I have gotten to the point that I have an abundance of unplayed games. The games range from smaller indy games to big "must play" types. I am going to do my best to not buy any new games until I clear out my backlog a little.

The goal of this thread is for you guys to give me a little direction in wading through my massive pile of games. I decided to make this into a poll and will use what you guys say to guide my decisions. I am thinking that I will play the most voted first and then the second most voted working my way down the list. As a teacher, my school year ends after next week and therefore I will have some extra time on my hands for this and so I will end the poll middle of next week (10 days from now). I made it so you can pick your top two choices in hopes of seeing a better distribution.

Please post why you chose what you decided on.

I find it depends what sort of mood and want style of game I fell like as to which game I'd enjoy at the time. Some games would be really great, but if I'm not in that sort of mood at the time they'd be wasted on me.

Right now (i.e. today) my picks would be Assassin's Creed II and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
ACII because the exploration, stealth and relatively casual gameplay of Assassin's Creed would suit me right now and I haven't played AC II.
DE:HR because I enjoy a good sci-fi game, haven't played one for a while and the DE games come well recommended.

Any idea what sort of mood or game style you feel like right now?

It depends - if you are playing on a computer then I highly recommend Fallout 3 GOTY.

Then go to and see what they have available.

Suggestions include getting the radio station extenders, Busworld, Mart's Mutant Mod, Enhanced Weather, maybe some of the crafting mods, RR Companion's Vault, the Mini-hideout (because of the Jacuzzi...), 20th Century Weapons, some of the quests....

While never really finished Reykjavik is well worth looking at.

Still playing FO3.

The Auld Grump

These are all PC games. I don't have a PS3 or XBOX 360. I have more than this, but the limit was 20 for the poll, so I already did some pruning.

As for my interests, they all interest me or I would not have purchased them, even at a good deal. I would like to scratch at least a few of these off my list over the summer (while I fight the urge to buy and play Diablo 3). I tried to limit some of the open-ended games from being on the list, but I left a few as they do interest me.

I played about an hour or so of Psychonauts earlier and enjoyed it. I did this because of three out of three different people said that I should play it earlier.

I have been keeping track of other votes than just people registered here. Currently Deus Ex is at 6 votes, Psychonauts is at 5 votes and Arkham Asylum/Borderlands are tied at 3 votes.

Assassin's Creed 1, Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect 2, and The Witcher have no votes yet out of a total of 33 votes (at least one person forgot to vote for top two.

I voted Arkham Asylum and Mass Effect. Both recommendations are based upon the Xbox360 versions, which I own. I don't own the PC versions but expect that the games are similar. Gameplay may differ significantly.

As for why I recommended them:

Arkham Asylum because it is quite possibly the coolest game I have ever played (except for Arkham City, which is possibly even cooler). I say that not in the "I'm 12 and don't know any other superlatives" sense, but in the sense that it drips with atmosphere. The voice acting is amazing, the set pieces are memorable, and the blend of stealth and action propel you through the game much faster than you may desire. I didn't buy AA when it first came out and when I did I regretted the 6 months I had gone without it. It's one of only 4 Xbox360 games that I have gotten 100% completion on. Usually I give up when difficulty trumps gameplay enjoyment; that never happened. If you like Batman at all, you should love this game.

Mass Effect is the opposite sort of game. It doesn't have the 'flash' that AA has, but in my experience it has more substance. It's a combat-heavy RPG where your decisions do matter. It's also the first RPG I've ever encountered which uses FPS mechanics to resolve combat. I am amazed how well the two fit together. Be aware that Mass Effect gameplay changed reasonably significantly between ME1 and ME3 (ME3 has a lot of combat similarities with Gears of War), but at its core the Mass Effect trilogy is a bardic epic set in space. And commander Shepard is - quite simply - a badass.

My $0.02

Edit: I should note that my vote for Mass Effect is really a vote for the trilogy as a whole rather than any particular game. Of the 3, I think #1 has the best standalone story. But if you're going to play Mass Effect at all, I recommend you tackle all 3. The ability to import ME1 > ME2 > ME3 makes all of the decisions more visceral and the experience more satisfying.

You have a bunch of my favorites on this list, and it was hard to limit myself to just two. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are two very entertaining and fun games (100% on Asylum and a couple of starts on a second playthrough, not so much on City), and I would definitely recommend playing them in order. Borderlands is one of the few games that I've hit 100+ hours on. Deus Ex: Human revolution is a truly incredible game that engages you in the world and storyline. Finally, Psychonauts is a fun and unique platformer the likes of which I have not seen elsewhere. Finally, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are a rather unique combination in that the choices you make in the first have an impact in the second, and the choices you make in both can have a major impact in how the events in the third play out.
In the end, I went with Arkham Asylum and Psychonauts, as I feel that they offer the best experiences of their kind, and you definitely should play through AA before starting on AC (some of the storyline makes a tad more sense that way). If you go with AA, I'd definitely follow it up with AC, but I wouldn't jump into AC first.
Magius out.

I've never played it but I've heard nothing but fantastic things about batman arkham city. I'd start with that.

My opinion:
dragon age - I HATE this game. I wouldn't waste my time with it at all.
mass effect - hugely overrated, but not actually bad. I put it on my decent list, but not my great games list. Oddly I don't hate it like I do dragon age, even though its got most all the same flaws.
skyrim is a great game, but a HUGE time sink. I've got like 270-360 hours in it and didn't finish everything. Its why I had over a dozen games from Xmas still in the plastic until March.
Assasins creed , borderlands, and dead island are all pretty good games that you could probably finish in a week.

Thanks for the advice guys. I look forward to seeing what comes of this. So far, there has been some decent discussion and I look forward to more. Keep the votes and dialogue coming.

Its been a long while so I'm not sure exactly anymore. All the dialog, the poor graphics, the constantly recycled play areas, having to keep trying to keep my party happy, the combat, the way everyone kept going on about how good it was, playing it just pissed me off. I really don't know why I hate that one, but think mass effect is decent. They're very much the same game, and I'm a much bigger fan of fantasy than scifi.

Edit: Here a thread about DA from back when I was still playing it:
viewtopic.php?f=73&t=8897&hilit=dragon+age

Repeating dialog might have been what really drove me nuts. I HATE all the dialog, repeating it makes me insane. I also really hate having to control a party. Its one thing to have followers I can just upgrade armor on but having to continually command them annoys me a LOT.

I have played a little of Psychonauts over the past couple of days and have been enjoying it. I took a break to try out Diablo 3, but I am going to do my best to hold off on new game purchases until I clear out more than one of my backlog.

LD2062. Ahh ok I understand.
Most of that stuff I actually enjoy, but I could see how it would bother others if that wasn't your cup of tea.

I'll throw in another vote for Fallout 3 goty. Awesome stuff. And like Grump advised, go to Fallout Nexus for extras and infos.

I enjoyed:
Fallout 3
Fallout Vegas
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2

Those are just ones I've played. Lord of the Rings Online has a nice Free to Play thing going if you are into the whole hack and slash thing.

After adding these results to those of some other people I asked, I went with Psychonauts first. It had 7 votes total with Deus Ex and Batman: AA being second with 6 votes each.

Nineteen hours later, I beat Psychonauts. Not sure what I am going to do next out of the two mentioned above, but I tend to take longer than the average to finish a game (average time for Psychonauts is around 13-14 hours) so am tempted to go with the shorter of the two, which is Batman at 14 hours instead of Deus Ex's 29 hours.

You won't regret it.

Last Beat: Batman Arkham Asylum. I finished the main story at 69% in 11 hours. I spent another two getting all but two of the Riddler's quests. I haven't done any of the challenges and stuff yet and not sure if I will.

Next Up: Either Arkham City or Deus Ex: HR. Batman seems very likely after the first one being so awesome.

I'm thinking about getting batman arkham city. Is there any part of it that you play online?

I want it for the ps3, but its backordered from the store I've got a gift card for. But if theres no online component I can get it on the 360 without needing to buy a gold membership too.

I just finished Arkham City and I'm kinda disappointed. All these people gave it game of the year and 10 out of 10. But aside from the batman theme I find nothing new in it. Its basically the same as assasins creed and saints row 3. A huge open city were you seem to do the same 5 activities on every block.

It great when its the first time you play that kind of thing, but this is like the 6th game I've played like that. Its at least the 3rd of that template I've played since Xmas. So the novelty is definitely waning.

I also beat witcher 2 on the 360. A pretty good game. I found the console controls WAY better the computer controls from the first game. BUT its a very dark grim game. Which just isn't my taste. I won't be playing anymore in that series.

I played some of Arkham City before going on vacation. I will likely pick it back up before moving on to something else.

I'm trying to figure out what to play now as well. I'm trying to use some of the games I've already got sitting here.

Dark souls - This is another game that has odd controls for me. And the game doesn't suck me in so I haven't played much.

Battlefield 3 - I find this very frustrating. I keep running it points were I have no idea were to go and can't explore because I keep getting killed by people I can't find. I sticking with call of duty for any future games.

Too Human - really old I know. But I found it at a garage sale for like $2 and had never played it. I really like the setting and story. But its got the weirdest controls. The right stick swinging a sword rather than being the camera is so odd. Luckily it incredibly easy, dying doesn't seem to effect anything. Except you regen in the beginning of the room. The enemies you killed don't even come back. So I can't see this taking more than a few days to walk though.

I can't help with those as I don't own them (or a PS3).

I will say that BF3 seems to still get played by a decent chunk of my friends.

Yeah thats why I bought it. It seems so similar to CoD and was really well rated. For some reason it just doesn't click with me. Which is odd. I play TONS of shooters.

I don't know if I am doing something wrong, but I am not enjoying Batman AC and much as AA. I can't really pinpoint why.

I am only like 5% into it, and I don't think it is the repetition that you mention. I think it might be the fact that I feel like I am running all over the place and feel like I am not actually getting to do much once I get somewhere. I will keep at it in hopes of that changing.