Dedicated to my backlog: Kim

On Monday, LightningEllen from Livid Lightning and I revealed the first #LoveYourBacklog Week: seven days of love dedicated not to Valentine’s Day but to our ever-growing pile of video games. We’re encouraging everyone in the community to take part in several activities to show the world just how much their backlog means to them because the more titles you have, the more chance there is you’ll always have something to play.

The first of these activities was to display a #LoveYourBacklog badge on our blogs with pride, and next up is writing a post about our overflowing libraries. To keep things simple I’ve decided to ignore my PlayStation 4 and physical libraries for now and concentrate on Steam only. I’ve trawled through all 282 of my digital games to highlight unplayed or unfinished titles in the following categories, so it’s time to show that backlog some appreciation!

Game most likely never to be played

The award for the game most likely never to be played is Company of Heroes, simply because it’s not my cup of tea. I don’t like real-time strategy games because I want to get stuck into the action and therefore don’t have the patience; plus the setting puts me off, because I generally don’t enjoy any media where the focus is on the subject of war. This one has been in my library since 14 March 2014 and to be honest, I’m not even entirely sure how it got there in the first place!

It was hard to narrow this category down to only one title so here’s another that won’t get touched: The Gallery. I backed the Kickstarter campaign in March 2013 when the project was being made for standard PC as well as virtual reality, but since then it has been released on Steam with the advice ‘requires a virtual reality headset’. I don’t own an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive and, as VR makes me feel nauseous, I don’t plan on buying either so this is one series which is going to spend an awfully long time on my backlog.

Finally, I couldn’t leave this category without mentioning the original Fallout. I haven’t played it yet because of my weird gaming habit where I have to start a series from the beginning, and so far I haven’t been able to get it working on my PC. Several fellow bloggers have recommended trying the GOG version but I just can’t bring myself to do it now… I’m so sick of seeing so many articles about Fallout 76 in my news feed that I now don’t want to go anywhere near the series any time soon.

Shortest game

According to the HowLongToBeat website, the shortest game currently on my backlog is Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo. I seem to remember receiving it after purchasing a Humble Bundle of Cyan titles back in November 2013 when the Myst titles were part of the offer. Spelunx wasn’t a game I’d heard of prior to then and it’s not one I’ve had a temptation to play since – and looking at the Steam page now with it’s ‘mostly positive’ review score and ‘educational title for elementary and middle school kids’ description, that hasn’t changed.

Longest game

Using the HowLongToBeat website once again, the longest game on my backlog right now is The Secret World. My Steam profile shows I’ve played five hours but I can’t have made it more than 30 minutes in. I can’t seem to get my fingers around the controls: I’m not the most coordinated person at the best of times, but there’s just something about this title which turns me into a button-mashing-mess. Keyboards have been pushed to the floor and mice thrown across the room in bouts of frustration before ‘uninstall’ is clicked.

Game which has spent the longest time on the backlog

The title that took this award genuinely amazed me: it’s LIMBO. It’s a game I bought on 25 March 2013 after being introduced to the indie gaming scene and hearing so many good things about, but also one I’ve always meant to play but for some reason haven’t yet gotten around to. When you think of the darkest corners of your backlog, you picture something incredibly niche or obscure so to find that my ‘longest time’ entry is something so well known has come as a surprise.

The person responsible for adding the most entries to my backlog

There are so many and most of them I’ve met through blogging! There are two people who deserve a special mention though. nufafitc from Emotional Multimedia Ride is a fellow adventure-genre fan and has put me onto some great point-and-clicks; and more recently, Rendermonkee from Rendermonkee’s Gaming Blog has caused me to add more upcoming releases to my wishlist thanks to their Support Originality posts. If anybody has any adventure recommendations, please feel free to leave them in the comments below!

That’s it from my Steam library for now – how about yours? To find out how you can join in with #LoveYourBacklog Week, take a look at Monday’s post.