It's probably obvious fairly soon into this entry, but I find flight simulators - and simulators of most kinds, barring the really lazy ones - pretty fun. Enough to have bought a TrackIR in the past, in fact, though not enough to have spent hundreds of dollars on special controllers. But instead of writing about why I enjoy them, or how I play them, this just covers the process of installing FSX and various extras. Not the most exciting topic, but it may be of some interest to people who never bother to mess around behind the scenes of their games, or want an insight on how far into the rabbit hole an average person can fall. I already have pages of instructions from previous times telling me just how to install and fix everything up right, but they're too technical and personalised to post directly here.

Stage 1: The Game

Install Microsoft Flight Simulator X Gold

Luckily, it starts off simple. Instead of having to deal with the Acceleration expansion or various service packs, I bought a version from Microsoft that combines it all. It's also a download, though I keep a local copy, so there's not even messing around with discs.

Time spent: 25 minutes. Space used: 16.6 GB

Configure FSX

Like most PC games, the default settings are terrible. With so much else to do first I don't care about optimising yet, but there's a few necessities to make it tolerable at all. This is followed by a short test flight - literally starting the default flight, an ultralight over Friday Harbor, WA, and checking the game doesn't crash. It doesn't, so I can keep going.

Time spent: 10 minutes. Space used: Negligible

Fix Install

At this point, I could stop. The game is playable, and none of the extras I include actually change the functionality. But there's one big problem - the FSX installer is broken, and puts the files on the wrong drive. It takes about as long to move them and fix registry entries as it does to install it in the first place.

Time spent: 25 minutes. Space used: Negligible overall

Done! The game is playable. Nothing I add later actually changes the functionality - just how it feels, looks and sounds. But ending now is no fun, let's keep going.

Totals: 1 hour; 16.7 GB

Addons

Install Active Sky 2012

For a game that's approaching ten years old, it's not that surprising that the graphics are no longer up to scratch. With the same textures used all over the world they can't be too detailed, and some of them just look a bit strange. AS2012 lets me replace them with better versions. Other choices are more personal - there are no concrete roads where I live, for instance, and I like my oceans bluer. While AS2012 has other features, I only use it to replace the textures. And it comes with a lot of choices, which means a lot of space.

Time spent: 15 minutes. Space used: 5.2 GB

Set up Active Sky 2012

When you have dozens of choices for clouds, and over a hundred for runway textures, it takes a while to pick your favourites.

Time spent: 20 minutes. Space used: Negligible

Install New Textures

It also takes a while to install them to FSX, but not much additional space.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 0.1 GB

Install DirectX 10 Scenery Fixer

FSX had partial support for DirectX 10 when it was released, but it was only considered a preview and not fully supported. While it did have a lot of benefits, it also had huge flaws and glitches, including flickering on crossing runways. This program makes it work properly - or at least, much better.

Time spent: <5 minutes. Space used: Negligible

Set up DirectX 10 Scenery Fixer

The author has made a number of improvements since I last updated my instructions, and there are a lot of optional complex things to fiddle with, so I spend a while reading through the manual to figure out what's best for me. I also send the developer a quick (positive!) email with a suggestion or two.

Time spent: 35 minutes. Space used: Negligible

Install, set up, and test Accufeel

This program makes minor changes to physics, particularly on the ground, and improves or adds various a huge range of incidental sounds. Another test flight confirms it's enabled in-game.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: Negligible

Install & configure Active Sky Next

AS Next follows AS 2012, but isn't an exact replacement - it has no textures, but is much better at weather simulation, both generated and real-world replication. It's mostly automatic, so much easier than its predecessor. That's especially useful because the default FSX weather has several big realism flaws, and often just doesn't 'look' that good.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 0.1 GB

Other addons

I have a few other small addons, and one or two newer ones that I haven't experimented with much. They're all easy enough and not really worth mentioning.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 0.2 GB

Totals: 2 hours, 30 minutes; 22.4 GB

Scenery

Chicago (Aerosoft)

The best thing about the Chicago scenery is that it restores Meigs Field, the historical starting location of old MS Flight Sim versions. It also includes the (now permanently fictional) Chicago Spire. Mostly I like it because of nostalgia from flying around Chicago in those older versions.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 0.8 GB

Los Angeles (Aerosoft)

The Hollywood sign, the beaches, and everywhere else. I'm not sure why this is so large compared to the other cities.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 2.6 GB

San Francisco (Aerosoft)

Again, plenty of nostalgia and scenic locations to buzz without risking being arrested or shot down.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 0.3 GB

UTX USA

For FSX to fit on a reasonable number of discs when it came out, it had to skimp on some of the details like roads and coastlines - they were present, but not in detail outside a few special areas. UTX improves them, and many others - roads, railways, lakes, coastlines, streams, night lighting, cemeteries, stadium parking, city parks, glaciers, railyards, tunnels... it doesn't change how they appear (that's AS2012's job), just where they are. It also doesn't cover the entire world, so most remains in lower quality.

Time spent: 15 minutes. Space used: 4.4 GB

Hawaii (MegaScenery)

Photo imagery covering almost the entirety of Hawaii. It doesn't include buildings, but the most interesting parts of the Hawaiian islands don't have buildings on them anyway. The main reason I have this is to replace Microsoft Flight, which had a very pleasant Hawaii and Alaska but almost nothing else, and it because it was discounted due to partial cloud cover on the imagery.

Time spent: 10 minutes. Space used: 7.7 GB

Switzerland (MegaScenery)

Photo imagery covering the entirety of Switzerland. Like Hawaii, this serves as a replacement for another program - Aerofly FS. (I have no problems with that program, but it saves having them both installed since I don't care about Switzerland that often.)

Time spent: 10 minutes. Space used: 8.4 GB

Dubai & Hong Kong (Fly Tampa)

Two fantastically detailed scenery areas, but with the trade-off that they cover rather small areas. Dubai has the Burj Khalifa and all the fancy coastline features, and Hong Kong is particularly beautiful at night time.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: 1.1 GB

FTX Australia

Let's back up a bit. To keep things at a reasonable size, most of the world in FSX (and previous versions) is covered in automatically-generated scenery, or autogen. It has a record that a polygon covering 'this' area is high-density city that can be assembled from these textures, and 'this' polygon somewhere else is forest, and 'this' is farmland. Additionally, it knows where structures can fit on the various textures, so it can place skyscrapers downtown, houses and tenements in the suburbs, trees in the forest, and silos on the farm in sensible places. The scenery for Switzerland and Hawaii ignores this entirely, and replaces the automatic (but repeated) textures with unique ones for each entire area. Dubai and Hong Kong have the majority of their buildings and textures placed by hand, which is feasible due to their size. Australia however... I live here, so I want detail, but it's too big to do manually. This product improves the autogen system, specialising it for Australia with the kinds of houses we have here, 'proper' road colours, more suitable textures, local trees, and so on. It also adds detail as UTX does. The downside is that if I fly elsewhere in the world while it's activated, things look a little strange, but it's easy to turn on and off.

Time spent:40 minutes. Space used: 9.5 GB

FTX England

It's the same product as Australia, but for a different country. It's a much smaller area but with plenty of detail - or rather, it doesn't have a vast, almost featureless outback in the middle. I don't live here, but I used to.

Time spent: 25 minutes. Space used: 6 GB

FTX Global

I have neither the funds nor hard drive space to have every country in that level of detail, and most of them aren't available for purchase anyway. This product makes a good compromise though - less detail than in the above countries, but for practically the entire world, and still better than the default. It also adds a number of extra area types and buildings that weren't included in the original FSX.

Time spent: 35 minutes. Space used: 9.2 GB

Miscellaneous changes

Completing installations and making sure things are up to date, and in the right order.

Time spent: 5 minutes. Space used: Negligible

FS Global Europe-Africa

The final set to install - these improve elevation data, with points down to every 5m (2m in the case of America).

Time spent: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Space used: 37.3 GB

FS Global America

Again, due to space limitations FSX could support far better data than the files it came with, and the available data itself has improved in the intervening years (not so much new islands and mountains, just more accurate).

Time spent: 1 hour, 5 minutes. Space used: 25.3 GB

FS Global Asia-Oceania

As an example, retail FSX comes on two dual-layer DVDs. These three sets combined take up 15.

Time spent: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Space used: 37.4 GB

The End...?

Final testing and settings

A few last changes back in FSX to get a better framerate, fix widescreen, and general performance issues.

Time spent: 15 minutes. Space used: Negligible

Results

Time taken to install, update, and configure everything: 9 hours, 30 minutes (not counting original download/shipping).

Drive space used: 185,348,382,720 bytes - equivalent to 172 GB as measured by Windows, or 185.3 GB for the pedants. That's well over a thousand times larger than Flight Simulator for Windows 95, and 116 times bigger than the hard drive in my family's first real computer.

Missing In Action

I have some other scenery and addons I didn't install. Some of these are alternatives, e.g. for weather or textures, for which there's no point having more than one at a time. Some were just a little disappointing, or covered by things I bought later (mostly individual cities in Australia and England before I got the countrywide scenery), or too much for my computer to handle (an insanely detailed New York City). These would only add a few gigabytes to the total.

I also could have made some different choices that would reduce the total - for instance, streaming ground textures in from Bing Maps (Google are less fond of the practice) instead of installing entire countries at once. In that particular case, though, my internet isn't up to the task. It's also technically feasible to use data from OpenStreetMap as a free improvement for item placement, apparently.

Now What?

I still have aircraft to install, though I tend to stick with the ones provided by FSX. And a few of my texture choices turned out to be less than perfect - the ocean is too dark, and the sky is too blue. I can always buy more addons and scenery - more of Europe or Alaska, for example. And the performance is still not quite acceptable, so that needs work and config file tweaking. But I have to stop somewhere...

First off, update on the totals:

Good news: the pre-orders came out, one game was finished (I don't record when game status changes, but I believe it was Consortium), I finished a whole bunch more games, and decided just to skip a dozen or so more. Bad news: The number of unplayed games still went up. Total is now 864, from 811 last update on January 3. Most of the new games are from bundles, so the cost wasn't an issue, but it's not exactly helping.

The number of games 'started' has also drastically decreased, from 46 to 2. This might seem like a huge change but it's more accurately a change in what the status means, which is that I'm actively playing the game. If I don't play for months, or uninstall it, then it probably fits better in another category.

A few highlights (and potentially lowlights) of the recent batch:

• Hexcells and Hexcells Plus: Enjoyable puzzle games. Some single puzzles in the latter game probably took me longer than everything in the first game combined. I managed to complete them without too much cheating - I didn't actively try, but the puzzles are static - replaying a level to get a perfect score gives you more knowledge ("I can't prove it yet but that cell is definitely active"). Unfortunately, making mistakes also gives you extra knowledge. There's not really a way around that, but if I was determined to play levels properly it was frustrating to have to 'forget' things.
• Solar Flux: There was nothing terrible about this game, but I didn't look closely enough and was expecting a completely different experience. (This one went to 'played out'.) It's a puzzle game, but often more about reflexes than take-your-time-strategy, which I rarely enjoy.
• Star Wars: Dark Forces: I've long been able to vaguely remember a childhood memory of playing a Star Wars computer game, but it never seemed to match any screenshots or videos I could find of the actual games. I recently bought the Jedi bundle on Steam, determined to find out if I was just making it up, and though I knew it wasn't this one, I figured that if I didn't play it first I'd never bother. I was surprised to find out that I actually really enjoyed it - it's not perfect (I had to resort to a walkthrough after getting lost in a map more than once) but it's the first time in recent years I've played something that old at all. It did take me a while to get used to the resolution, though, and finally accept that filters like hq4x don't work very well on 3D games. I've started on the sequel (spoiler: it's the one I was remembering, specifically the demo level) and in a reversal of my expectations have so far found it much less interesting. I was delighted to find that somebody here made a fantastic wiki page for Dark Forces - check it out!
• Prototype: In the mood for an open-world game, I started this and The Saboteur at about the same time, but this caught my attention first. I've tried to play it before and always given up for some reason, but managed to stick with it and actually finish the plot this time. While I had fun, I did often end up spamming the same kind of attacks (Tank? Do this! Helicopter? Do that! Need some health? Do this!) without too much creativity or improvising, and some of the later enemies were just annoying. I doubt I'll ever finish it 100% but I can see myself going back to it in future.

Bonus: My Game Organisation System

This is as much for my records as for any expected interest here.

I keep records of my games in a little Access database. When I started the project, the aims were:

• Make it easy to check if I own a game, to avoid repurchasing it
• Easily find serial numbers and similar information when installing games that need it
• Find games I own but forgot about or otherwise never played

The initial filling-in of data was very tedious - going through Steam, GOG and Origin accounts to transcribe data, looking in emails for direct sales and dates and so on. Now that it's up-to-date though, it's much quicker.

It's a little more complex than I originally thought at the start, but works in a straightforward way. Each game has a row in the Games table (Games have to have unique names, but otherwise everything is optional). Games have zero or more pieces of DLC, and zero or more pieces of 'Additional Items' (soundtracks, manuals, wallpapers, etc). Games have a single Purchase Location (with date of purchase) and one or more Game Libraries. Games also have a status, notes (just a textfield with comments I want to add), a URL and a field for how long I took to beat it (if I measured it). For games I do end up owning more than once, I use the earliest one for purchase location/date.

Games, and DLC, can have zero or more keys. Each key has an associated Game Library, the value itself, and a short description (if necessary, such as when to use it, whether it has been redeemed, etc). Games can also be grouped into 'Collections' (usually bundles), which can also have a URL and purchase location. DLC also gets a note area, for comments about how to find/install/activate them - but DLC doesn't get dates or locations or libraries.

Game Libraries are mostly obvious entries like Steam or GOG, but because I didn't really plan ahead I also have an entry for 'DRM-free'. It's a bad name - I use it for games that I can download and install without other software, even if they have their own DRM. Since I don't own a console, I never thought it necessary to add anything for platform - all my games are on PC by default. However, after buying a few games on my phone I ended up adding an entry in Game Library for that (which works in that case, since they are all from the app store, but seems too messy to use in general.)

As for how it looks:

Yeah, I'm not much of an artist. Once I got it into a working state I stopped messing around with it.

This is a good example of the features above: I bought it from GMG, but the key redeemed on Origin. As the Limited Edition it came with the DLC; I later bought the EA Humble Bundle (not shown here) which gave me a second key, and the soundtrack. And since BF4 is now out, and BF3's singleplayer isn't exactly stellar, it's "Played Out". (The empty bar about DLC is for the web address, but that's usually only for indie developers so I can find their website easily later.)

Something else the database lacks: anything about the actual gameplay - I don't even include genre - since it wasn't necessary to achieve any of the aims and instead of wasting time duplicating that kind of information it's just as fast to search online. It also doesn't include prices. The layout, by the way, means it fits easily to one side of my screen - useful when I was first adding information and needed to refer to other windows constantly.

Of course, with all the information there, there's opportunities for data mining. For example, here's a trivial example of games versus time. That one huge vertical jump is from the purchase of the '1C Complete Pack' on GamersGate - something like (wait, it's in the database!) exactly 84 games added on the same day, which I've still hardly played. The earliest game that I could find a date for is Driver, though there's a few I know I owned earlier and just set to January 1 of their release year.

Here's a slightly more complex query: How much DLC do I own per game?

Answer: of the 57 games that I've bought DLC for, most of those have only one or two pieces, but not always - the two on the far right are Train Simulator 2013 and Flight Simulator X, with Saints Row 3 and Hearts of Iron 3 the other outliers.

I've occasionally wondered if knowing that buying games means time and effort putting them into the database has made me less likely to buy large bundles. Considering the slope of the graph earlier... I'd have to say no.

New Year, time to reflect! Frankly, I'm further away from my goal of having actually experienced all the games I own. I made a good effort but I didn't stop buying new ones, and the latter is a lot easier and quicker.

Still, it's not all bad. A good number of those new games were extremely cheap, and with good reason - they're awful. At least awful often means small - I burned through Ground Control Simulator and Civil Engineering Simulator in an afternoon or two. The thing that annoyed me most about these games (and would have pushed me into action if I had paid more than a dollar each) is that the promotional images and info almost entirely mis-represent them. More than once I've wondered if the original German version (yes, of course they're from Germany) is completely different to the one I ended up with.

Some others have turned out to be a lot more fun (or at least recent). I've gone through Brothers and the BF4 single-player. More surprising is how much I'm enjoying Hydrophobia Prophecy. It's been lying around in my Steam library for ages, and I always assumed it was an older-gen console game port (with all the terrible physics and graphics and so on which that would imply). And while it's not going on any retrospective 'best of' lists, it's much better than I was expecting in just about every way. Perhaps that's not surprising though, since (quoting from the Wikipedia page)

Hydrophobia Prophecy is described as version 1.5 of the Xbox 360 version of the game...approximately 70% of the game is new and previously existing levels have been reworked

The benefit of hindsight also let me find out the game is fairly short, apparently ends on a cliffhanger, and that Dark Energy Digital went bust and any chance of a sequel is now with Activision, so it probably won't ever happen. Which - unless the rest of Prophecy turns out to be terrible - looks like a shame.

Since it's the new year, it seems a good opportunity to start adding my completion stats in these kind of blogs. Here's the current ones, straight from the database (I'm not daring to futz with the formatting but it seems readable):

Put away your calculators, the total is 811. And in case some seem redundant or odd: Never Play are for games I own but don't have interest in as well as games I discovered I actively hate (e.g. AI War), Not Yet is for games in series because I'm determined to play them chronologically, and if a game is Played Out it's a reminder to myself that I stopped enjoying it last time and there's no point trying again. (I also own 227 individual pieces of DLC, and 99 game soundtracks. Apparently. It's a nifty database.)

• "Double Six"
• Deutsches Rotes Krouz
• Velocita
• 4 You
• Acer
• A.C.M.
• Acesits Racing
• Adrid Caravans
• AFdelta Trasmissioni S.p.A.
• Agip
• Air Trouble
• Alban Racing Equipment
• Alice
• AMD
• Anna's Linens
• Apd Welding Co.
• Archi Jeans
• Arexons
• Arnao
• Asano
• Asymbon Carbon Equipments
• Auditorium Rainer Iii
• Autocar
• Babris Tyres
• Banco International Brasil
• Basecraft Car Audio
• Bastier fameuse eau de table
• Baysted Accoustics
• Bell & Co
• Bellflex
• Benefitpro Suisse
• Benzoon Sunglasses
• Beran
• Biffs
• Big Coffe
• Big Telecom
• Bizy Training Group
• Black Ace Sportwear
• Blimey Games
• Blocky Suspensions
• Bloom & Eriner
• Blue 39
• BlueMoto
• Bolting Motorsports
• Borg & Beck
• brembo
• BRDC
• Bridgestone
• Brumla
• Bubblifresh
• BurnSprings
• Cachetto Performance Parts
• Café De Paris
• Caper
• Carrozzeria Scaglietti
• Carsubst
• CashNow
• Casino
• Casso
• CEA
• Century Fence
• Champion
• Cherry Shocks
• Clark Tools
• Classic Times Transports
• Clean Schemes
• Clearedmind
• Cobalt Laboratories
• Coca Cola
• Compagnie Des Autobus De Monaco
• Conoco
• Convex Car Parts
• Coopman Batteries
• Copter 2 Motoroil
• Corradini's
• Cracklers
• Cracky
• Cubic Motors
• Curtis
• Cypra Soft Drinks
• D.A.M.N. Transport
• Daily Express
• Dambreville
• !Deal
• Dekra
• Demonio Energy Drink
• Detonator Spark Plugs
• Dibley's
• Dicer
• Disco Brakes
• Dominum Musk
• Donington Museum
• Drag & Drop
• Dunlop
• Dunn A.I.
• Englebert
• Engor
• Enichem
• ESA
• Etihad Airways
• Faberoni
• Fabris Tyres
• Fairmont Monte Carlo
• Falta
• Faretti
• Ferodo
• Ferrari
• FIA
• Fiat
• Fiery Tyres
• Firestone
• Firestop Performance Brake Systems
• First International SimDevTeam
• FJEA Equipped
• Forpi Racing Brakes S.p.A.
• Four C Motorsport
• Franic
• Frischkorn Suspension
• Garton Systems
• Gerhardt Electronics
• GJL
• GJO
• GK Transmissions
• Glacier Restaurant
• Global Express
• Goodyear
• GPFlow
• Greif Oil
• Grimaldi Forum
• Grizzly
• Happy's Cakes
• Hauminator Exhaust Technologyy
• Hauraton FASERFIX
• Heuer
• Hobbs
• Hodgson Tyre Fitting
• Honoris Bank & Business
• Hotel La Source
• Hotel Miramer
• Hotel Nordschleife
• Hummerich Global Logistics
• Hurricane Tyres
• ICT
• IIR
• IM CHI Photo Video & Hifi
• Instinct Web Design
• Jaeger
• Jaen Brakes
• Jalmara
• Jancon Mobile
• Jantastic
• Jeschke
• Joe Snack
• JTT Enterprise
• Juwel
• Kamiko
• Kapp
• Karlito Men
• Karlsson
• Kaspersky
• Keaveney Electronics
• Kings
• Kitsa
• Kolomiets
• Koni
• KovoSach
• Kukas
• Landesbank Baden-Württemberg
• Les Plages Sporting Club
• LG
• Lo Labó
• Longines
• Luigo Spark Plugs
• Luquitas
• M3W
• Machuca
• Magneti Marelli
• Mahle
• Maniscopic
• McCool Sunshades
• Méridien Beach Plaza
• Mensik Spark Plugs
• Mestron Electronics
• Mezzetti Tire
• Milinea
• Minaltini Motorsports Oil
• Miss Loanion
• Mister Big
• Mixlub Racing Motor Oil
• Momo
• Mondorf Bank
• Moton Moton
• Mubadala
• Mudino Racing Motor Oil
• Murray Financial Services
• Musée National Automates et Poupées d'Autrefois
• MW Ecoline
• Nalan Automatics
• Nettleship Carbon Composites
• Nettleship Exports
• NCO
• Neutronics
• Nextrako
• NitroNiumX Nitrous System Powerboost
• Noxi
• Nulland Financial
• N Turb
• Olivera Solutions
• Olivetti
• Operative Radio & Television Service
• Optimist Club of Plymouth, Inc.
• Otto-Otto Transportation
• Outback Telecommunications
• Pacific Cooling Systems
• Perfect Oil
• Perfectum Lubrications
• Perodo
• Personal
• Petroblast
• Petrolos Motoroil
• Phani Ignitors
• Pilaro
• Pininfarina
• Pirelli
• Polygon
• Pouls
• PPQ Magazine
• PTY Motors
• Quasar
• Racing RSA
• Rapa Olio
• Rapid Power
• Red
• Reflex
• RemBraz
• Rescue Squad Inc.
• Rex-Lex
• Rexxar
• RIMAA
• Rinadol Racing Oil
• Ringley Vehicle Rental
• Ringley Watches
• roboil
• Rollberg
• Rollins
• Rosso & Bianco Men's Fashion
• Rowan Instruments
• Royal Automobile Club of Belgium
• RPS
• Rubten Tire
• Runner Running, Skating & Blades
• S & A
• Sabelt
• Sagittario
• Samsung
• SAMU
• Samurai Import Tuning
• Santander
• Sanyo
• Sawashier Sport Exhaust
• Schmitthelm
• SciFlex Group
• Shell
• Sheriftizer Energy Drink
• SHR Television
• Silk Oil
• Sinken Technology
• SkanOil
• SKF
• SlightlyMad
• Smiths
• Societe Nautique De Monaco
• Speedline
• Sportcar Garage
• Sprace Springs
• Springu
• sptcar Equipments
• SRW Smad Racing Wheels
• Star Transmissions
• Stichmüller
• Substance
• Superleggera
• SUEI
• Sunoco
• SUTOL
• TAH HOUTTO Coffee
• Tashimo
• TATA
• Tecstec Entertainment Systems
• Temporary Advertisement
• Tengco Super Gasoline
• Tespot
• The Right Car Motoring Magazine
• Thunder Racing
• Tiger Energy Drink
• Trans Continental Bank
• Transport Letrin
• Truran Air
• TTT Carburators
• Turbo-Motors
• Turko Associates
• UFF Telefonica
• Unstoppable High Performance Brakes
• Urban Rocks Streetwear
• Vamos
• Vatso Insurance
• Veglia Borletti
• Vertex Racing Team
• Viktoria
• Villoen
• Virginie
• Vittorio
• Vodafone
• Vollmer
• Vulvan
• Walken
• Wilco's Detergent
• Wild Motorsport
• Winflex
• WIPO Racing Team
• Wollington Tires
• World Newspaper
• WW Comics
• Xero
• XPS Suspension
• Yamoto
• Yani's
• YiroTires
• YUM
• Z5 Air Cooling
• Zectrol Competizione Motor Oil
• ZENON
• Zero Oils
• Zipanol Racing Motor Oil
• ZUPA

This is hardly appropriate for the wiki page, but it seemed a waste not to put it somewhere. My personal favourite: The 'Joe Snack' fast-food trailer. Runner-ups: Ringley, a company that provides the odd combination of vehicle rental and wristwatch sales (both have the same logo in-game), and the worryingly-named "Unstoppable" brakes.

The vast majority of the real companies are only present on vehicle liveries. Unnamed businesses aren't included (e.g. a stall advertising "newspapers & food", or "hot dogs and burgers"), and several were unique but illegible. Some of the list might technically be products, not businesses. Also, some might be present in the game files (e.g. Temporary Advertisement, Coca Cola) but never actually used. There's also one major case in reverse - although the cigarette company Marlboro has been a major sponsor of F1 racing since 1972 and Ferrari since the mid-80s, it has no presence at all in the game.

Deleted a few from the list that I was never really going to play (mostly in genres I would literally have to be paid to play), so I haven't really finished ten. Also, I've accidentally acquired a bunch more random games and I'm sure plenty of those could do with work here - but I'm not going to make this any harder than it already is.

Went through 'The Wonderful End of the World'. Several times. Thankfully somebody else had already done screenshots, I don't think I could be bothered to play it again. Man, I wish a proper Katamari Damacy game was on the PC. (The only version I can play without hassle is I Love Katamari for Windows Phone 7, but that was just... terrible.) I didn't know about the secret Portal levels last time I played it, so I suppose it had some upsides.

Also, I installed a lot of games! And then had to reinstall Windows, and discovered that the games would have to be reinstalled before I could play them! So that was a waste of time. Though, when the tutorial links you to a folder with an hour of monotone-commentary gameplay videos, I'm not going to be rushing to get through them.

I might have to finally man up and play a game with an actual plot, instead of these random ones that I can just dawdle in for an hour or two and assume I've experienced everything. The main point of the list was to make me play games after all, not the wiki stuff.

I own several hundred games I've never played. A lot of them from bundle offers, cheap additions alongside better games, that kind of thing. Unsurprisingly, a lot of those overlap with games that don't have much information on their wiki pages here. So what better way to kill two birds with one stone? Play the games I've never touched (or at least start them up), learn the basics, write about them. Maybe even review them if I have a strong enough opinion...

It's not a perfect overlap. Games with decent pages already are great, so no complaints there. And I have played a few that are unpopular enough to still be stubs. Those are the minority. Chances are I'll get through half a dozen, realise why nobody has written anything is because the games are painful to play, and drop this whole thing without another word. But with 192 games on the list at the moment, it's not like I'm expecting this to be a short-term project anyway.

First on the list: SuperPower and Detonate. SuperPower is a game I spent hours playing before realising it wasn't all that fun, but it's pleasant enough for a nuclear war or two. Reading through the manual brought back enough memories to not have to start it up, which is great, because I couldn't get it to work anymore at all - at least not without starting a virtual copy of XP. It certainly has its flaws, but sadly the sequel (also on the list) mostly fixed the worst problems by dropping them entirely.

Still, some interesting ideas in there. Not too many games actually bother with proper learning AIs, though I suppose it's easier when time isn't an issue and there's a specific set of possible actions and consequences. And while it doesn't hold a candle to any of the Paradox games, at least it's set in the present day with recognisable countries. Taking over a tiny African republic and just trying to keep it stable can be a nice way to kill an afternoon, but once a country is stable there's not a lot of fun to be had. It's a shame that literally everything has to be done by the player, with so much unavoidable micromanagement; that and the invisible tunnel between "cause" and "effect" ultimately make the game unplayable. But then Master of Orion 3 went too far the other way.

Detonate is a much simpler game, at least, and pretty good stress relief. Build a thing. Smash and burn it. Repeat. Not every game needs a long wiki page, and I'd be hard-pressed to write a guide for it at all.

Both of those have write-ups in the moderation queue. Next: screenshots, and hunting for the release data. Then the hard part, picking which forgotten game to suffer through...