I don't think I'll do resolutions next year. I mean, there's still plenty of goals I've set myself to accomplish in 2014, I just don't think I need to be as endlessly self-reflective with them as I have been with the ten resolutions I made at the start of this year. I'll keep on with all the blogging and list-making, focusing on the Indie stuff especially since it continues to be more interesting fare than the majority of the AAA stuff. Probably switch that monthly TurboGrafx-16 feature with something a little more palatable (the many fan translated SNES RPGs I'm sitting on, perhaps?) but I'll figure all that out when the time comes.

For now, though, I'm going to look back at what happened in 2013 using these dumb resolutions as a framing device. They were good for something, after all.

(Oh hey, fair warning: this might get a little self-introspective. But if you can't be contemplative on New Year's Eve, then when can you be?)

Beat One TurboGrafx-16 Game a Month

This was technically upheld and technically broken, depending on your perspective. I spent almost all of October looking at a bevvy of TG-16 games I never would've gotten around to with the three months remaining for the feature, just so I felt like I'd given the oft-maligned console a comprehensive once-over. After that I didn't feel like I had anything more to see, at least as far as the basic Hu-Card model goes. Hence the lack of updates past October.

I've always been fascinated by the TurboGrafx-16 as a European with zero access to one - it felt like a missing piece of 16-bit gaming history, which was the period when I really got into video games. My beloved Atari ST, the first game-playing device I ever owned, boasted a similar set-up to NEC's system: 8-bit computing power, but with 16-bit graphics to make NES owners just that little bit more envious. (Well, until you started directly comparing how playable the more action-oriented games in their respective libraries were.) I got heavily into the SNES and Genesis shortly thereafter and the rest is history. With that TG-16 retrospective (and Dr Sparkle's ongoing Chronturbo series), I feel I now have a better handle on that console and the period it hailed from. Even though VGK was usually the only other person to acknowledge those TG-16 screenshot LPs (apologies to others who commented), I'm glad for the impromptu history lesson. I'm definitely growing more fascinated with retro-gaming history in my old age.

Still deliberating on whether or not to cover the TG-CD this October. As one of the earliest CD-based consoles (maybe even the first), it probably has even more significance to gaming history.

Focus More on Downloadable/Indie Games

The distinction between the smaller Indie games and the big studio projects are getting ever more obscured, but I gave myself this challenge knowing it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Smaller games are simply more interesting and varied, and they're also more palatable because I can play through several in a shorter space of time. When it comes right down to it, would I prefer a $60 dollar game that takes 60 hours, or ten $10 games that take ten hours apiece? I can tell you it's almost certainly the latter, my cherished overlong JRPGs aside. While I'll probably still play through Ni no Kuni and Bravely Default sometime in the next year (not to mention games I've had in the backlog for a while, like Tales of the Abyss 3D and Trails in the Sky), my current pile of shame is considerably weighted towards the smaller stuff I've been accruing on Steam and GOG. I won't need to make this resolution again in order to follow it to the letter: it's pretty much a guarantee.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Gunpoint, The Swapper, Driftmoon, Eador: Masters of the Broken World, Toki Tori 2, Zeno Clash 2, Edna and Harvey, Legend of Grimrock, McPixel, Mark of the Ninja, Botanicula, Primordia, Thomas Was Alone, Dear Esther, Risk of Rain, The Stanley Parable, Papers Please, Gnomoria, SteamWorld Dig, Valdis Story, Evoland, Amnesia: a Machine for Pigs and, once it's completed, Starbound - I'm hoping to address as many of these in 2014 as possible, and that's not even including the huge number we can expect to see released (or, as the case may be these days, Early Access games that are actually ready to be sold to people) in 2014 as well, like that copy of Broken Age I feel like I bought eons ago. It's going to be a busy year for all the little guys, and I can't wait.

Review Every Game I Beat

I've been really lax on this one, deciding to really only focus on games that don't have a sufficient amount of coverage already. I'm eager to discuss any game I've played, and you can read my thoughts on my year's games in the regularly updated annual "Beaten in [Year]" lists, but once you take the time to properly address your thoughts on a game and put it out there, it can be a little dispiriting to watch it sink beneath a pile of user reviews with as much legitimacy and writing skill as your own. I'll admit to a certain degree of "Attention-Seeker Syndrome" (which is why a lot of my written material gives the impression that it came from my A.S.S.), but I'd also like my review to be helpful to someone attempting to make a purchasing decision, and that means focusing on the games that currently have nothing on-site - often, not even a Quick Look.

It's probably why most of my reviews in 2014 will continue to pertain to JRPGs (which the site roundly ignores, but I can't really fault a four-man editorial team for a few exclusions) and Indies I felt were significant, even if no-one else did. If you're eager for some opinions on Titanfall, say, I'm sure the site will oblige you with more than one viewpoint on the subject. Meanwhile, I'm going see if I can ensure that our site has at least one critical perspective on games like Bravely Default.

Wiki Completion Project: Famicom Disk System

All right, this is when I'm going to be at my most self-congratulatory, so you might just want to skip over this one and hope my fat head's had some time to drain off. Likewise, if you aren't particularly interested in Giant Bomb's wiki, then I can't imagine this'll be too interesting for you either.

I've mentioned it a few times, and will continue to mention it until I've gotten you all watching it, but Chrontendo is one of the most informative sources of old video game ephemera on the internet. Well, it and Hardcore Gaming 101, but that requires a lot of reading and why do that when you can have the information read out to you? With video footage of old Famicom games? Right, exactly. While catching up with the substantial number of videos, I decided to put that information to good use and update our wiki with the same info independently verified. I'm still in the dark as to all of Doc Sparkle's sources (I've no doubt they're factually accurate, though) and have a considerably weaker grasp on Japanese than he does, but I've been going around checking a lot of pages have the right information, if not necessarily a fully in-depth text description of what these games are and where they came from.

The one thing I did notice was that I'd managed to complete something like 90% of the Famicom Disk System's library - the short-lived Japan-only NES accessory that allowed games to be run from bright yellow diskettes, which before the advancement of NES cart technology was the only way you could play a game and save your progress - from my Chrontendo-inspired wiki blitzes. Obviously, most of these pages were already quite complete absent any contributions of my own, with many games like the original Metroid and The Legend of Zelda having been FDS games originally and - as you might expect - already have wonderfully detailed wiki pages. There were still a few dozen with empty pages, or with no page whatsoever, so I figured I'd might as well complete the set. Giant Bomb can now boast to being the most comprehensive source on Famicom Disk System games on the (English-speaking) internet, for whatever that's worth.

Since finishing off the FDS library around the halfway point in the year, I've now been ensuring a similar degree of completion for the Super Nintendo - which continues to be my favorite console despite heavy competition from the PS1, PS2 and DS over the years. We're now fully up to date on every SNES game released between 1990 - its Japan launch as the Super Famicom - to 1992, which is around a third of its total effective lifespan. There's a hell of a lot of SNES and Super Famicom games out there, as I'm sure you're aware. Still though, it's a good way to keep myself busy while listening to podcasts. I mean, so would exercising, but then that would require getting up out of this chair.

Continue Blog Features

While I did manage this, I don't feel like I need so many recurring blogs. I should probably go back to more free-form stuff, rather than keeping to a weekly schedule packed with "ongoing features" that I don't have to spend a lot of time thinking up. Dedicating one of four or five blogs every month to a screenshot LP of a TG-16 game really made things easier for me, if slightly less interesting for everyone else to read.

There's also the matter that these feature blogs tend to get the fewest comments. Again, my A.S.S. makes another perturbing appearance, but at the same time I want these little blogs of mine to entertain/inform people as well. If they're not interested, I'm getting less feedback and having less fun writing them, and so I might as well try something else. I'll probably be scrapping the Steam May Madness and Desura Dementia in 2014, and taking a more off-the-wall route. More videos is probably a good idea too.

Beat At Least Three PS2 Games, Including Yakuza 2

Beat At Least Three Wii Games, Including Fragile Dreams

Beat At Least Three Adventure Games, Including Gemini Rue

Beat At Least Three Other Games In My Pile of Shame

A lot of hits and misses here:

• While I did finish Yakuza 2, the only other PS2 game I beat this year was the risible A Dog's Life, after becoming inspired by a rather poopsome Unprofessional Fridays back when they still played wonderful weird old stuff instead of the games they forgot to Quick Look that week (or games that apparently needed Quick Look-ing again).
• I got through a total of four Wii games, including Fragile Dreams. I still have a few to go: a Kirby's Epic Yarn playthrough has been a long time coming, and I'd like to finally experience Suda51's No More Heroes 2 before he completely eliminates the remaining vestiges of any motivation to play his output. I might just amend this one to "play three Wii U games in 2014", if only to justify my late-year purchase of the console. I'm pretty sure Super Mario 3D World and Pikmin 3 (and Xenoblade 2 later in the year, if we're fortunate) will accomplish that.
• Really been lax on the adventure games too. That is, depending on your definition of an adventure game - I was specifically going for the "point and click" old-school variety which have had something of a resurgence as of late, but there's a lot of technical qualifiers like 999, Gone Home, To the Moon, The Longest Journey, Analogue: A Hate Story and Hotel Dusk: Room 215. I either beat three or I didn't, but no matter how you slice it Gemini Rue was definitely not one of them. I'll hopefully make it up to Wadjet Eye (who, just so you don't think I'm crazy, certainly don't give a shit) with a Gemini Rue and a Primordia playthrough in 2014. As for other adventure games, it's very possible I downloaded an immense 108GB repository of old, abandonware DOS adventure games that I might just do something with. Time to grab a shovel and start digging.
• As for the Pile of Shame in general, I very much hit "at least three". I've not had the chance to play a lot of new games this year for one financial reason or another, so it's been a year of wiping off the (figurative, with regards to digital products) dust from backlog games and finally addressing them. My 2013 List of Shame claims I knocked out fifteen backlog targets this year. Only twice as many to go for next year, then.

Playing Games That Don't Involve Shooting People

Yeah, that one was a mistake. I had it in my head that I'd make games that do, in fact, involve shooting people a little more interesting by finding a pacifistic route (or a route that involved me killing them with something else, which kind of felt like I was missing the point somewhat) to their conclusions. There's no way a proclamation like that doesn't come off as political though, and a tad hypocritical to boot given how I've not exactly shied away from the more violent games before now.

I'd love to see someone with a bit more attentiveness and tact try it, but I suspect that there's a large number of video game players out there that already follow this rule to the letter without making a conscious effort to do so. The benefit of the huge range of modern video games means that while the COD/Battlefield Pubescent Patrol will still rule the school as far as demographics go, there'll still be even more people from all walks of life that avoid games with explosions and foreign voices plaintively asking the player why the US military decided that their limbs had to be shot off.

But yeah, "being the change you want to see in the world" doesn't really work if you're an inattentive, insensitive buffoon like myself who willfully demonizes games that plenty of rational people enjoy without screaming obscenities down the microphone to one another. It just rings as absurdly vacuous, like a thousand rounds of hollow-point ammunition.

That Should Be Enough, Right? Probably

Next year's sole resolution: less narcissistic blogs like this one. To that effect, I want to thank the many bloggers and content creators that aren't me who have made Giant Bomb even more vital reading in 2013: dankempster, Video_Game_King, ArbitraryWater, Hailinel, Dalai, MooseyMcMan, Sparky_Buzzsaw, Gamer_152, Marino, EpicSteve, LackingSaint, TurboMan, Fobwashed, aurahack, SupernormalStep, buzz_clik, Hamst3r and, of course, Jeff, Vinny, Brad, Drew, Patrick, Alex, Dave, Matt, Ian, Alexis and all the engineers that keep this jalopy running.

I'll end this, the last blog of 2013, with a final farewell to that magnanimous mound of mirth Ryan Davis. I definitely won't ever forget you, but I'll also be trying to look forward in 2014. I feel like I'll go crazy if I don't.