A reader explains how and why he attempted to play a thousand different video games last year, with a goal of at least 83 a month. Gamers come in various types. Those who wants to play just the blockbusters and those who play multiplayer titles repeatedly to get really good at them. Hardcore gamers can inch their way through super hard games or try run after run in roguelikes. And many others stick to casual titles or buy popular sequels like EA Sports FC and the latest Call Of Duty.

I am what you might call an outlier though. I like to play as many titles as I can. This means I rarely play very long or super hard games all the way through. But I do think it reasonable to give a game a chance, even if it’s not a genre I tend to like. I also prefer to buy physical games. When I started keeping a list in 2013, I had 322 physical games. I first wrote to GameCentral about my backlog in January 2016, when it stood at 450. And by August 2017, despite selling off some of the games, the backlog had ballooned to 763. Years have passed, and many titles played. But with a job that includes selling games and an ongoing Game Pass subscription, the list is going up rather than down. In fact, a year ago I had 1,481 games on my list. So I decided to set myself a challenge – play a thousand different games in 2024.

I soon realised that if there were no rules it could be an easy target to reach simply by playing free browser games for a few seconds each. I wanted this to be more about just getting my numbers up to meet a target, so I set myself some ground rules. Firstly, every game has to be ‘finished with’ – that is played to a point I don’t want to play it anymore. That could be completed, but it could also be abandoned for being too slow, too boring or too difficult. Or maybe just not being my thing. I also decided to not include browser games or mobile phone games. No illegal emulation was allowed, nor Antstream, which with 1,300 games available would make things too easy.

Playing 10 games every three days for an entire year would not be easy. I went through my games and made a list of how many I had on each format. I had collected a number of free titles from Epic Games, but with no dedicated graphics card quite a few would not be playable. I had a couple of compilations of Atari 2600 games. With the Xbox 360 store closing in July, and the vast majority of games having a demo, this would be a good source. But demos would not count if I wanted to keep playing when they ended. I didn’t want to only play short games, so I also included longer titles I had wanted to play for a while.

My list was 1,282 games spread across 31 categories. Some of these would be different formats, but others would be variations e.g. Xbox 360 standard disc games, Kinect games, and downloadable games. So it seemed do-able on paper – but what about reality?. The obvious first issue is work. I run my own business, so that takes up a considerable amount of time. And there’s the not small issue of moving in with my girlfriend, with all the associated packing and unpacking. Add to that volunteer work, seemingly endless chores, and on top of that hobbies including playing football, partner dance classes, drumming in a samba band, and regular pub quizzes… would there be enough time?.

Doing the maths, I needed a little over 83 games a month. But as the challenge started on 1st January, I still had my Game Pass subscription. Having got 14 months from codes I used 13 months earlier I had already played all the games on there that were easy to finish with. So, I would be playing the titles I do like for longer, especially as I wasn’t planning on coming back to Game Pass any time soon. And with that month’s jobs including my tax return, and starting to pack for moving day, I managed barely a third of my target at 32 games.

So, there would be plenty of work to do to catch up. To be continued – but before I go, here’s some comments on a selection of games I played early in the year. Gotham Knights (Xbox Series S). While by no means terrible, this Batman-less game didn’t hold together very well. In fact, I had more fun riding around Gotham on my bike and admiring the sights than the missions, which frequently killed the pacing with overlong story scenes.

SonSon (arcade). This arcade game from the eighties is the free title with Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium and isn’t exceptional. But by adding a rewind feature a game that was super frustrating in its original incarnation can be completed with some patience in just over an hour. Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise (Xbox One). My girlfriend Emma plays mainly mobile games but also PC titles like Age Of Empires. So, it was fun to team up with her and play this escape room type game. Both of us found solutions the other had missed as we completed the game. It’s often in sales at a little over a pound, so well worth getting for that price.