probably be somewhat productive about it and keep a record of all these experiences, which is what brings me here, in front of you, with this blog.

Along with a Twitch stream that I’ll be starting in the near future, I’m going to do my best to document every game from the past that is “new to me”.

So, please join me as I discover all the games you’ve already played!