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)

(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+

(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!)