Backlog 100

                                                                                                   Photograph: David Levene

It's the 100th Backlog post!

As Ayn and I continue to make our way through the games you voted for (namely Xenogears for me and Nocturne for him), I wanted to take this time to do a quick retrospective on the last two years of the blog. With dozens of games now played and successfully removed, let's look back on our biggest hits and the most fun we've had as we give our games a second chance.

We got started with my initial mission statement, followed immediately by our first game post; Spectral Force 3. Ayn posted about that in August of 2010, and I'm happy to report that as of this summer he finally got around to beating it. My first post was on Arc the Lad: Twilight of Spirits, which I hadn't beaten at the time, but finished shortly afterwards. Thus our Backlog journey began.

[Insert witty caption from past picture, play laugh track]

When we first started out, we had another Backlogger, Mike, who was going to post about the really old stuff. He did get a good post about Chrono Trigger in before backlogging himself. We also had a similar experience with Jared, who wrote a post on Morrowind that held on to one of our top 10 post spots for months. With them gone, Ayn and I have been holding down the fort ever since. I wonder if either of them ever got a wacky spin-off that was just like our blog, but taking place in the big city or set in outer space.

Space!

On our own, Ayn and I have plowed through a plethora of games we may have never touched if not for the blog. Games like Etrien Odyssey, Unlimited SaGa, Bujingai, and the Ratchet & Clank series. We've both had our own series of posts, like Ayn's March Mecha Madness, and my on-going Almost Got 'Em. Our topics have ranged from the games we're playing to concepts like bridge games, comic strips, and zazz. We've both discussed E3, and Ayn has thrown up a ton of work on concepts ranging from the music in games to the witty banter.There was even briefly a comic.

The Backlog has posts about games as old as Sim Tower and as recent as Tales of Graces f. Because remember, it's never too early or too late to completely forget about something after you buy it.

Or sometimes as you're buying it.

So what's the current tally on games? For me, I've posted about, and beaten; Arc the Lad: Twilight of Spirits, Final Fantasy XII, 2 Ratchet & Clank games, 3 Devil May Crys, Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity, Tales of the Abyss, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, Etrien Odyssey, Breath of Fire III, InFAMOUS, and most recently, Suikoden III. I've attempted Riviera: The Promised Land, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, and Demon's Souls only to have them get backlogged again (though I WILL beat Demon's Souls).

I really have no idea which games Ayn has and hasn't beaten from his list of posts, but hopefully he'll follow up on this to keep us up to date.

                                                      Kevin Hagen for the Wall Street Journal

We wait with bated breath.

Our most popular post remains, by a wide margin, my entry on Devil May Cry 3. Close behind it is my DMC2 post, and Ayn's explanation of the Kingdom Hearts universe. I have no idea what sets these apart besides the popularity of the series themselves, so stay tuned for the next two years where we review exclusively Halo and Call of Duty titles, with the occasional Madden.

Each year we'll write the same post and slightly adjust the picture captions.

We've had a great run so far, and I hope that you're looking forward to the future as much as we are. There are still a lot of games to be played and a lot of fun to be had. We're excited to share it with all of you and hope you feel the same way about reading what we've got. And remember, unlike certain other video game reviewers, we at the Backlog would never get paid for this crap.

For the first 100 posts and for 100 more, let's all keep playing.