Start with Antichamber because that game is mindbogglingly amazing. Also, it's not too long - well, it depends on how you play it, but you'll probably spend less time on it than some of the other games on that list.

Is this your whole backlog?

There are some long ass games on this list... For your own sanity, drop the FF games.

Soooooooooooooooo I had this problem but to a greater extent about 2 years ago I realised I had 300+ games to play through. After playing a ton and just getting rid of some that werent worth my time Im down to like 40.

Not the whole backlog these are just the cream of the crop. I have 300+ games on steam that I pretty much haven't played but these are the ones I would really like to finish off before I buy anything else.

They are definitely at the bottom of the list!

That was pretty much my process, I took a hard look in the mirror and got it down to games I actually wanted to play. I just have no idea where to even begin!

Just so you know Ni No Kuni is incredibly long for a game made for children, like 50 hours first playthrough long. It's insane. But it's also a really really good game in every respect and one of the few PS3 games that will still hold up graphically in 10 years.

2 things on the FF games:

1. 7 and 8 are bad videogames with one-dimensional characters and a story that is impossible to care about

2. The PC ports are awful just emulate them.

Heh.

Add a zero to the end of that number of games in your "problem" list and you'll start to approach the number I have yet to finish. And that's just for the games that came out during this decade.

It's been killing me. Inside. All up in this area here.

Be more poor. Problem solved.

Fuck all those games play Doom 2 dude.

@yothatlimp: My advice is don't "feel" like you have to finish any of those. The second gaming starts to be a chore is the second it isn't fun anymore. Just play what you're in the mood for. We've all made tons of ill advised purchases just don't feel like you have to be a slave to them.

Alphabetically!

I'm a chronic unfinisher myself, so I've only finished a handful of the games on your list. Currently putting a ridiculous number of hours into Dark Souls but I just love that game so whatever. :) The other one that stood out as a good first choice is Last of Us. There's a reason it won just about every game of the year award, it's just amazing. It's not too long, and you don't want to risk the story being spoiled as time goes on. Don't worry about the PS4 version, the PS3 version is just fine. Still amazes me what they pulled off on that old hardware.

@corruptedevil: I'm not even sure why you'd go to the trouble of telling someone FF7 and FF8 are bad games. Someone's just going to contradict you and make your opinion worthless.

To the OP: I would guess the easiest game on that list to finish would be Shadowrun. It's not all that long or hard.

I have found being concerned about getting through all of the games I want to finish to be disheartening and stress-inducing, to say the least. Instead of actually finishing games, I used to start two or three at a time, get pretty far in one and drop the others, and pick up two more without finishing one.

This year, I've finished more games than ever (16) mostly by just sticking with what I enjoy until I have finished it. I'm not concerned with getting through my backlog. And by the time I've finished something, I usually already have something else I'd like to play lined up in my head.

Sleeping Dogs all day!

I've given up on the whole idea of a "backlog" since it would probably at some point be half the games I own. I'll finish the ones I finish and the others.. well, I'll just chalk it up to them not holding my attention enough for me to stick with them and that's their fault.

Start by cutting 80% of your list.

The essentials in there are:

Batman arkam city

Dark souls

Dishonored (I didn't think it was amazing but some people swear by that game)

Far cry 3 (the first half at least)

Half life 2

The last of us

GTA 5

You can always drop a game if it isn't grabbing you. That's a blessing and a curse of course since the more games you have, the less you tend to focus on specific ones so you actually finish games less and less. The trick is, when you buy a game, play it immediately or you'll lose interest.

Play one Company of Heroes 2 campaign mission a day, shouldn't take too long to get through & you can work on getting through another game at the same time. It's actually what I'm trying to do.

@yothatlimp: You start with Baldur's Gate, play through Baldur's Gate 2, and then you head over to Dark Souls territory. Forget time and finishing everything - it's all about fantastic quality. Those games will last you aaaaaages.

Then maybe play Half-Life 2. Could maybe do that first because it's long, but much shorter a commitment than the aforementioned while still being essential to play.

Sleeping Dogs, you have a good list of games, but Sleeping Dogs is the right place to start.

Knocking out shorter games first is a good way to cut down on a backlog.

With that being said, Tomb Raider is my favorite game on that list so do that.

Do you actually really desire finishing all of these games? I don't finish every game I play because not all games are worth the time. I bought both GRiD Autosport and Divinity: Original Sin recently, typically the kinds of games I'd have no problem playing through, but after sinking a decent amount of time into each I just don't think either of them are very fun, so I'm not going to force myself to finish either of them. A backlog of games to not only play, but complete, should only consist of games you actually enjoyed/care about enough to see through. The real trick is to cut your list up into tiers, sort of "what I want to play right now" and "what I'll get around to"; anything that ends up on the "get around to" list you should just stop worrying about completely for now. My current 'to complete' list looks something like:

To Play and Complete

	1. Final Fantasy XIIIApparently I'm about 70%~ of the way through this game. I was flying through it for a while, but once I hit the open world it completed halted all of my progress. That portion of this game is so incredibly bland and boring I'm having a hard time trudging through it. I want to finish this as I hear FFXIII-2 is quite a lot better, and FFXIII-LR, while more divisive between players, looks like fun to me.
	2. White Knight Chronicles: International EditionI'm playing the remastered version from the WKCII disk. I'm about 10 hours in and I was making good progress, but I moved my PS3 out of my room for a couple of weeks when my brother was home and I stopped playing it as a result. Would like to get back into this, it's mostly just getting started on it again.
	3. Star Wars: The Old RepublicThis is what I'm currently playing through. I have a level 50 Jedi Shadow on the last main planet of the story, Voss, and I just need to work through a couple more areas to get to the end. I've already finished the story once before as a Sith Marauder, but I'm so close to finishing it again now that it's what I'm focusing on. After I finish the story I don't think I'll feel like jumping into Makeb again, and it should get me back to playing other games.
	4. Front Mission EvolvedHaven't started this yet. I know it's nothing like the old Front Mission games and it wasn't exactly highly praised, but I want to at least give this a shot and see how it goes.
	5. Gone HomeI'll play this after I finish Swtor, most likely. This seems like a one-or-two sitting sort of deal, so as long as I don't find it incredibly boring, this should be no issue to knock out.
	6. The Walking Dead: Season TwoI haven't played a single episode of this yet. I played the first game on the 360, but I have Season Two on the PC. I feel like I absolutely have to play through the first again on PC before I play the second to keep continuity, but it's pretty boring to play through for a third time at this point. If I can just power through the first season one last time, I know I'll enjoy the second.
	7. Yakuza 3I absolutely adored 4 and picked this up about a year after beating that. I need to be in the right mindset to enjoy this series though, so even though I started on this one I didn't get very far. Someday the mood will strike me and I'll get back to this.

I've got plenty of other things I'd like to play at some point, like Guacamelee, Skulls of the Shogun, Cloudbuilt, Monster Hunter 3rd HD, Papa & Yo, Alice, Antichamber, etc, but it's too much. When I look at my shortened list of things I want to get right on, it's a lot easier to handle than listing -everything- I own that I'd like to play. So pick your favourites from your list, and try to come up with about 7 or fewer to limit yourself to to start, it becomes much less daunting this way.

I recommend that after you finish the first game you play, play something of a completely different genre. That's how I do it anyhow, otherwise I just get bored of shooting dudes or bored of strategy games.

Out of all those, I would only finish Half Life 2, Last of Us and Knights of the Old Republic

@winsord: For my money, FFXIII-2 isn't any better. Do you like Serah? If not, I don't think you need to finish XIII

I'd focus on the short games first.

Hotline Miami, Antichamber, and The Swapper can all be finished in less than a day.

Agreed.

Was going to amend my suggestion with it.

lmao shitnerd

Without nostalgia to smooth things along, those FF games won't hold up. There are some others on you list that I haven't played and most that I have I would say you could skip and not lose out on much.

The following from that list are what I would consider must play, by order of importance.

1. Half-Life 2 - The only game on your list I think most here would consider absolutely essential. Play this and then finish episodes 1 and 2. Graphically it may be getting a little long in the tooth, but from a game play prospective it is one of the most innovative and satisfying single player shooter campaigns. Plus Half-Life 3 is right around the corner, right? GRAVITY GUN!
2. Baldur's Gate - An amazing game and a classic. It may have a hard time holding up for various graphical and interface related reasons, but is worth taking a crack at none the less, if not just to see what everybody is talking about. Poke around out there and there are some decent high res mods.
3. Dark Souls - Recently started this myself and am having an incredible time. Dark Souls is so challenging and so much damn fun. The game tells you very little and once you get over the hump of never having the game hold your hand it feels very refreshing compared to how over tutorialized a lot of games are. Or were before they all basically started turning into rogue-lights, in no small part due to this game's popularity.
4. Hotline Miami - This game will really make you feel like a homicidal maniac that is slowly losing what is left of your mind. The fact that they were able to evoke such a god damn disturbing feeling in me in something looks like an 8 bit game is nothing short of fantastic. Also this game's soundtrack is dope as fuck. In fact I'm going to listen to it now. Ah, that's better.
5. Sleeping Dogs - Hands down my favorite sand box game and probalby the only one I've finished in the past 10 years. The game has a Great Hong Kong gang story, is extremely well voice acted, has fun batman style combat, and better handling vehicles than in any game of it's kind that I've tried. Extremely pretty on PC as well.
6. Rogue Legacy - Maybe my favorite game of 2013. If you love metroidvania style games, enjoy the new trend of games that are balls hard but fair this game will be up your ally.
7. Far Cry 3 - I'm not nuts about it, but it's really pretty and a lot of other people really love it. Give it a try.

Start by the one you want to play.

I always bring up the site Backloggery when this comes up. It helped me a lot, as it gave me a good list of what I have. Beaten or otherwise. And since it show the percentage of games you haven't beaten it, you get a nice way to set a goal. Goals help me. So my goal at first was to get my beaten games to 70%, then never dip below it. Now I am reaching for 75, but the Steam sale set me back a little...
It also has a neat fortune cookie feature, if you have no idea what to play.

As for the short list you put up there, I would start with Spec Ops. No real reason, but it is pretty damn good. Well, the story and how it is told is. The gameplay is decent enough.

I've been there duder. Take my advice and tackle them one at a time. Going for the shorter games can help, but it's also important that you have a relatively immediate interest in playing them. Otherwise it's easy to just burn out.

Man, I'd say ditch the crap but looking at that list...

Everything I've played on that list I'd consider pretty essential playing but they're mostly absolutely huge games, because those are the games I like. I would start with something like Hotline Miami or Spec Ops to whet your appetite, then simultaneously dive into a couple of the bigger RPGs. If you're a complete monogamer this might be tricky but to get through that list you're going to have to blaze through big games, quickly, so I'd suggest games that compliment each other, whilst giving you a break from each others play style. Save something like The Last of Us for when you can't handle the RPGs anymore.

Something like FF will probably go along well with GTA because they're both so bloated but so tonally different, it might help you keep your sanity. It really depends on how you're able to manage your headspace with games though. Some people just can't stand flitting between worlds.

Don't skip Dragon's Dogma whatever you do. Don't just play exclusively Dark Souls. People harp on about how great it is but that's just boring. It is, but it's not the only game. Dragon's Dogma is.

Start with Spec Ops. It is short enough to be completed in a single day. It will be an excruciating, soul crushing day, but it is still a great game... You may even mix it up with some Rogue Legacy and Hotline Miami; both are fairly long, but you can get a solid idea of whether you want to play them to completion after a couple levels.

After that you may want some saccharine to get the ashes taste from your mouth. Ni No Kuni, maybe...

Alright, thanks guys! I am going to work through some of the small stuff first while slowly working through a JRG. I am about 7 hours into Ni No Kuni, I think I might just hit that 30 minutes a day until I have conquered it.

What are you thoughts on picking up games you have already spent a decent chunk in, do you restart the game or load your last save and just catch up on youtube?

I got fairly far in The last of us, GTA 5 and Tomb Raider and just fell off due to not having any free time, I am not sure if I want to play through the stuff I already have gone through again I am afraid that might just burn me out on the game itself.

@yothatlimp: Tomb Raider's story is "People crashed on island, shit went down, Lara is an invincible badass.", The Last of Us's core story is also pretty simple and GTA 5 tends to recap everything that's previously happened that's relevant every mission.

There's no real answer to this one, it's purely personal preference. I'll pretty much always start a game over if I've put it down for a long time, sometimes that pays off and sometimes it doesn't. Last of Us is a story heavy game so I'd probably start that over to make sure I knew everything that was going on, GTA definitely isn't necessary to start over but I find that game to be fun enough that I'd do it anyways (assuming I wasn't -too- far in, I think anywhere past the second heist would be too far to restart). Tomb Raider is one of the cases where I'd probably just jump back in to wherever I was, as I don't see much to be gained there by restarting. The other part of this is, if you're two hours from the end of the game, you probably shouldn't restart it. If you're trying to save time then just pick these games back up from where you left off, but if you're trying to just enjoy them then consider each one in its individual context; if you know you're going to burn out on a game by having to replay stuff you did before, then maybe read up on the first few chapters in a wiki or something to get caught up if necessary and just pick up from where you left off.

Most of the time when something gets pushed into my "backlog" it's because I played it and it didn't click with me... and, probably, never will. Still, I try to go through everything I buy and give it a proper chance and I always love when something slips through the cracks and surprises me. A good example of that is Prince of Persia 2008. Wasn't expecting much from it, but it's now my favorite entry in the series.

Currently Im going through my backlog while the summer game drought is going on. First thing I beat was the Bioshock Infinite DLC. And it was pretty disappointing. Next is probably ni no kuni, which I bought for 5 bucks on psn!

We have a very similar backlog. I'd vote for sleeping dogs being #1. It's mission based. I can't remember getting hungup anywhere. It might also be one of the shorter ones on your list.

I'd suggest playing rogue legacy at the same time. You could put in 1 or 2 runs a day and you'd eventually get to the end just by leveling. Maybe do the same with Antichamber.

Baldur's gate is really tough to get into. I'd suggest putting it at the bottom with the FF games. Same with the Souls games.

The rest is kind of a toss up. I haven't played all of them too. I will say that I found Alice real tough to get into as well. I even put it on easy just because I wanted the story. But best of luck.

Oh damn it to hell, I edited the title and now I've screwed up the images. Hang on.

I've got a huge backlog that I'm trying to work through. I tend to jump around based on what grabs me at that moment. That being said, I just re-played Alpha Protocol twice over the weekend. It's not a huge time investment and can be knocked off your list pretty quickly.

Outside of that, I'm just parroting what others have said already. Try a couple runs a day for Rogue Legacy, and throw Sleepy Puppies up at the top of your list.

I might put KOTOR up near the top as well. Make sure you save often. I run into so many bugs and issues when re-playing that and KOTOR 2.

Most importantly- have fun, duder!