Question: Am I the only one who ocasiionally goes through the games they own and wonders to themselves "when was the last time I played this?" only to find out they cannot come up with an answer? Has anyone ever written down what they've played and when they played it for future reference?

Anyway, I know it's a minor inconvience and of relatively little importance, but I can help but think such data could be useful and, at the very least, interesting.

Anyway, here's the start of my data:

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
(Started 07/14/09) ~ (Finished 07/24/09)

+ all the area themes are pretty good (except that ambient crap they play on the 2nd Floor of the Ghostly Theater)
+ the story, mainly the origin of everyone's favorite vampire slaying whip
+ the sense of accomplishment for defeating the bosses is quite gradating
+ the subweapon/orb system gives you a HUGE amount of attacks to choose from
+ while it may seem rather trivial, the fact you can attack the area surrounding Leon with sweeping whip lashes is just damn cool considering you're use to a 2D plane
+ the contrast in weaponry (Lament giving the player the experience of using a whip in combat while Curse instead gives you a Symphony/Alucard-like set to experiment with) really does make these two similar games feel a bit more different.

- the game could have seriously used an experience system to supplement the MP/HP/Heart upgrades since the only reason there is to kill enemies is to get out of locked rooms. Once you've cleared an area and need to go back through, there is little reason to combat the enemies - there are very few drops that are really worth getting and money is hardly an issue due to a certain trick. Beating the crap out of stuff is fun for a while, but pales to the sense of accomplishment for beating a boss.
- the real-time windows are just a bad idea. I don't understand what would have been so hard about making the action on the screen freeze when the player touches the D-pad or holds the L1 and L2 buttons to access those menus. When it comes to your health, never wait until the last minute or you'll regret it.
- Many have said Yamane's cut scene music for the game is below average and my opinion has not changed. Most of it is fair enough to work in context, but I can't even begin to dissect why "Rear Garden" doesn't outside the three or four seconds of appropriateness within it.
- The location of the Yellow Dragon key is a bit ridiculous, being only one of two items I could not locate out of memory - the other was a one of the MP ups you get for collecting all the coins on those platofrms rides in the Dark Palace of Waterfalls.
- graphically, the game is pretty nice - it looks better than Curse of Darkness in my opinion, but the use of the same textures in a lot of rooms really kills any sense of progression, as does the hallway/room/hallway pattern that dominates most of the map; you really don't elevate upwards like you think you would in a castle until the final area. I'm sure it's been said before but the level design in the 3D Castlevania's never seems to approach those in the 2D incarnations.
- the camera, while usually behaving to the point where it's never a make-or-break issue, makes some jumps a real pain. There are two rooms in particular (one in the Ghostly Theater and one in the Misty Moon Pagoda) where you'll have the pleasure of hearing Leon "fall" to "his death" many times over. It would be downright annoying if it wasn't simultaneously hilarious. Also, didn't (and don't care) for how the way to the Frost Elemental is actually hidden by the camera, as jumping towards the camera onto a platform you can't see is just a bit ridiculous and rather unorthodox.
- the relics aren't nearly as useful - or as interesting - as they could have been. The fact the last two, powerful relics are rare drops kind of questions their overall value in the scheme of things.

I actually had the insane idea of playing through my entire game collection in alphabetical order, and I decided to write a blog about it somewhere when I reached the "D", so I can still use that for reference.

I also wrote some notes while playing, which I should still have lying around somewhere, so that comes close to what you described I guess.

Never finished that project unfortunately...

I used to write down the games I had finished and beaten.

If I remember right, it was over a hundred NES and ditto for SNES, but sometime in high school I had looked for the list again to check it and couldn't ever find where it went.

At least in the case of PS2 games, you can always check your save data to see when you last saved. I kinda hate it when a game keeps track of how long I've played, though.

I've started keeping a log of the games I've finished this year.  So far I'm up to 21, with the PS3 having the overwhelming majority.  The DS comes in second, followed by 360 which I no longer own.

Wow, seriously!?
I hate it when games DON'T!

I think this should be a standard feature in all games nowadays (and fortunately, in most cases it is)

This kind of obsessive behavior is exactly what The Backloggery is there for. I don't know what I'd do without it honestly

I love it when games keep track of length. The only issue I have with that is that I tend to obsessively make sure I don't "waste" time (leaving it without being paused, etc)

Yeah, I used the Backloggery for awhile, but I got kinda fed up with it, so I stopped using it.
What irked me most is that the site itself has no Database of games, so if someone spells a title differently then you (I think it's case-sensitive), it will be treated as a different game.
Not to mention the difference between Japanese and Western titles for the same game.

For categorizing, I still prefer sites like IGN, where you have a huge and informed database with box-art pictures and everything.

I definitely recognize that
The other issue I have with it, is that not all games measure time properly.
I've noticed in-game clocks running too slow, or only counting actual gameplay, not cutscenes etc.

It's fine for action games and the like, but I'd really rather not have it for RPGs. When you get to the point when you realize that you haven't been playing for hours, but days, it gets a little disconcerting. I can't help but think it's an artificial way of measuring a game's value as well. Sure, I may have played for 100+ hours, but how much of that time was spent level grinding? Or on trying to get an item that has a 1/255 chance of appearing?

Actually, I remember when my friend was hardcore into Final Fantasy XI and went around, proudly crooning he had 365 days worth of hours in playtime on it. All I could think was "and that's something to be proud of?" Um, sure. This is why I like console games - there's usually a finite amount of things to do, so once you hit that point, you're done! I like being able to say "I'm done," or "I destroyed that game!"

I wish this site had a database of games, including estimates of the time needed to beat them.  Then you could enter the amount of time that you've spent playing them, and you would be able to view the number of hours needed to finish them off.

Actually, it's in RPGs that I most like this feature, go figure
Although I'll admit there's a slight value-measuring quality to it, yes, but the same goes for action games.

On a side note, I spent over 100 hours on Oblivion, and NONE of it was spent grinding or waiting for drops.
Now that's quality!

By a weird sort of coincidence, I'm assisting my sister through Lament of Innocence currently. It's the first time I've seen it since plowing through it during a gaming lull in '04, and that was before I'd ever played a Devil May Cry game. Suffice it tosay it suffers from the comparison (and yeah, real-time inventory selection is the pits...between this and Kingdom Hearts, I have to wonder how many devs had the same bad idea at almost the same time).

I'm terrible with finishing games. Terrible. Hell, I'm even bad at starting them, and sometimes I'll even put down a brand new game to get back to a game I dabbled with weeks, months, or years before. I haven't touched Pokemon Platinum since the day after I bought it, started Persona 3 FES a few days ago (despite owning it for a few months) and put it down around when they want me to choose a school activity (I hate decision-making in games), and bought four games today for no good reason at all. Terrible.

Impossible. I can see an estimate time for completion, but not how many hours you have still left. It all depends on the player. I completed Persona 3 after 100 hours, but I heard that some people got through with 60 hours.

I maintain a spreadsheet with a list of every game I've played, but I'm pretty bad at updating it with my progress in them.  I mostly use it just to track how many games I've tried and what my first impressions of them are.  Right now, the file says I've tried 1,679 games.  I don't have dates as a field, so no stat tracking for games tried per year or anything like that.

Finished Lament of Innocence. Had most of the game beaten in the first two days, but getting all the drops to fill in the encyclopedia took a while. You can see what I like and dislike about the game in the first post, and while it may seem I've got a lot of gripes about the game, it's still pretty good.

Anyway, I picked up a copy of Super Castlevania IV last weekend so I'm going to boot that up here.

for some reason... a certain Styx song comes to mind after reading this thread...

*giggle*

Yeah, I don't have enough time to PLAY my games, let alone catalog them.  That's not to say I wouldn't like to have mine cataloged, but still.

Know how you feel. I usually don't have time to play games either but I need something to keep me busy while I'm laid off (for the third time this year) or I'll go insane.

Man, I HATE when you beat a boss but die after the final blow cause some projectile is still in play! Curse you Jewel Bat thingy!

Edit:

Wow, Block B-2 is LOVELY!

Super Castlevania IV
(Started 07/24/09) - (Finished 07/26/09)

+ for a first generation SNES game, it's just damn beautiful
+ awesome musical score, don't think anymore needs to be said
+ while the control really isn't much different than the NES Castlevania's as far as that stiff feeling goes, it does feel if you do have a lot more freedom, even outside the obvious enhancements to Simon's repertoire
+ unlike earlier NES games with similar gameplay, the gameplay is refined to the point where cheap shots are few and far between - well fewer and farther. When you die, it's pretty much is your fault.
+ like other games in the series, really like how you spend some of the game outside the castle and some of it inside the castle
+ the interaction Simon has with some of the items - like closing the treasure chests in the Treasure Room when stepping on them - is very clever
+ the further you get into the game, the nicer they are about continue points; but really, it doesn't take much to surpass some of the demon spawn respawn points in the NES Ninja Gaidens
+ Death is MUCH more manageable with a controller and d-pad compared to a computer keyboard
+ The Dracula battle is very challenging despite the fact his pattern/attacks aren't really that complex
+ When you get Drac down to about five-six units of health, the fact "Theme of Simon" kicks back in is just too cool
+ the ending sequence fondly reminded me of the one in Super Mario World

- as beautiful as the graphics are, their are times when all the detail does seem like a bit much
- until the final battle, sub-weapons really don't come into there own as useful
- was kind of surprised at the amount of slowdown encountered, and then reading it's hardly/not even an issue in the Japanese release
- some of the earlier bosses are total cakewalks
- some damage - like three points for making contact with a bat - do seem kind of high but when compared to making contact with a Robot Master in MM3, it's completely manageable
- some of the time limits given when restarting certain blocks compared to how much time your given when you start a level and go though without dying are a bit low
- Nintendo's censorship policies at the time obviously means things were altered and, while not make or break, would have liked seen left alone. I'm still having a hard time understanding how we got Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II like we did and they were only really altered when they where put on the SNES trilogy.
- never really liked the naming convention used for the game. Castlevania IV when it’s a remake of the original game? Um, sure. Again, it’s not the first game with a name that’s been bungled in localization and it won’t be the last.

Regardless, great game.

Ashley, why not start a blog or something to cover your gaming log (not to say it's ok to do it in here), but that way it would be probably easier to discuss about the current game you're playing.

And probably I should start doing the same, especially when I start tackling '100%'-saves for some rpgs I own.

Hardcore gaming makes me fatter than I already am to begin with.

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one.

..I always thought that 'Theme of Simon' sounded kind of cheesy, and the fact that they play it again during Dracula's final moments in this game absolutely RUINS the mood that they had going with the other, more somber and dramatic song that plays for the beginning duration of the fight.

Anyone else agree that they should've kept 'Theme of Simon' out of this sequence..?

I do like the somber "Dracula's Theme" but once you get him down to the lightning phase - where he's pretty much toast and it's hard to lose if you're on your toes - the change in contrast really worked for me. As for "Theme of Simon" sounding cheesy, I won't deny that because it is. Still, by the same token music (and practically anything else) can be fun because it is cheesy.

Changing music mid-battle is a risky thing - it always irritates me when X8 ditches Vs 8Boss (best MM battle theme ever, don'tcha know) for the stupid and repetitive Angry 8Boss variant.
In the case of SCV4, it's a bit jarring but not unwelcome, as I prefer Simon's theme as a piece of music in general. But I thought the fade-in effect in MGS3's last battle was perfect, so maybe I'm predisposed towards cheese.

Haha, another difference in opinion. I really like Angry 8Boss. It's repetitive - no foolies - but it brings that whole "I'm pissed off at you now" thing to the table.

Still, I think "VS Maverick" is hard to beat, as is "Lumine 2nd" (my TV does this piece little justice)

we should/shouldn't have a thread about boss music that changes during the middle of the boss fight (as opposed to "WITNESS MY TRUE FORM" cutscenes)

Sonic Advance 2 (and 3?) and Rush actually do this for like every boss theme. It's usually a nice touch, but it's pretty easy to come off annoying, especially when it's just a slightly sped up version of the song (mainly when you're listening to it outside of the game). Of course, the opposite can happen when the music is actually a different song you want to hear all of, and you have to prolong the battle to do so.

I seem to remember Shadow of the Colossus doing the same thing. The fight music would suddenly get more desperate if you lost a lot of health, but would become more heroic and triumphant if the Colossus was not doing so well.

Getting back to the original topic, I don't think I'm obsessive enough to catalogue my entire gaming agenda at this point, but I can say with little uncertainty that the games I've spent 100-plus hours on are:

Final Fantasy VII - IX: Doing all the sidequests in each game, mastering the materia, GFs, and character abilities, exploring everything to the absolute fullest and pouring over every detail in the incredibly lush pre-rendered CG backgrounds took a lot of time, which is probably why I look on these three entries with more fondness than I do the SNES and post-PSX days of FF games. The one thing, the only thing I failed to do was in FFIX; I could've easily gotten Excalibur II, but my incredibly strong desire to collect each and every thing in FF games just wouldn't allow me to pass up stealing each and every item from bosses, searching every nook and cranny for items, or completing every sidequest completely make the 12-hour time limit requirement completely insurmountable.

Fallout 3: Say what you want about the quality of this title in comparison to its' predecessors, but the fact remains that this game is enormous. I'm given to believe that completing this game 100% is an olympian feat. Exploring the world map is a quest by itself, covering what feels like an entire goddamn state of virtual terrain. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of quests that can get one nigh-permanently sidetracked from the main story. I tried my damnedest, too.

Ditto, that's the only thing I never did in the game. Didn't see the point of missing out on a ton of other things in order to get like what, 12 more points on my attack? The moves it had where on other swords and Steiner was already a beast at the end of the game - especially in a trance. Whoo-o-oooo....

I think that's what I liked about FF9, even if you did hit lvl 99 you weren't really "godlike" say compared to FF7 where if you had psycho materia set-ups it was next to impossible to lose.

what? a properly equipped team in FFIX is totally godlike. the only real challenge left after you're using things like Shock is Ozma, and you can help cripple him by doing the friendly monster quest.

In FF7, you could end a fight in like two seconds, in FF9 - even at lvl 99 - normal encounters still took a while (those with the enemies at the end of the game.)

There's actually a FAQ at Gamefaqs on how to get EVERYTHING in FFIX, which includes Excalibur II. Obviously the exploration factor would be diminished, but...