It Begins...

I have been playing video games for the majority of my life.  As other hobbies have come and gone, gaming has always been something I have had a personal connection to. I grew up as an only child, and while I didn't have a shortage of friends as a kid, there were definitely many times when I was expected to entertain myself, and thus my Nintendo Entertainment System became my surrogate brother. Sure, I would play the classics with my friends all the time, but more often than not, I would play by myself. After school, before bed, weekends - I always had that blocky gray controller in my hand.

Now I'm an adult and my gaming hobby is just as strong as it was as a kid. My wife and I recently downsized to an apartment and I sold off all of my classic systems due to lack of space, using the $300 I got from the sale to repurchase most of my collection on the Wii's Virtual Console. I'm still missing a few favorites, but the key games are there.

There is an expression amongst the gamer nerds known as "the pile of shame". This refers to the chunk of your gaming collection that remains unfinished, or in the worst cases, unopened. While I can say that I have played every game I own at least once, there are a good percentage sitting there that I have never beaten. This could be for any number of reasons: it's too hard, I lost interest and moved on to something else, or sometimes the game just blows.

What's perhaps most shameful is the game that sits on the very top of my pile of shame, where it has sat for the past 22 years. Super Mario Bros. Yup. The first game I ever owned has mocked me with it's brutal difficulty for the past 22 years.

Well it's time to clean house. I am going to go through my collection of unfinished games and beat them one at a time. No matter how hard the game is, no matter how much the game sucks, I will play it until I beat it.

And I'm saving Super Mario Bros for the very end.

Now - for this to be effective, there needs to be a set of rules and a structure in place. Here's how I see it playing out:

• I will go through my collection chronologically by generation - starting with Nintendo, and ending with PS3. I will of course be saving the Super Mario Bros trilogy for the end. 
• I can make no new game purchases until every single game in my collection is beaten. This is key - and one of the major reasons I'm doing this blog. I spend too much money on games and don't value them enough. I want to really appreciate the value of each of my games. So making this public statement will keep me honest.
• I will only play that games that I have not yet beaten. Games that have been finished can stay on the shelf for now. In some cases I may play through a game that's already been beaten just for fun.
• No cheats. No warp zones. I want to gain complete mastery over every game in my collection. If I get really stuck I will allow myself to use a walkthrough, but nothing that modifies the game or makes it easier to beat.
• Some games don't really have an end or a way to be beaten. I will analyze how to approach these games on a case by case basis. 
• If I decide I cannot beat a game, I must either give the game away or if it is a game I downloaded, give the cost of that game to charity. 
• After beating each game, I will write a review about it.

I think that's good for now. Let me know if you can think of any other rules I can apply for myself.

So begins my adventure through my video game collection. I am really excited to see what comes out of this. Hopefully you are too.