Technically, this is the sort of post I should have done around the end of June, but I’m a bit slow with these things, and so here it is nonetheless. We’re now definitely halfway through the year 2010, and I thought it’d be neat to stroll back through time and count up the number of games I’ve beaten at this point.

Beaten.

Sometimes, in the world of videogames, that concept is hard to pinpoint. I mean, at what point does someone beat an MMORPG like World of Warcraft? Is it when they reach a level cap or actually run out of in-game missions? How would one define beating UNO, a multiplayer-heavy arcade game that has no main quests to complete? So, for a lot of these games, I think I have to just use my better judgment and decide if completing enough of a game equals beating it. One easy clue is that, most often, a game on the Xbox 360 will have an Achievement tied to beating it, and so if that’s unlocked I will definitely check it off (there’s one exception to this, which you can read about below).

Not surprisingly, all games beaten in the year 2010 for me were either on the Xbox 360 or the Nintendo DS…

Xbox 360

• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
• Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter (something wonky happened and the “you beat the game!” Achievement never popped, grrr)
• BioShock
• SEGA Superstars Tennis (I basically played every single thing on this so it’s considered beaten)
• Dragon Age: Origins
• The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
• The Saboteur
• Peggle (um, I completed the main campaign, just not all the side challenges yet)
• Street Fighter II’ HF
• Borderlands
• Limbo

Nintendo DS

• Hidden Mysteries Titanic: Secrets of the Fateful Voyage
• Pokemon HeartGold (I beat the first region and the Fab Four or whatever they were called, and have now unlocked the second region, as well as a lot of post-game material)
• TouchMaster 3

14 if my math is correct. That’s okay, but for some reason, I expected more in the Nintendo DS category. Maybe I’m just going crazy. Or forgetting a bunch. Oh wells.

There’s a couple of games I’m really close to beating, but still need more time with. Namely, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Picross 3D (I’d like to get over the 200 puzzles mark for this one), LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (this is going slower than many might have expected from me, but that’s because I’m playing the whole thing co-op with Tara), and ‘Splosion Man.

Gamers often fall into the trap of buying more games before completing the ones they’re already working on, and yes, I’ve hit that hump too. However, with money and time becoming a bigger issue right now, I’d really love to work on clearing out more of the backlog. There’s pretty much only two games on my must-buy list (Scott Pilgrim VS. The World: The Videogame and Fallout: New Vegas), and so I will climb this backlog mountain, hand over foot, until sweet victory washes over me like a morning breeze, and then–and only then–will I strike my victory pose.