Wow, 2016 was quite the year. It was an important year for me since I had a rather life-altering experience at the tail-end of 2015 that sort of put things into perspective. As part of this, I acknowledged that gaming was a huge part of my life (not that I didn't already know it!) and I wanted to focus on completing games that I had been unable to do for years, as well as complete some collections I'd been working on. Now that the year is complete, I can look back and say I did a pretty good job, all things considered.

First off, let's talk about how my collection grew in 2016. Including digital games and "toys to life" stuff, I added around 850 items to my collection in 2016. My primary focus was to wrap up my NTSC-U Sega Saturn collection and I was able to do that. I have nearly every game released, with the exception of a few variants, demos, and the ever-elusive Daytona USA: CCE NetLink Edition. Once I wrapped that collection, I put a huge dent in building up my Sega Dreamcast and Wii U collections. I'm not sure I'll get a complete set for either of those, but I wanted to bolster them significantly and I feel I did that.

2016 Collection Updates

Of course, there were plenty of other games I picked up along the way, so I decided to look back and highlight a few of the games I was glad to finally add to my collection in 2016:

To be honest, I didn't even know this game existed until a couple of years ago. I thought the two R.C. Pro-Am games on the NES and the one on Game Boy were the only ones. I looooved those games, so this was a no-brainer for me to eventually track down. Now I just need to play it...

Dragon Quest Builders was probably my most anticipated game of 2016 and it lived up to my own personal hype. It was a great mix of Dragon Quest and Minecraft with a campaign that kept you moving forward without feeling constrained. I still need to go back and finish all of the challenges though!

Godzilla Generations was one of the first games I remember seeing for the Dreamcast. Sadly, it didn't make it to North America, but I decided in 2016 that it was time to start dabbling in Dreamcast imports. I know this game isn't supposed to be very good, but it will finally satisfy that urge I had in the '90s to at least try out this game.

Maximum Carnage was always considered unbeatable within my group of gaming buddies and for good reason: IT'S HARD AS HECK! I totally cheated with a Game Genie and gave myself unlimited continues and slogged my way through it. I know it's cheating, but I wanted to see all of the levels and it was the only way I could do it, aside from watching a longplay of a much better player on YouTube. In any case, it feels good to have this one on my shelf...finally.

This game looked great back in the '90s and I was finally able to track it down. Sadly, it did not work on my Windows 98 machine, so I'm going to have to do some work if I want to play it :P

I first learned about Policenauts after it was displayed on a Sega Saturn promo pamphlet that I acquired back in the '90s. It was just the cover art, but it looked interesting. Of course, the English release was eventually cancelled and the game was seemingly lost...until the recently completed English translation patch! I quickly snatched up a copy of the game so I can eventually try the patch out and finally play it.

This was the most recent NTSC-U Saturn game I've purchased and thus, the game that completed my collection. I've played it before on other systems and I know it's brutally difficult, so I won't be loading it up anytime soon haha. I do plan to check it out though since the Saturn is so amazing at 2D.

I played this game sooo much as a kid and had kinda forgotten about it. I found it dirt cheap and snatched it up immediately.

I've always been intrigued by the Atari Lynx and I've (still) never played one. I discovered in 2016 that Lynx games are actually really cheap, even brand new. I picked up a slew of titles and a Lynx system to one day satisfy my curiosity.

I'm in the minority in that I actually really enjoyed Episode I. The game, on the other hand....well, it's not very good. BUT, since I enjoy the movie so much and I played this a fair amount as a kid, I thought it would be a fun one to load up again. I just need to get my Windows 98 machine running again :)

Oh, the nostalgia! I played this game a ton back in the day and had sort of forgotten that I didn't have it in my collection anymore. I tracked down a copy on the Genesis, since that's what I had in the '90s.

I'm a big fan of the movie, but I've never played the game. One of these days, I'll have my Xbox hooked back up and I can try this one out.

I played the demo for Vigilance back in the '90s and loved it. The front of the box compares it to Goldeneye and that's somewhat accurate, I suppose. It's sort of clunky to play nowadays, but I'm looking forward to finally giving it a proper play once I have my Windows 98 machine back up and running.

2016 Completions

Enough about adding to my backlog, let's talk about clearing that sucker out! I managed to complete 107 games in 2016, which is a little skewed since I played sooo many super short games (i.e. less than one hour long). One of my goals was to focus on games that had been in my backlog for a long time and I feel I did a decent job at that. Here are some of the highlights:

One of the first games I completed in 2016 was the first Turok, though it was the remastered version on Steam. I originally played this game back on the N64 shortly after it was released and have been wanting to truly finish it ever since then. This is a fantastic version of the game.

I hadn't played much of this game before this playthrough, but I really enjoyed my time with it. It had some frustrating parts, but overall it's a very enjoyable action RPG.

Another PS1 RPG that I've had on my list for a long time, Parasite Eve II was quite a bit different from the original, but still very fun. It felt even more like Resident Evil and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

This was an interesting one. I had long since assumed I'd never even play this game again, much less complete it. But that's exactly what happened. I had played it a few times before and thought it was okay, but nothing special. And it really isn't anything special, but I was compelled to play through it....for some reason.

Much like Draconus, I kinda thought I would never complete this one. But I'm so glad I did! It's a really fun action platformer that has a bit of replay value due to the parallel system. I just need to actually replay it :P

Oh my, how long has this game been in my backlog!?! I'm soooo glad that I can finally say I completed all three campaigns in this game. Hopefully it doesn't take me another 20 years to play Brood War!

This was one of my favorite games that I played in 2016. It had me hooked from beginning to end and it's a really long game too!

With the exception of maybe StarCraft, this was the single biggest game for me to knock off my backlog in 2016. I've tried to complete this one so many times and I could never do it. Well, I finally did it!

2017 Resolutions

I've already outlined the games I'm looking to play (or at least pick from) in 2017 here on this stack. So what I'd like to do here is cover some resolutions that apply to my collecting / gaming hobby as a whole.

The first resolution is to greatly reduce the amount of games I add to my collection this year. I've been on auto-pilot for so long in the sense that I would pick up a game if it's really cheap, or buy bundles that maybe had one game in them that I wanted to play, etc. I'd like to start being a lot more selective in adding games to my collection so I can focus more on actually playing them. I wanted to build up collections for various systems (including those I mentioned earlier), but I feel pretty good about where I am overall and now it's time to really start enjoying them.

And that last statement is really the second resolution: I want to start enjoying my collection even more than I have been! That includes playing / finishing games, of course, but I'm also talking about trying out new games and uploading videos to YouTube, putting together some gaming nights to play multiplayer games, etc.

It's actually really simple. Buy less. Play more. It seems so simple and rewarding. We'll see how well I can stick to it ;)