My Most Anticipated Backlog Game for 2015

After watching more videos of Bayonetta 2 the more excited I get to actually play it. I received some gift cards for Christmas and plan to use them to pick up a couple of games in the next few days and it is first on the list.

There were games that I remember fondly from my days in college and it seems like more and more we are losing the style of game that Bayonetta 2 seems to pull off with expert precision. Watching the Giant Bomb crew play it recently brought back the memories of sitting in my dorm playing Devil May Cry and, at the time, being impressed by the game-play and the scale of some of the boss fights.

I barely touched the first Bayonetta because I had so little time for gaming in those couple of years after it released (work, wife, fatherhood, etc.) that I had to be extremely choosy with how I spent my gaming time. Now, I am much better adjusted to those things and have decided dedicate a little more time to myself and the hobby that I enjoy the most, playing games. Not only that but I plan to write more, to seek out games or genres that I may have never played before and experience new things while telling others about it. I enjoyed writing in college and even a few years after that but since I have had much more free time, reasons listed above, but as my daughter becomes more independent and my job is more manageable I think I can devote time to it all once again.

If anyone reads this, and I hope at least a couple will, let me know in the comments what game from your backlog you look forward to playing most in 2015. I have a ton of games from previous years that I need to play, Valkyria Chonicles, Saints Row IV, RAGE, and more. I aim to create a list of all the games I complete in the coming year no matter when they were released and at the end of 2015 instead of the traditional Top 10 that I usually do I'll also do a blog with some award categories that I'll determine as the year goes along.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you did... and let me know your most anticipated backlog game. If you don't I'll be forced to comment endlessly and have a conversation with myself so I can have so human interaction that doesn't involve Sheriff Callie, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, or Doc McStuffins.

Game I'm most excited to play is South Park: Stick of Truth. Didn't get to play it this year but seeing it on so many GOTY lists means I have to play it asap now. Besides that, I still need to finish some other PS3 games like Darksiders 2, Ni no Kuni and Kingdoms of Amalur. Then there's some games I still want to buy for my PS3. Ugh. I wish they'd put the games I want to play on PS Now so I can play them on my PS4 and not have to buy them. As for my Vita, there's nothing really I need to beat. Only have like 21 games on there and most aren't really games you beat like Luftrausers and Terraria. As for my PS4, I have to play The Evil Within and finish up some games I don't really have any interest in like Entwined. So many games dammit!

@awesomeusername: Thanks for responding.

There are SO MANY games... Amalur is great, I finished it on 360 and just bought it again on Steam during the sale to play some of the DLC.

I actually played some of South Park and while I enjoyed the jokes and story I just thought the combat was a little boring for me to really get into.

PS Now has been a big disappointment to me but the Vita is fantastic... when I was struggling to find time to play big time console releases I could get some time to play games while I was laying in bed. My 3DS and Vita got a lot of play during that period. I poured so many hours into Fire Emblem: Awakening.

My 2014 game for 2015 is going to be Lords of the Fallen and finally finishing up Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

Edit: AT some point I'd love to borrow/buy a Wii for Bayonetta 2 but it's the only Wii game I want to play so I have a hard time wanting to bite the bullet on purchasing a Wii-U.

As far as 2014 releases in 2015, it's probably going to be Divinity: Original Sin for me. A game of that length can be kind of tough to just jump into, but I always love a beefy rpg. It's probably my biggest omission from 2014, considering how strongly I feel for the genre. Bayonetta is on the list for me as well, but me not having a WiiU is the culprit, rather than a lack of time.

I also never got around to Wolfenstein, but that mostly came from me disregarding it out of no prior feelings for past entries, as well as not taking the praise it got when it came out too seriously. For some reason it's gotten A LOT of praise during GOTY from many people to the point where my interest is peaked. I'm still not sure if that has more to do with it being sort of a weak year for games, or if people really feel that strongly about it.

Vinny made a compelling case for The Fall and its on sale for about 5 dollars. So I might give that a shot in the near future.

@bargainben: The Fall looks really cool. As I work my way through my backlog more and more in 2015 I know that I'll probably get to it. I've owned it since the Summer.

@trilogy: Wolfenstein is next on my list after Bayonetta and Jazzpunk, I bought it on Steam for 20 bucks and actually can't wait to play it. It looks so good and sounds like it actually has a compelling, interesting story.

@zirilius: I bought Dragonfall and want to play it too... I liked the first one. I actually played my WiiU a lot this year.

I've got a couple I want to look at. South Park looks more like something I'd settle on watching a playthrough, though. As someone who hasn't played Far Cry 3, I'm okay with jumping into 4 once I'm finished with Far Cry 2. I may grab Dragon Age but I'd rather go into that with the first two games under my belt.

Already picked up Mordor and Wolfenstein during Christmas and like Mordor in the early going.

@jbg4: I'm kind of scared to get into Amalur and Ni no Kuni because they require a lot of time. But I'm going to do it anyway. I might agree with South Park. I saw my brother play a bit of it and the combat didn't look so hot but I'm willing to go through it because it's South Park. I haven't tried PS Now because all of the games are either shovelware or I've played. I loved my Vita back when I got it but there's not much on it anymore. I play 95% of the cross-buy indie games on my PS4 now and I don't feel the urge to go through the JRPG's I have on it. It's a great machine but there's nothing I want on it besides a handful of games now since I played most of what it has to offer.

Of your list, Valkyria Chronicles is one of the more unique games of the last ten years. I may have not cared for the story in parts, but that tactical combat system was so good.

I don't have a most anticipated backlog game for next year, for me at least I find myself psychologically doing better if I focus on what I've accomplished as opposed to what I have left to play. As it sounds like you know even better than I, when you have responsibilities life throws you too many curveballs to have a set gaming plan.

So what I did this past year that seemed to work out pretty well is just focus on what I accomplished

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/slag/lists/100n365/90117/

I ended clearing over twice as many games as I ever have before( to be fair many were shorter titles than my usual affairs)

Beyond what I'm juggling now (Shovel Knight, Dragon Age: Inquisition, South Park, Far Cry 3), I would like to get Witcher 2 finished before 3 ships. And probably start plowing through my Steam sale haul.

That's about as much as I'm going to commit to.

I love Platinum to absolute death, but Bayonetta has never interested me. Maybe I'm weird but the sexuality of the game just makes me uncomfortable; I don't think it's offensive or bad it just isn't something I'd like to play. Good to see Japanese madness getting it's due though.

2014 for me was a year of buying games, but not a year of playing games. My goal for 2015 is to buy a third of the games I bought last year, but actually play all the games I buy. Plus I've gotta catch up on a huge backlog I accumulated throughout the year, including Persona Q, Captain Toad, Earthbound, Jazzpunk, FFXIII, Shin Megami Tensei IV....etc. It's going to be a while before I buy another game :P.

@awesomeusername: Ni No Kuni was like third on my Top 10 list from last year. It was just so charming that I couldn't put it down when I started it, I think I put 50 hours into it over like a month long period, it's great. Amalur has such fluid combat for an open world game.

@shindig: Mordor is absolutely fantastic. I like it more than the games that it emulates. South Park is something that, to me, just seems like I would rather watch than play.

@supermike6: I need to limit my purchases next year too. I bought way too many to play this year and that has just put me further behind in terms of my backlog. I've also made the decision for 2015 to NOT but any game on launch day, either because of bugs or just for the fact that I have so much to play already.

@slag: The curveballs life has thrown my way seemed to all be aimed for my head, lol... That is an impressive list though. You made it damn close to 100, much close than I would have been. Do you plan to make a Top 10 for 2014? You seem extremely qualified to do so.

Got to get round to giving transistor a go. really want to play the ps4 GTA 5. defo need to play divinity. oh the swapper and it will be ''free'' for the ps4, so that. south park would like. The question is when will i finish dragon age and get to do this, fuckit back to playing dragon age speed run.

Yakuza 5 technically. Came out 2 years ago in Japan and is getting an English release on PSN next year.

Other than that I'll just continue playing whatever.

@jbg4: Thanks man! I'm pretty happy with what I knocked out, if I didn't start a major initiative at work in August and College Football didn't happen I maybe had a shot of getting all the way there. I think next year I'll be happy with 40-50, going for a hundred is a bit much.

In your shoes I doubt I'd even get 10, I recently became an Uncle and I can see just how much becoming a parent changes things (in a lot of good ways!). But it does require some changes in how a person games.

re: List- should be out today I hope. I don't know if I am actually very qualified this year, most of what I played this year is old. And I haven't yet finished most of the 2014 releases I have. But I'm going to put one out anyway, lot of the usual suspects will be on it.

Happy New Year Duder!

I went through and played Rage for the first time this year and I don't think it's as bad as everyone else did. It's similar to Destiny for me where the shooting mechanic is really good, but everything in between is just kind of meh. Except John Goodman. John Goodman rules.

This year, first up, I need to finish Saints Row 4. I had just plowed through the third a week before IV came out and just wasn't ready to go through and do it all again, but now I think I can handle it. I also would like to play through Witcher 2 one more time before 3 comes out. As far as games I have never put any time into though, I want to play through The Fall, Wolf Among Us, Kentucky Route Zero, Broken Age and Fallout: New Vegas.

I think that's my problem. I need to prioritise my backlog before some of the big-hitters come out. Namely those bloody Souls games.

@shindig: The Souls games are a couple of the only ones from the last few years that I was really able to pour a ton of hours into. I love them... Dark Souls is probably my favorite game from last gen.

@noboners: Rage always looked so good to me. I'm not sure why I never got around to it... I know that I really enjoy shooters in that style so I'll probably enjoy it. Kentucky Route Zero seems really cool, I picked it up too during the Steam sale.

@slag: Honestly I think I, in total, finished maybe 17 games this year... counting shorter ones. It's tough, lol... I'm definitely going to have more time for it in the coming year though. We moved and bought a house, etc. last year (ie. I had a year similar to Vinny in 2014) so it was tough to find any amount of time for gaming. 2015 should be more stable in that regard.

I hope you keep a list on the ones you complete this year too, that was super interesting.

Happy New Year Mate

@corevi: I haven't played a Yakuza game since the PS2 but I remember really enjoying them.

@cloudnineboya: I tried but could not get into Dragon Age. I think I even played like 10-12 hours of it too...

@jbg4: Yazuka 3 (the first one on PS3) suffers from a poor translation but is still pretty good and 4 is amazing.

@corevi: Agreed. I finished both 3 and 4 with little problems and both were amazing in a Kojima kind of way. Just prepare yourself for some story madness.

I fucking loved RAGE! one of the best playing AND looking shooters on the previous gen imho, the occasional low-res slow loading textures are a bummer sometimes but it just looks soooo good overall and it plays so smooth!

RAGE always seemed to suffer from the hype that surrounded it. The graphics looked so good that everyone thought that it was going to be another revolutionary game like DOOM and when it wasn't necessarily that it people just started hating on it.