I definitely made some impressive strides, but ultimately I failed at 2 out of 3 of my 2011 video game-related resolutions.
My biggest, most ambitious goal was to bring my overall gamerscore to a total of 35-percent of the available total. When I began my little quest at the end of last year, my percentage was 23.1%. It now stands at 32.8%. Just shy of a ten-percent overall increase, but sadly, not quite enough.
I wonder how much that total was offset by post-launch dlc increases? Would I have made my goal if games weren't so gung-ho about cashing in with expansion packs? Probably not... although I would be closer, and thus perhaps I would have tried harder because I was so darn close. I'll never know.
My overall point total was quite impressive, however. I started at 70, 560 and ended 2011 with 118,401. That's an increase of nearly 48k! In one year I gained 2/3 as many gamerpoints as I did for the first nearly-five years I had an Xbox 360 (I got my first console Feb 2006). I would have easily made my percentage goal had all those points come from games I had already started, but the majority came from new games. But my enthusiasm for new games did help me easily achieve my next goal.
I set out to "beat" a total of 150 Xbox 360 games, including the 91 I had beaten up to that point. I added 87 to that list (88 if you could Bejeweled Blitz, which doesn't have a real "beaten" point... though when I make it to level 50, I'll call it done). That's right, in one year I nearly made as much progress in finishing games as I have in all those years prior. 56 of those games were new (to me... 8 of them were last year's games I finally got around to starting), which explains most of my failure to reach goal #1.
Perhaps more impressive to me is that I only failed to finish 11 games that I started this year. Those games are: Alice: Madness Returns (got distracted), Catherine (s'hard), Dark Souls (made bad choices early on, probably need to restart), Dungeon Siege 3 (long game, rented it twice and still haven't finished it!), Forza 4 (so dull), From Dust (annoyed with villagers), Halo CE Anniversary (my co-op partner got sucked into Skyrim... as did I), Lord of the Rings War in the North (kinda dull, but still slogging through it), Marvel vs Capcom 3 (got distracted), Two Worlds 2 (disappointed in changes from first game), and You Don't Know Jack (I like it so much, I'm trying to stretch it out as long as possible). I'm sure I'll finish these games some time. But I actually finished more games than I began this year. That's quite an accomplishment for me.
So right now I have beaten 178 out of 412 played Xbox 360 games. That's definitely a better completion percentage than any other console I've owned. Except maybe the N64.
Before I forget, here's the breakdown of games I completed in December:
Skylanders Spyro's Adventure: 730 out of 1000 gamerpoints. I probably would have gone for the full 1000 points, but one of them glitched out so I didn't bother. Also, I think Activision dropped the ball with the release of the toy figures. I played slowly and collected the first & second wave of toys, but there's no reason to obsess over the rest since I finished the game and there's no added achievement points.
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare: 400 out of 1000 gamerscore.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: 365 of 1000 achivement points.
These were short single player campaigns, I don't know why I didn't finish them when I initially played them. But now I have. And I don't think that fact's changed my life at all.
Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End: 850 of 1000. This game is pretty much middle-of-the-road as far as movie tie-ins go. Not bad, just quite repetitive. I thought some of the voice work were pretty good imitations of the movie actors.
Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: 940 out of 1000 gamerscore. Over 150 hours played, and I'll have to start a new game because I screwed up one of the achievements. But not any time soon. Maybe when the inevitable $30 expansion pack gets released.
Lost Planet Extreme Condition: 275 out of 1000 gamerpoints. Just as many annoyingly user-unfriendly mechanics in this game as were in the sequel, but I liked that game better because it had co-op and customization options. This one just had a bunch of cutscenes that were jaw-droppingly pointless.
Conan: 460 of 1000. This was a mostly fun button masher. It had some awesomely brutal combos, but the experience was marred by frustrating auto-aim and annoying boss battles. But since it featured the line "Take me and crush me with your love", all is forgiven.
Battlefield 3: 340 out of 1120 achievement points, for 30%. This is the most disappointing game of the year for me. They made the single player a stale (though incredibly good-looking) Call of Duty clone, with some pointless quicktime events thrown in. I really liked Battlefield 2 because it wasn't about a character, it was about a squad. At any time, you could switch to another squadmate on the field. It was a lot more unique than what this new game is. But nobody cares about the single player for this game, do they? So why'd they even bother?
So in this month I finished more old games than newly started ones. The first time I've done that since January. And even the new games were started in previous months, which means I didn't start a single new game in December! I made a real effort to try to reach my 35% goal. I didn't make it mostly because of Skyrim. I managed to get 3,995 points last month, a bit shy of the 12,000 or so that I needed.
As for part three of my gaming resolutions... writing reviews for every game I finished. I made strides towards this mid-year... writing very brief 3-line reviews of each game I had completed so far. These were to be used when I restarted my video game webcomic. But many complications have delayed that venture. I could have jotted out a bunch more quick reviews to make that resolution complete, but I felt it would be disingenuous. Once I get the comic on its feet, I will then figure out precisely what I need my reviews to be.
So that's it. I fell just short of my gaming goals for 2011. Looking back, I made some impressive strides. But perhaps I put too much pressure on my ability to change.
So what's next? In 2012, I plan to continue striving to increase my gamerscore percentage. Maybe I can get it up to 40% this year? I am also going to try to finish at least as many old games as new games. And I also want to get my video game webcomic going again. But as far as making these plans into official resolutions? Nah. A casual goal should suit me just fine. Aaaand, it probably won't need to be regularly documented. I'll probably check my progress a time or two during the year, and just keep myself focused. How much I'll blog about depends upon if I can work it into my webcomic site. It's all up in the air at the moment. But it's a New Year. Anything can happen.
